Suggestion: System Volume Information

[cstern]

When comparing two root directories on a Windows XP machine, BC tries also to compare the folders "System Volume Information". On a standard machine this directory is protected and BC will not be able to compare these on the two drives. So it is normal behavior that an error message is produced: "Unable to load System Volume Information: Access denied".

I suggest that this error message is companied with a dialog box the first time this occurs and prompts the user to suppress this particular error message in future (or not) and that an option in the configuration is made to enable or suppress errors concerned with accessing the Systems Volume Information folder.

For the computer novice I suppose that this error could cause some confusion.

Build 459.

Claus Sternberg

[Lutz]

With 'Ignore Folder Structure' the following appears:
opening new Folder Compare:

23.06.2008 08:27:25 Username: xxx\xxx
23.06.2008 08:27:25 Load comparison: <->

entering 'C:\':

23.06.2008 08:27:38 Unable to load System Volume Information: Zugriff verweigert
23.06.2008 08:27:38 Load comparison: c:\ <->
23.06.2008 08:27:38 Unable to load System Volume Information: Zugriff verweigert

BC3 (458) stops loading!

I tried excluding 'System Volume Information\' and it stops after two errors again (xxx and yyy are not present external devices, mapped in empty NTFS-folders):

23.06.2008 08:34:44 Unable to load xxx: Das System kann den angegebenen Pfad nicht finden
23.06.2008 08:34:44 Load comparison: c:\ <->
23.06.2008 08:34:45 Unable to load yyy: Das System kann den angegebenen Pfad nicht finden

[Aaron]

Thanks for the report. We should probably handle that differently. I'll put that in our tracker.

[rianno]

Have you solved that problem?
Even with Windows 7 Pro, when comparing two root directories, it also tries to compare the folders "System Volume Information", it gives the error "Unable to load System Volume Information: Access denied". and it stops comparing.
In order to compare the two root directories, I've to exclude that folder in the filter section.
Do you have other solutions?

[Aaron]

Yes, this was fixed some time ago. Are you running the latest BC 4.3.7 release? And are you running into the same issue with Ignore Folder Structure enabled?

[rianno]

Yes, latest BC 4.3.7 release.
I haven't tried with Ignore Folder Structure enabled.
Should I?

[Aaron]

No, the original bug report here was, in a flattened view, Ignore Folder Structure, when it hit the error folder the entire rest of the comparison would stop loading. If you are in a subfolder view, this was never an issue. If an individual folder hits an access error, itself would stop comparing but the rest of the aligned items should continue scanning.

What color are your folders? Are the unscanned items top level orphans? By default, top level orphans are skipped (since, they are orphans, the comparison status is known without visiting them) but it's a configurable option to scan them anyway (to generate sizes, etc).

A full screen screenshot would be helpful, along with the emailed Help menu -> Support; Export: BCSupport.zip. You can email us with the support.zip (containing all your setting information) to [email protected]. Please include a link back to this forum thread in the email for our reference.

[rianno]

The folder "System Volume Information" is in the D:\partition and as such it is not a subfolder. It is a first-level folder, among others, in the D:\ partition.

[Aaron]

Hello,

Sorry, that was a reference to the 4 Folder View modes (View menu -> Always Show Folders, Compare Files and Folder Structure, Only Compare Files, and Ignore Folder Structure). In 3 of the 4 modes, subfolders are expandable and selectable like they are in Explorer. This old bug was specific to the 4th mode, which removes all subfolders from view and places all files in a single large list/bucket, with no folders. When it encountered this access denied folder, then the list was incomplete.

What behavior are you seeing? Could we get that full screen screenshot showing the colors, folders, and log?

[aebas]

This question is maybe not exactly linked to this discussion but anyway in the same area.

I've been using BC for a long time. Currently my company provides me with version 4.2.6. I have used (and sometimes uses) BC version 2.

One of the things I'm doing is to use BC to get a feeling for where big/many files are located in disks. It's handy to just expand all and get sizes on folders and subfolders. The problem occurs for example on the C: drive where I don't have access to all subfolders (protected by Windows). Then the resulting size for folders becomes blank. In BC2 I think folders with no access was just excluded from the total folder size. In many cases the protected files are just using a few kilobytes or megabytes in rare cases so it's not significant when you search for gigabytes but as the result is blank you don't see neighbor folders with big files if there is one protected folder somewhere at the bottom of a folder tree. I find BC2 more useful in the situation I described. It would be nice to have the possibility to select between those behaviors with a setting somewhere.

Is that what was introduced in the 4.3.7 release referred to above?

[Aaron]

No, this thread is originally about an issue specific to Ignore Folder Structure encountering an error while loading structure that was fixed awhile ago. The follow up was not using Ignore Folder Structure and isn't related.

This is another, third issue. BC2 was last updated in 2008, before Windows 10 and "Your user does not current have permission" prompts and can incorrectly report a folder as size 0 (like Windows Explorer) instead of access denied. It's on our wishlist to support showing partial sizes and represent them as incomplete; I'll add your scenario notes to our entry on the subject.

[aebas]

Thank You for the response. Even in NT4 there were NTFS permissions and acl:s which could prevent access for certain folders so it's not new for Win 10 as you for sure know. I think it was a good explanation to say that "represent folders with no access with size=0" is what could be useful in some cases. You indicate that a possible implementation should show (graphically I assume) that the sizes are incomplete. I assume this would affect the graphical interface a bit (a lot?). An easier implementation is to just have a setting that calculates inaccessible folders to size=0 but without changing the graphical interface. This will certainly be enough for me.

You say there is a wish-list for new features. Is that list available for the public somewhere?

[Aaron]

Hello,

The initial change was made to prevent presenting access denied locations as 0, as this was presenting a partial comparison as a complete comparison. We'd need to be more careful implementing this style of option, but yes, it is on our wishlist.

Update: sorry, no, our wishlist is an internal tool that developers use for figuring out new features, and contains private information. It's not a public resource, but I add notes to any relevant entries each time users write in.