Disc Useage - NOT 50 MBytes as claimed, but 63 MBytes + up to another 847 MBytes

Bug Reports
#1

On http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/overview.html you say it needs 50 Mb free disk space.

It actually takes 48.8 MBytes in “Program Files”, of which 24.5 MBytes is in the “Repair” sub-folder and appears to be redundant duplication. Can this “Repair” folder be removed, or would everything un-ravel ?

It also NEEDS 14.7 MBytes in 3.56 MB * 3 User profiles, i.e. my own profile, my daughter’s profile, and the “Guest” profile, plus 4 MByte in
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\comodo.
It would save 7.1 MBytes if all 3 profiles were purged, and a single instance placed in
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Comodo\Firewall Pro\Data\ResFiles
instead of 3 instances of %USERNAME% in individual profiles as per
C:\Documents and Settings%USERNAME%\Application Data\Comodo\Firewall Pro\Data\ResFiles
If there is a way for me to re-install 3.0.22 so that it makes use of only the “All Users” profile, please let me know.

n.b. my view on the benefit of using one “All Uers” profile instead of many individual user profiles is supported by an expert opinion “Since a firewall is a system resource and not a user one, any data files should have been written to ALLUSERS or a SYSTEM data store, rather than an individual profile”, which was stated in a forum thread at http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=33071 . I am prepared to accept that two off *.ini files might be needed in each user profile if each user is to have an independant configuration, but I cannot see any justification for multiple duplication of over 300 *.png and *.bmp and *.ico files that merely show things like the Comodo shield with Red and/or Green flames running up and down the side!!!

It also WASTES another 847 MBytes.
For my system, an individual Restore Point now occupies about 58 MByte, apart from Patch Tuesdays when “everything is up for grabs”. Before I fixed the Firewall every day used to be like Patch Tuesday, because the Firewall increased each Restore Point to typically 88 MByte. i.e. out of 88 MBytes only 58 MBytes had any use, and 30 Mbytes = 35% was wasted by the Firewall. My 20 GByte partition has a default allowance of 12% = 2400 MByte for Restore Points, of which 35% = 847 MBytes wastage. A 100 GByte partition could have over 4 GByte wasted.

The Firewall wastes space due to a nervous twitch, when it does something to its files within the User Profile, i.e.
%APPDATA%\Comodo\Firewall Pro\Data\ResFiles*.*, and the date/Time stamp of 335 files are updated.
Over a 4 hour period yesterday, and a 3 hour period today, I observed this twitch at precisely 1801 +/- 1 Second intervals, and this never fails - it always does it twice an hour. I do not know what triggers this, and nothing appears in the Firewall or Defence logs at the relevant times.
One consequence of a twitch is that System Restore has a chance that at any given twitch it will capture the entire sets of 141 off *.ico and 2 off *.ini files, but even if Sytem Restore happens to be asleep for a twitch, the next twitch will be captured at exactly 3602 +/- 2 Seconds after the previous capture.

When System Restore captures a twitch, it captures 1.35 MBytes in 143 Files, so 22 twitches adds 30 MBytes per day.

I have carefully compared the entire contents of all 335 files in my profile with those in the Guest profile, and found absolutely no difference between either set, so why did Comodo do something to them.

Not only does the twitch waste up to 847 MBytes, this is 847 / 1.35 = 627 sets of 143 files, a total of the 89719 files. Now that I have “fixed” Comodo the entire system is down to 42,848 Files.
When I had Comodo 2.4 I had about 42000 files, and an MFT that was NOT fragmented.
More recently I have noticed that the MFT has become fragmented, and I now realise that twitching by 3.0.xxx was increasing the total by 200% towards 130,000 files, which I believe caused automatic expansion of the MFT to hold the extra information, and this caused the fragmentation I now see.

Proposal for proper solution :-

  1. Stop twitching, and if you must twitch, please don’t do what you have been doing to these files.
  2. If you really have to twitch, and nurdle these files, please
    2a Change their extensions so the Restore Point system will ignore them, or
    2b Put them in a Folder such as %TEMP% which Restore Point ignores, e.g. use
    %TEMP%\Comodo\Firewall Pro\Data\ResFiles
    n.b. %TEMP% is actually within %USERPROFILE%, so it is NOT a single instance, and we are back to the extra 14.7 MBytes I first referred to.

