Hello Comodo,
First off, thank you very much for this cool tool.
I like to find out if this is possible or could the following be a future feature.
I have a computer with three separate Operating Systems, partitioned on a single hard drive. (Windows XP, Windows 7-32bit and Windows 7-64bit.
Currently if I am in one of the Operating System and take a snapshot, all three separate Operating Systems will be saved in the mentioned snapshot.
Is it possible to take a snapshot and only the Operating System I’m currently in will have the changes saved? I’m not sure how many people out there have this need. But it is a feature that would be very benefitual for my situation. Thank you for your time. ;D
If you protect all the partitions, all the OS, it won’t be possible to take a snapshot of “only a particular OS”, all the partitions (with all files, etc.) will be in that snapshot.
The snapshot is always a “picture” of the whole system (all protected partitions).
Hi Tech,
Thank you for your response. Yes, that is the current behavior I observed. Basically that is my point, and wanted to see if it is possible to have separate protection for each Operating System.
My guess is that the limitation is with the single hard drive / multiple paritions.
No, the limitation is the multiply OS. CTM must be installed in all of them as all of them will have access to the files. Only with CTM driver loaded the snapshots (files on the free space of the disk) will be correctly managed.
That’s the problem with a Linux partition for instance: there is no CTM driver for Linux and so both are incompatible (the presence of a Linux partition and CTM).
How is it beneficial? If you’re not in one of the other two OS’s then no change has been made to them. Granted, if your last snap was taken over a week old in an OS that you haven’t been back into since the snap was taken, then I could see maybe a need but not really. If this was the case, make it a habit to take a snap after booting into another OS for an extended time.
Well, you’re completely wrong. If you’re not in that other two OSs, the one you’re in (the third one) could make a lot of changes on that other two… Files can be accessed, partitions mounted, etc.
I don’t think so. Under normal circumstances you shouldn’t be accessing files in the other OS’s. But lets’s assume you did. If a snapshot is taken before you do access files in one of the other two OS’s, then you are covered. There’s no benefit at all to having seperate snaps for the other OS’s.
What happen if you’re not under normal circumstances?
What happen if something change a file of other OS?
Or you have your partitions protected or you’re not protected at all.
On contrary, not including other OS into the snapshots is what does not make sense…
Lol, you are contradicting yourself. You say “or you’re not protected at all” and then go on to say “not including other OS into the snapshots is what does not make sense”. Maybe it’s a language barrier and I’m mis-understanding what you are really trying to say. Here on Comodo forums it’s easy to mis-understand. 98 percent of the posts are incoherent and remind me of an episode of SpongeBob when he says “Do you do how do Mr. Krabbs”. Anywho, the bottom line is, one drive with multiple partitions. Protect them all, take manual snapshots especially if you want to go about monkeying with files in the OS you are not booted into and you will be covered.
I think Greg S is correctly, I’m not explaining my requirements correctly, and its frustrating people. For that, my sincere apologizes. Please allow me to try again…
I am part of a group, developing software that must work on Windows XP, 7-32bit and 7-64bit.
The software versions are sometimes developed in parallel, meaning that I may have to validate software version 1.10.xx and version 1.20.xx at the same time, on all OS platforms mentioned above.
I don’t have enough resources for additional hardware, so I’m stuck with only have one test laptop. The constant installing / uninstalling of the test software on multiple OS platforms kills time, and leave the laptop in a state that is not as clean as it should be.
Comodo Time Machine appears to be just the right solution for machines with a single Operating System.
For example, I can begin with a clean baseline in XP. Install test software version 1.10.xx, and take a snapshot of it. I then install test software version 1.20.xx, and take another snapshot. I now can validate both test software by toggling between the snapshots.
However, the current CTM behavior on a machine with multiple OS platforms (Single hard drive with multiple partitions), snapshots are synchronized (protects) all of the partitions at the same time. This means that I cannot manage each snapshot independently between the different OS platforms. Every individual snapshot affects all of each Operating System.
Basically, I am investigating if Comodo may have a feature in the future that may address these needs. Otherwise, maybe I just need to get a few more laptops.
warhoggie, I have understood what you’ve need since from the beginning.
I was just posting the technical difficulty (impossibility) to do so.
Although, if you didn’t change the files of a particular OS, the snapshot will be “blank” for that particular OS and you can restore it.