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Number   :  10453
Date     :  2005-02-07
Author   :  Kan Yabumoto
Subject  :  Duplicating the Volume-ID by XXCLONE
Size(KB) :  3


fumata_faka wrote:

>> Just wanted to point out two small issues with the
>> newest January 2005 release of xxclone.

>> 1. After the clone
>> is completed, microsoft office products need to be repaired,
>> as something with the registration gets funky. The software
>> will still work, but the icons will not show correctly until
>> repaired.
>> 2. All shares that you have do not work correctly. I can
>> access a shared folder but I cannot copy it , use it,
>> etc... I had to redo all my shares.
>>
>> Hope this info is usefull

DES replied:

> The M$ Office Icons are one of 3 pieces of software I know
> of that are "coded" to the physical drive they're installed
> on, the VolumeID actually. Sysinternals has a free utility
> for this. I have 3 disks of 6 partitions each, all
> volumes\partitions duplicated per disk, with no observable
> ill effects. Windows it's self can not abide duplicate
> Volume Lables, the partition name seen in Explorer.
> How xxclone deals with this I don't know never having used it?
>

Thank you fumata_faka, for your report.

As to the Volume-ID

We have been aware of the problem with some popular applications
such as MS Office which apparently ties its license verification
to the Volume ID.

Technically, it is quite easy for XXCLONE to copy the Volume ID
of the source to the Target. So far, we have resisted to this
idea because of the fear of unknown side effect.

The fundamental question is really quite philosophical.

To what extent should XXCLONE duplicate the characteristics of
the source volume into the destination?

From practical point of view, we could just duplicate the
volume ID simply because MS Office is a very popular product.
But, I have to say the logic is quite arbitrary. I could write
an application with a piracy-prevention technique where
both Volume-ID and the Volume-Label as well as the
Disk Signature (embedded in the MBR --- only one such value
per physical disk whereas the volume-ID and Volume Label are
assigned for each volume). Furthermore, I could come up with
a scheme where the total number of sectors for the volume
must be exactly the same (in such a case, the piracy-prevention
code forces you to clone a volume to the same size disk).

In short, to assign an identifier (whose purpose is to
distinguish one from another) to two or more object is not
a good idea. It defeats the virtue of the identifier.
It may conveniently defeat the piracy-prevention of MS Office,
but, there could be an application that innocently relies
on the uniqueness of Volume-IDs and may cause great damage
to the volume contents. The user should be aware of such risks.

------------

What shall we do?

The sensible thing to do is to add an advanced feature to
duplicate the volume ID. But, in my view such an operation
should be done only when the system volume is permanently
migrated from one volume to another. If the user intend to
to continue using the target volume primarily as a backup volume,
I would advice not to duplicate the volume-ID until the switch
over becomes permanent.

==========

XXCLONE still needs some work on the security info related
issues (as with XXCOPY).


Kan Yabumoto



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