| 1 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 2 | NOTE: You MUST remove ALL EARLIER VERSIONS (including BETAS) |
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| 3 | before installing this version. When installing an earlier |
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| 4 | stable build, UNINSTALL the Beta first. |
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| 5 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 6 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 7 | Eraser 5.8.8-beta1 |
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| 8 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 9 | - Do not erase sparse, compressed or encrypted files when FL2KB erasure |
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| 10 | is selected to prevent disk corruption. |
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| 11 | - Fix Win32 Eraser builds to be truly Unicode builds. |
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| 12 | - A few 64-bit fixes. |
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| 13 | - Ensure that Eraser uses the latest runtimes packaged with the installer. |
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| 14 | This should fix hangs when using the Context menu. |
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| 15 | |
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| 16 | ================================================================= |
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| 17 | CONTENTS |
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| 18 | 1. LEGAL |
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| 19 | 1.1. Copyright |
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| 20 | 1.2. License agreement and Disclaimer |
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| 21 | 1.3. Digital signature |
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| 22 | 2. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS |
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| 23 | 2.1. Libraries |
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| 24 | 3. HOW TO INSTALL & UNINSTALL |
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| 25 | 3.1. Before installing |
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| 26 | 3.2. Installing |
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| 27 | 3.3. Help? |
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| 28 | 3.4. Uninstalling |
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| 29 | 4. DESCRIPTION |
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| 30 | 5. AUTHOR |
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| 31 | 5.1. Web site |
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| 32 | |
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| 33 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 34 | 1. LEGAL |
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| 35 | |
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| 36 | 1.1. Copyright |
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| 37 | |
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| 38 | Eraser Copyright © 2007-2009 by The Eraser Project. All |
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| 39 | rights reserved. |
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| 40 | Eraser Copyright © 2002-2006 by Garrett Trant. All rights |
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| 41 | reserved. |
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| 42 | Eraser Copyright © 1997-2002 by Sami Tolvanen. All rights |
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| 43 | reserved. |
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| 44 | |
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| 45 | By using this software you accept all the terms and |
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| 46 | conditions of the license agreement and disclaimer |
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| 47 | below. |
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| 48 | |
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| 49 | All registered and unregistered trademarks mentioned in |
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| 50 | this document are the property of their respective |
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| 51 | holders. |
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| 52 | |
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| 53 | 1.2. License agreement and Disclaimer |
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| 54 | |
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| 55 | This program is free software; you can redistribute it |
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| 56 | and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General |
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| 57 | Public License as published by the Free Software |
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| 58 | Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your |
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| 59 | option) any later version. |
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| 60 | |
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| 61 | This program is distributed in the hope that it will be |
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| 62 | useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the |
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| 63 | implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A |
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| 64 | PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License |
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| 65 | for more details. |
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| 66 | |
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| 67 | 1.2.1 GNU General Public License |
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| 68 | The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) is attached |
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| 69 | in the file COPYING.txt |
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| 70 | |
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| 71 | 1.3. Digital signature |
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| 72 | |
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| 73 | The setup program is signed with an Authenticode signature |
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| 74 | for authenticity verification. |
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| 75 | |
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| 76 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 77 | 2. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS |
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| 78 | |
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| 79 | This version of Eraser runs on Windows 2000, XP and all editions |
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| 80 | of Vista. Windows XP x64 and all 64-bit SKUs of Vista can also |
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| 81 | be used (the 64-bit version will be chosen automatically). |
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| 82 | Windows 7 installs may work but Eraser 5 is not currently tested |
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| 83 | under that platform. |
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| 84 | |
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| 85 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 86 | 3. HOW TO INSTALL & UNINSTALL |
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| 87 | |
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| 88 | 3.1. Before installing |
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| 89 | |
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| 90 | Be sure to uninstall any previous version of Eraser |
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| 91 | before installing. |
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| 92 | |
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| 93 | If the setup program asks you to reboot Windows after |
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| 94 | installation, you must do that before running Eraser. |
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| 95 | |
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| 96 | 3.2. Installing |
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| 97 | |
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| 98 | This setup file is a self-extracting executable containing |
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| 99 | the program files. |
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| 100 | |
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| 101 | Run EraserSetup.exe to install Eraser. The setup program will |
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| 102 | extract the files and copy them to a desired location. |
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| 103 | |
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| 104 | 3.3. Help? |
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| 105 | |
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| 106 | After installing, you can open the help file (in the |
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| 107 | Eraser directory) by double-clicking the ERASER.HLP |
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| 108 | file. |
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| 109 | |
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| 110 | You can also get answers to some frequently asked |
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| 111 | questions and read a step-by-step installation |
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| 112 | instructions at Eraser home page (see section 5.1). |
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| 113 | |
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| 114 | 3.4. Uninstalling |
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| 115 | |
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| 116 | You can uninstall Eraser normally via Control Panel, |
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| 117 | Add/Remove Programs. You should not remove the files |
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| 118 | manually because the settings in the registry would not |
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| 119 | be removed. |
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| 120 | |
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| 121 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 122 | 4. DESCRIPTION |
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| 123 | |
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| 124 | Eraser is an advanced security tool, which allows you to |
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| 125 | completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by |
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| 126 | overwriting it several times with carefully selected |
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| 127 | patterns. |
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| 128 | |
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| 129 | You can drag and drop files and folders to the on-demand |
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| 130 | eraser, use the convenient Explorer shell extension or use |
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| 131 | the integrated scheduler to program overwriting of unused |
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| 132 | disk space or, for example, browser cache files to happen |
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| 133 | regularly, at night, during your lunch break, at weekends or |
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| 134 | whenever you like. |
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| 135 | |
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| 136 | The patterns used for overwriting are based on Peter |
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| 137 | Gutmann's paper "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and |
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| 138 | Solid-State Memory" and they are selected to effectively |
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| 139 | remove the magnetic remnants from the hard disk making it |
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| 140 | impossible to recover the data. |
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| 141 | |
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| 142 | Other methods include the one defined in the National |
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| 143 | Industrial Security Program Operating Manual of the US |
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| 144 | Department of Defense and overwriting with pseudo-random data |
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| 145 | up to one hundred times. |
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| 146 | |
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| 147 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 148 | 5. AUTHOR |
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| 149 | |
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| 150 | The new maintainer of this product is The Eraser Project. |
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| 151 | For more information visit |
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| 152 | http://sourceforge.net/projects/eraser |
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| 153 | |
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| 154 | Sami Tolvanen, the original author of this software is a |
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| 155 | student in the university of technology in Finland. For |
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| 156 | more information, visit his home page at |
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| 157 | http://www.tolvanen.com/sami/. |
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| 158 | |
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| 159 | 5.1. Web site |
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| 160 | |
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| 161 | You can download the latest version of Eraser and the |
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| 162 | required libraries at the Eraser SourceForge page. |
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| 163 | |
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| 164 | http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=37015 |
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| 165 | |
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| 166 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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