Sandbox advice

Auraomega

Auraomega

Auraomega

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22 Sep 2009
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Leicester
I've reinstalled Windows 7 again today and this time I want to keep my computer a little cleaner as before I had so much crap left over from programs I'd tested over time. Will a sandbox help me to achieve this? My vague understanding is that using a sandbox will stop programs writing to the registry, adding processes and the like which is ultimately what I want to avoid this time around, I didn't have a major problem before but up until lately I've been a very 'clean' user and it bugs me having all those remnants on my system.
 
Leave UAC on and ensure that you want anything you install, if it's going to be a "trial" install it on a virtual host (VMWARE/Virtual PC) first.
 
If you're just testing programs that aren't taxing on the hardware (but even this is becoming less of an exception these days) I'd definitely look into running them inside a virtual machine. You could do the computer equivalent of throwing a grenade into the registry and then undo it all by rolling back to a saved snapshot.
 
In install most of my stuff on virtual box VM's, especially Adobe stuff as it puts loads of crap onto your computer... I'm looking at you Acrobat reader.

Also, truly portable apps are also a nice way to do things...
 
@tntcoder: thanks, I thought they might well do what I wanted but rather than installing yet another program I thought I'd check first. Sandboxie seems to be the standard these days, I heard there used to be a free version but I can't seem to find it on the site, am I just being blind?

@Halfmad & theheyes: I had thought about a VM but I'll be using some graphically intensive programs as well and a VM doesn't really cut it for those in my experience.

@MikeHunt79: Adobe software is so full of crap these days (it might always have been, but I wasn't so aware X years ago), Photoshop and Lightroom are about the only Adobe product I have on my system... oh and flash as well.

True portable apps still leave remnants in the registry although this is more an issue with Windows and the programs, I've switched most of my apps to portable where possible (portable torrents, media players, etc), it also makes reinstalling Windows slightly less time consuming :D
 
I suffer from real ocd when it comes to what is on to my pc and the way I work around this is I use norton ghost.

Complete fresh install of windows and drivers have the system setup with things I cannot live without. e.g office,ccleaner, security,wallpapers ect. Create an image of my hard drive with norton ghost.

When trying or testing software I don't even uninstall. Run norton and completely restore my Hard Drive to its earlier state. Once a week I update the system and create a new image. The restore on my pc takes 14 mins. But tbh when you have ocd like me its worth it.
 
Auraomega said:
@MikeHunt79: Adobe software is so full of crap these days (it might always have been, but I wasn't so aware X years ago), Photoshop and Lightroom are about the only Adobe product I have on my system... oh and flash as well.
Click to expand...

I'm running Photoshop CS5 within a VM, it's hard to tell the difference once you make it fullscreen.

I also don't have Flash installed per se... I only need 1 DLL file in the right folder of Iron or Firefox and flash videos work perfectly... ;)
 
Slight topic hijack; but how do you get Firefox to play flash with 1 DLL file in which folder? Sounds ideal but a quick google didnt help much - care to tell or point in the right direction?

Thanks
 
I agree with the posts about Acrobat Reader. Why does Adobe need a 200 meg program when Foxit can do it in less than 10 megs? :-) I know computers get faster and hard drives become bigger, but it's the principle of it.
 
I forget what its called in vmware workstation, but it always you to integrate the vmware machine into your desktop environment, which can be useful for testing of programs before committing to a full install. May be overkill for sandbox though
 
Adobe Acrobat Reader uses almost 1gb once installed... I like Sumatra Portable also. :)
Peter_S said:
Slight topic hijack; but how do you get Firefox to play flash with 1 DLL file in which folder? Sounds ideal but a quick google didnt help much - care to tell or point in the right direction?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Hi, all you need to do is put NPSWF32.dll into the plugins folder and you're good to go. :)
 
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