I have “fixed Comodo” by adding to the registry key

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\BackupRestore\FilesNotToBackup]

values that provide as data the path to each …\ResFiles in each Profile, such as

C:\Documents and Settings\Guest\Application Data\Comodo\Firewall Pro\Data\ResFiles* /s

If anyone wants to try this registry adjustment, I obtained the neccessary information from Aumha whilst using Firewall 3.0.14, and it is still relevant to 3.0.22. I started a thread on this subject at http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=33071

If anyone wants advice upon this registry fix :-
the best I can do is to refer you to the experts at above forum;
the worst I can do is to give it a shot myself and possibly overlook a warning that should be given before you self-destruct Windows !!!

Alan

#2

Unless you have a 10 gig hard drive I dont see your point. 90% of pc’s out there have 200 gig hard drives or bigger.

#3

And unfortunately he’s in the 10% that don’t.

Regardless of the size of his drive, he’s got a point, particularly about the time/date stamps being updated.

Ewen :slight_smile:

P.S. 10% of the PCs “out there” is still a hell of a number.

#4

Comodo for me takes up about 80MB. My WOW folder is 15 GIG’s. Hows that for a folder. You can make a current restore point then run windows disk clean up and delete old restore point and other files. You will gain alot of space that way. I have 2 160 GIG drives. 360 GIGS all together. One has 50 gig left of free space and the other 40 gigs.

#5

Yes, but the OP doesn’t. If you were operating on a smaller drive, the impact can be significant.

Ewen :slight_smile:

#6

Sorry panic not arguing but no where do I see what size drive he has.

#7

Sorry Dave. My eyes read “My 20 GByte partition …” but my brain registered “My 20 GByte drive…”.

Egg and my face are in alignment. :wink:

He does have a point that it is odd that the 330 odd CFP related files in the currently active profile are updated at regular intervals.

Wonder why?

I’ll PM Egemen and see if we can’t gert some definitive info on this and on why it cant all be stored in ALL USERS, with possibly the configs stored in the user specific folder.

I’ll post back any info I receive.

Cheers,
Ewen :slight_smile:

#8

System restore should not save pics so I guess this it is more like a MS bug. A simple solution to this would be to set the timestamp of resfiles to a fixed value everytime.
This should prevent MS system restore faulty behaviour and cut down that 847 MB you mentioned.

[b]What is or is not restored on my computer when I use System Restore?[/b]

Restored:
• Registry
• Profiles (local only; roaming user profiles are not affected by restore)
• COM+ DB
• WFP.dll cache
• WMI DB
• IIS Metabase
• File types monitored by System Restore as specified in the SDK document Monitored File Extensions

Not restored:
• DRM settings
• Passwords in the SAM hive
• WPA settings (Windows authentication information is not restored)
• Specific directories/files listed in the Monitored File Extensions list in the System Restore section of the Platform SDK e.g. ‘My Documents’ folder
• Any file types not monitored by System Restore (.doc, .jpg, etc.)
• Items listed in both Filesnottobackup and KeysnottoRestore (hklm->system->controlset001->control->backuprestore->filesnottobackup and keysnottorestore) in the registry
• User-created data stored in the user profile
• Contents of redirected folders

I guess that the duplication of ResFiles in user profiles could be avoided placing those files in all user profile since it looks there is no way to assign different skins to different users.

#9

Hi

The first shall be last, so with reference to Gibran :-
Where-ever possible I wish to blame MS, so I like the idea of saying it is their bug to include *.ico in System Restore.
Unfortunately I find “ICO” is one of the file types to be restored, as listed in :-
C:\WINDOWS\system32\Restore\filelist.xml dated 17/04/2004, and its predecessor
C:\WINDOWS$NtServicePackUninstall$\filelist.xml dated 14/06/2002
so it looks as if it is deliberate, even if it is a violation of an intention that pictures etc should not be restored.

I guess I could remove this “ICO” from filelist.xml
but I could also take a shot at removing some-one’s appendix
and I don’t think either the computer or the patient would necessarily survive !!!

