Please read this file before using VTrace 2.7 for Windows 2000. INSTALLING VTRACE: We suggest that, to be safe, you make an Emergency Repair Disk before installing VTrace. To do this, open the Start menu, select Programs-> Accessories->System Tools->Backup, then click the "Emergency Repair Disk" button. Since you are reading this file, you must already have performed the first steps of installation: creating a temporary directory, putting VTR2K27.EXE in it, running VTR2K27.EXE to extract a bunch of files, and reading the README.TXT file. All you have to do now is log in as a user with Administrator privileges and run the extracted file INSTALL.EXE. After installation, you may delete the temporary directory and all the files in it. VTrace will start working after the next reboot. The INSTALL.EXE program, if run while a previous version of VTrace is installed, will upgrade VTrace to the new version, 2.7. CONFIGURING VTRACE: After installation, you have the option to perform advanced configuration of VTrace. In general, you won't need to change anything. However, if your machine is behind a firewall and you have to specify a proxy for VTrace to use to access the Internet, this is where you specify that. DISK SPACE: To avoid crowding your space, VTrace will not do any tracing when less than 40 MB of free space remains on the drive you put it on. When the machine is idle, VTrace will automatically upload trace files to our web site to make more room on your hard drive. If you want to upload trace files before that, just run the upload utility described in the next section. UTILITIES: In your Start menu, under the VTrace 2.7 folder, will be this Readme file and four VTrace utilities you can use: * One of those utilities allows you to do advanced configuration of VTrace whenever you wish. * Another temporarily turns off VTrace, in case you should ever encounter problems you think are due to VTrace. * Another uninstalls VTrace from your machine. * Another uploads trace files, removing them from your hard drive. CONFIDENTIALITY: VTrace records metadata information about your file systems, but not the contents of files. Furthermore, although it does collect informataion on keystrokes, it preserves the confidentiality of passwords and other sensitive typed information by recording any unmodified letters pressed (as opposed to modified letters, like Control-C) as X's, and any unmodified numbers pressed as 9's. EMERGENCY SHUT-OFF: In case your system encounters severe problems with VTrace's drivers, you can shut them off completely by choosing the "Last Known Good" configuration at boot-up time. (Normally, this involves pressing F8 when presented with a list of operating systems to boot, then choosing the Last Known Good configuration.) VTrace detects that you have chosen this option, and disables itself. You can turn off some parts of VTrace by pressing the Caps Lock or Scroll Lock key after the Windows 2000 login screen appears. Make sure the Caps Lock or Scroll Lock light on the keyboard stays on until the message appears telling you that at least one service or driver failed during system startup (referring to VTrace's drivers). VIRUS SCANNERS: Some virus scanners may have problems scanning files while VTrace is generating or uploading them. To fix this, consider telling the virus scanner not to scan VTrace trace files. VTrace keeps these files in its "Traces" subdirectory; for instance, if you install VTrace in C:\VTrace, you may want to exclude C:\VTrace\Traces from virus scanning. To do this in Network Associates VirusScan 4.5, run Start menu->Programs->Network Associates->VirusScan Console, select the VShield task, choose Task->Properties->Configure->Exclusions->Add, then add that directory. CONTACT: If you have any questions or concerns about VTrace, please feel free to contact Jacob Lorch by e-mail at lorch@cs.berkeley.edu or by phone at work at (510) 642-9117. In case of emergency, you can call him at home at (510) 486-0439. FYI: VTrace collects traces to be used in a study of operating system techniques for reducing the energy consumption of computers by dynamically scaling the voltage of processors. (Thus the "V" in VTrace, which stands for voltage.) It is likely that the data collected will be used later in other studies. VTrace collects traces of the file system, the network, the disk drive, processes, threads, interprocess communication, waitable objects, cursor changes, windows, and the keyboard. Thank you very much for your participation in this study. Your efforts will, hopefully, help us give future portable computers much longer battery lifetimes than they have today. DISCLAIMER: In no event shall the author, Jacob R. Lorch, or his employer, the University of California at Berkeley, be liable to any party for direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages, including lost profits, arising out of the use of this software and its documentation, even if the author has been advised of the possibility of such damage. The author specifically disclaims any warranties, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The software provided hereunder is on an "as is" basis, and the author has no obligations to provide maintenance, support, updates, enhancements, or modifications.