Thank you for you helpful and constructive clarification.
DERoss said:
When I installed Eraser 6.0.10.2620 with the Custom Install option, I discovered that I can select the location to install it. However, that option is available only if I do not change any of the other options in the same window. As soon as I selected a level of installation of the non-language features (the name of which I forget), the Browse button was disabled. This is a bug in the installer. The order in which I select options on that particular window should be irrelevant.
I agree that this does seem to be a bug, though whether it is a function of the .msi file (which is embedded in the install.exe file) or of the Windows installer itself I cannot say. It would be helpful if you could raise a ticket in TRAC, referring to this forum topic. Joel is very busy at the moment; as he uses TRAC as his 'to do' list, a TRAC ticket is more likely to attract his attention than a forum topic.
DERoss said:
In Eraser 5.8.2.0, erasing a file or group of files via a Windows context menu allowed me the option to select an erase method different from the default. Effectively, I could change "on the fly" which method would be the default. This is missing from Eraser 6.0.10.2620.
True, but, as noted in my previous post, it is possible to do this in the nightly builds. Whether it is at all useful is another question; as is frequently reported in this forum and elsewhere, current thinking is that the erase method makes very little, if any, difference to the effectiveness of the erasing process.
DERoss said:
Typically, I am erasing very large files (5-7 GB), after which I will create new versions of those files with different file names reflecting the generation dates. If erasing the old files occurs while generating the new files, I will get significant disc thrashing. Eraser 5.8.2.0 provided a progress bar that I could monitor and thus avoid generating the new versions of those files until erasure was completed. Eraser 6.0.10.2620 requires that I open the application window to view a progress bar.
My recollection of the Eraser 5 progress window is that it was modal, and therefore a nuisance in other respects; at least the Eraser 6 schedule window is not modal. Disk thrashing is of course a function of drive performance (including fragmentation), so there is not much Eraser can do about that. Given the nature of current understanding about the effectiveness of erasing, there is a good case for using only a single (or at most a 3) pass erasing method for larger file erases, as this approach keeps the time that the erase is blocking the machine to a minimum. All that said, I would like to see the reporting of actual erasing in the Eraser 6 log, as was the case with Eraser 5. As previously mentioned, I don't think that any change to the default 'working in the background' design of Eraser 6 is either likely or necessary.
David