Incidentally, Windows Explorer shows a pretty shield with red and green arrows on the sides of dn3_up3.ico,
and when I hover over it a balloon showing “Type: Icon Size: 3.35K”, but when I double click on it Windows tells me “Paint cannot read this file, this is not a valid bitmap file”. If Windows cannot display it, how does Windows Explorer give me a pretty picture ?
Is this an invalid file because it is corrupt ? Or is something wrong with my file associations - should they use something other than paint ?
n.b. I quote dn3_up3.ico as one specific example, I find exactly the same ability to show a pretty icon, and the same inability of Paint, for each and every *.ico which I have actually tried.

With reference to comments on my Drive size :-

I have a 30 GByte hard drive which is partitioned, and System Drive C:\ is 20 GByte

Whatever the size of the system drive, whether it is you lucky so-and-so’s with 200 GB or more, or us mere mortals with 20 GB, System Restore by default takes 12% of the entire partition, and if the Firewall has needlessly increased the size of a restore point by 50%, then only 8% of the entire partition is of use to System Restore, and the other 4% has been wasted, and the number of available restore points greatly reduced.

Forgive me whilst I get emotional, but :-

My first PC had DOS and a 5.25 inch floppy disc, plus a 20 MegaByte hard Drive with a horrendous format of 16 KByte clusters - one thousand files top whack. There were many different things I wanted to do wth batch files - instead with much pain I created a single batch file that accepted about 6 different arguments which controlled an awful lot of conditionals and goto’s, so I was able to do 100 totally different tricks with just one file in one cluster.

When my son decided I should no longer use WordPad, and wanted to install OpenOffice, I looked at 200 Megabytes and all I could see was ten hard drives. I could not watch him install it, I had to go in another room !!!

Regards
Alan

#10

I deleted all files in the “Repair” folder (I’m known as the clean freak at this forum ;)), without any consequences. Oh wait, after a reboot CFP checked for updates and downloaded one small file to that folder. Else, no problems. But of course, you won’t be able to repair your installation in case anything happens.

LA

#11

Alan Borer thanks for pointing that ico are saved by System restore.
I guess MS did that to be on the safe side as it is possible to assign .ico files to explorer shortcuts.

ResFiles contains 1.2 MB of .ico files so every system restore point is increased of 1.12 MB because timestamps of all ResFiles usually change everytime cfp is started.

Anyway developer are able to set those timestamps to a fixed value so future version of CFP can remove this issue.
I guess the same goes for those ResFiles clones in each user profile.

#12

If you only have 30 GIG hard drive and are hurting for space you can get a 160 GIG drive for $100 or less.

#13

Thank you Leoni. You are a man after my own heart !

Supplementary comment and question :-
I have been using 3.0.14.xxx until a couple of weeks ago. I observed that I could download a full installation of 3.0.22, and that a Patch file could simply upgrade me. I downloaded both, disconnected from the Internet, and

  1. The Patch file did not work - although it was intended for 3.0.14.xxx it declared it was not compatible.
  2. The full installation objected to the presence of 3.0.14, and would not install itself, but it did offer to un-install the offending 3.0.14.xxx. I accepted its offer and hoped it would then install itself. It removed 3.0.14.xxx, but I was disappointed that I left me with no firewall at all. Fortunately I just had to run the installation file again and it then installed with no problems.

I took the above problems in my stride, and will not be concerned by similar problems whenever I update to a later version.

If however I have removed the contents of the Repair folder, is there any danger that the upgrade will depend upon firstly un-installing, and that this may possibly depend upon firstly repairing what I have, or even just checking the presence of all the correct “Repair” files as part of the validation tests before removal can be performed ?

Last year I had major problems, resulting in many posts to this forum, before I could eliminate 2.4.xxx and proceed to install the latest 3.xxx at that time. I would not like a repeat of that experience !!!

Alan

#14

Hey Alan,

The files don’t need to be in the REPAIR folder, but the REPAIR folder itself needs to exist.

Despite the fact that they consume up to (approx.) 26MB, I would recommend that the files be left there, as they are used during any diagnostic rebuild.

