filePro and Vista

[Brian K. White]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Schwartz (PC Support)" <mschw at athenet.net>
To: <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 26, 2006 1:41 PM
Subject: RE: filePro and Vista


>> Quoting Mike Schwartz (PC Support) (Sat, 18 Nov 2006 18:08:38 -0600):
>> [...]
>> >     Have you tried switching users, then updating a file, then 
>> > switching
>> > back to the first user to see if the files remain changed?  I just want
>> > to know if the "virtual files update for each user" security feature
>> > kicks in on filePro data files.  I know that it will trash Quicken and
>> > most other "legacy apps", which is defined as pretty much any pre-Vista
>> > data application.
>>
>> filePro works just fine in this situation.  User 2 is properly locked
>> out of updating a record being updated by user 1, and when user 1 saves
>> the record, user 2 sees the changes as soon as the record is re-read by
>> entering update mode.
>>
>> Where did you see that this might be a problem?
>>
>> --
>> KenBrody at BestWeb dot net        spamtrap: <g8ymh8uf001 at sneakemail.com>
>
>    I don't mean the record locking for network users.  Actually, I wasn't
> referring to record locking at all.  All this happened in single user mode
> on the same laptop that Intel provided for us to work on.  The laptops 
> were
> not networked.
>
>    This particular bug hits a single computer where more than one 
> different
> user updates a file.  For example, this would hit a filePro checkbook
> program on a home computer where a husband and wife each log into the
> computer with their own login, or where a boss and a secretary log in as
> different users on the bosses desktop computer to update personnel files
> that are not on the network.
>
>    In the hands-on training portion of the Microsoft "Vista - Ready to 
> Rock
> Roadshow", one of the exercises we had to go through was to update a 
> record
> in a Quicken-like application as user "Lisa".  It appeared to us that 
> Vista
> was allowing this "legacy" database to be updated just like normal.  The
> files looked like they had been updated and the totals on the screen
> correctly displayed that we had added a new record to the database.
>
>   However, when we went in through Windows Explorer and looked at the
> original database file, it had not been modified (same byte length and
> date).  The instructor pointed out that Vista had created a "virtual 
> update"
> to the file, which resided inside Lisa's "Application Data" subdir.  This
> file logged the changes that we made to the master file.
>
>   The bad news came when we logged off as user "Lisa", and logged in on
> this same laptop as user "Ralph".  Ralph saw the original, unmodified file
> without Lisa's changes.  We were told that if Ralph had modified the file
> and then Lisa logged back in, Lisa would have seen only her changes 
> applied
> to the original file and NOT seen any of Ralph's changes.  In a husband 
> and
> wife checkbook scenario, this would have been a perfect way for both of 
> them
> to spend the same money that was in the checkbook!
>
>   The strong message presented was to make sure if you install 
> applications
> like pre-Vista versions of Quicken or Quickbooks that you have to make 
> sure
> all the data files get stored in the special "shared data" folders, or 
> else
> Vista will go into this "virtual file creation" mode.
>
> Mike Schwartz

Wow. What a perfectly bonehead move to make a feature like that the 
systemwide default behaviour. Perfect MS.
I don't say the feature is stupid itself, merely that it's plain insane to 
make it the default way file access is treated instead of a special case 
used just in in certain places where needed.

In the linux/unix world there is something similar where a file gets virtual 
updates buy having changes written somewhere else, but it's only used for 
very special cases.
It's called unionfs and knoppix live boot cd's use it to overlay a small 
writeable ram filesystem over the large non-writeable filesystem image on 
the cd. But no one runs a real system like that! The livecd case is very 
special. You lose everything every time you shut down, you start from 
scratch every time you power up, and you never expect to update any of the 
files permanently. And even then, it's at the filesystem level not the user 
level. those virtual updates are seen by all users the same.

Brian K. White  --  brian at aljex.com  --  http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
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