NTFS security settings

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hfoner
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Apr 12, 2008 4:04 pm
Location: Jerusalem, Israel

NTFS security settings

Post by hfoner »

I have been using AIS Backup for years with backups going onto CD or DVD. Because we have so many photos, I recently bought USB external hard-disks for both of our computers. So now I have plenty of room for all the files I want to backup and suddenly I realise how many possibilities there are in the program and how much I don't understand. I have version 2.6.0 under Win XP (Home) with SP2. There are 2 immediate questions:

1. When setting up the backup there is a box to tick which says: "Backup NTFS security settings and ADS" and then warns about non-standard ZIP files. I AM using the NTFS system, but have no idea of the importance or implications of ticking this box. If remember correctly the default is ON. I'd be grateful for an explanation.

2. Can I carry on working whilst AIS is doing a backup? It notifies me about "registry hives" which seems alarming - stinging bees?!

Henry
Barry
Site Admin
Posts: 1529
Joined: Tue Aug 20, 2002 3:16 pm

NTFS Security

Post by Barry »

NTFS Security

NTFS format disk's contain security information about each file on the disk, for example the name of the accounts that have permission to read and write to the file. If this information is not backed up and restored then default settings are applied and this could mean that everybody can read and write to 'private' files and folders. AISBackup does not in fact create non-standard zip files but if you were to restore the data directly from the zip files (rather than using the AISBackup restore option) then the first few dozen byte of data would be the said security information rather than the data you would expect. Having said that I would recommend that you do backup the security information.

On restore you have the option not to restore the security information, this is useful if you wish to restore protected files to another computer. If you restore the security information then you would not have access to the files, if you do not restore the security information then you will have access to the files. Normally you would restore the security information when restoring to the same computer that the backup was made.

Carry on working during backup?

You may carry on working during a backup, and indeed you may pause the backup if it is slowing the computer down too much. From the pause option you may select the ‘Show AISBackup CPU Priority Adjustment Bar’, if you select this then the priority that the backup runs at may be reduced to allow other processes (e.g. what you are working on) to take priority.

The reason why the registry backup phase is shown is because the process of backing up the registry often temporarily freezes other processes running on the computer. The registry is made up of different logical groups of keys and values in files which are called ‘hives’, see here:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/librar ... S.85).aspx

Barry
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