Cheers,
Ewen :slight_smile:

#15

Hi

Gibran, thank you for your input. This is the outcome I was hoping for, and I look forward to this issue being fixed.

Vettech. My 20 GB Partition has 57% free space, and 43% in use, so I am not yet “hurting for space”.

The reasons for so much free space are :-

Emotional. Attitudes formed in the past, when 4 kilobytes of RAM meant a whole evening fitting and soldering to a plug-in card 32 off 1024 bit (not byte) memory chips + support chips within dual in line integrated circuits, and later when I had a 20 MByte Hard Disc I considered that to be precious. So I had to be frugal in my use of resources, and part of me would die if I became otherwise !!!

Practical. Every week or so I try to make a partition image backup which includes all the Restore Points to an external USB connected 300 GByte Hard Drive (I whimpered when I had to buy that). I then validate the image, after which I create a new Restore Point and then run Disc cleanup to purge every “Old” Restore Point, after which I resume normal usage of the P.C. If I ever find the computer is doing something “wrong” I can restore an earlier image (using a quick simple “binary chop” selection process) to determine exactly which week (month) the problem occurred - then from the earliest image with the problem I can work back through the restore points to possibly determine exactly which day the problem happened.
It typically takes 6 minutes for the creation of this image, and similar periods of time to validate the image or to restore the image back to the hard drive. 6 minutes is too long for me - I can go to the kitchen, boil a kettle, make a cup of coffee, drink the coffee, go to the toilet to dispose of the previous coffee, and I still have time to kill !!!

The 43% in use may increase to 47% due to variations in Restore Points, and some Windows Updates also retain many megabytes of stuff which Windows automatically removes a few weeks later. I have not measured this with any precision, but I have formed the impression that a 10% increase in the amount of data does not increase the 6 minutes to 6 and a half, but to 7 minutes. Before I formed this impression I thought a 100% increase (i.e. 86% disc in use) would increase image creation etc up to 12 minutes, but I now fear an “n squared law” might result in 24 minutes.

I have now installed on the External hard drive a “PortableApps” variant of OpenOffice. This is working well and because I know where to download it from it does not need backing up. I am now looking forward to removing the original version that is taking over 200 MBytes on C:\

My son thinks nothing of downloading and installing a 2 GByte game on his P.C.
I have learnt to live with him advising me to “get a life” !!!

Sorry, but I think I am too old to change

Regards
Alan

#16

Ewen

Thank you. I accept the advice and will retain the Repair folder.

I remain tempted to remove the files, and possible to copy them to my external hard-drive, which I can copy back should I need a diagnostic rebuild. They will not be subject to my usual weekly/monthly back-up, but I will be un-luky if I actually need to do a diagnostic rebuild, and if at that time my external drive copy is lost I am unlucky squared - not very likely - and where is the loss if can can once more download from Comodo free of charge !!!

Just one question - I find under Miscellaneous the option Diagnostics. And I assume that this gives me manual control of when I start a diagnostic rebuild, so I can copy the repair files into the repair folder before I start the rebuild. Is this safe, or is it possible that for any reason the Firewall might decide to automatically start a diagnostic rebuild without me having chance to copy these files ?

Regards
Alan

#17

Alan,

Good idea to store the repair files offline.

The diagnostics option is automatic. you click it and it runs. I’d ensure the repair files are there before clicking.

If a file needed to be rebuilt during a diagnostics check and the file wasn’t there, the diagnostics would halt (I’m almost 100% certain a check is done for the repair file BEFORE anything destructive like attempting to replace a file is done, but don’t hold me to this until I can test it over the weekend). At this point you should be able to manually restore the repair files to the REPAIR folder and rerun the diagnostics.

As I said, I’ll try and get this tested over the weekend and post back here.

Cheers,
Ewen :slight_smile:

#18

Thanks Ewen

Alan

#19

I have already done this before: deleted all files in the Repair directory and ran the diagnostics still ran without any problems reported or quirks encountered. Related topic:
https://forums.comodo.com/bug_reports/diagnostics_tool_incorrectly_doesnt_find_any_problems_3022349_xp_sp3_x86-t22664.0.html

#20

I’m pretty sure the reopair files only come into play IF diagnostics finds a problem.

Ewen :slight_smile: