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 Post subject: Underscore prefix.
 Post Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2017 2:33 pm 
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I'm placing this in the advanced section because renaming system files is generally not a good idea.

That said, I'm in discussion with IBM Trusteer Rapport about a conflict their software is causing with another 3rd party piece of software I frequently use.
cf. https://www-03.ibm.com/software/product ... er-rapport

I got an email from them today asking me to rename some of their .sys files with an underscore in front of the filename to troubleshoot the issue, I've never heard of pre-fixing a file name with an underscore so I'm curious if the underscore serves some other purpose than the usual renaming of the ".sys" extension to ".old" when the file was simply to be ignored by windows?

For example:
They asked me to rename "RapportCerberus00_00000.sys" as "_RapportCerberus00_00000.sys"

Fyi (1):
Renaming the files has appeared to resolve the conflict between software but the issue is not resolved until they get back to me with a "permanent solution" as the file renaming was meant only as a "temporary fix as part of their investigation".

Fyi (2):
I installed Rapport about 18 months ago after the debit card details of two of my bank accounts kept getting hacked... one was even hacked before I had the chance to use it!!
Both banks suggested I install Rapport and despite being told elsewhere I should probably avoid it (it was never explained why) I decided it couldn't make matters worse... anyway, it worked well until something changed last December when the 3rd party software suddenly slowed to a crawl, at first (and for a long time) I suspected .NET Framework because the 3rd party software relied on it and as .NET was updated so was the programme.

Occasionally, after fresh installs of Windows 7 I'd get brief glimpses of everything working well, it just never occurred to me that the issue was Rapport... more so because even though I'd disable Rapport from the Start Menu context option to Disable/Turn Off Rapport the issue would continue.... I mean, if it's disabled/turned off... how can it be responsible??

Anyways, the prefix underscore?... is it just another way of a command line "rem" or does it serve another purpose?


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 Post subject: Re: Underscore prefix.
 Post Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2017 2:43 pm 
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Damn, I forgot the FYI 3, lol

I nailed this down to Rapport after my last re-install and can reproduce it at will... install Rapport, problem arises... uninstall Rapport via Control Panel, problem resolved.


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 Post subject: Re: Underscore prefix.
 Post Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2017 2:45 pm 
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As far as I know there is nothing special about the underscore. I would think it likely that they just decided on it as a common method between support issues for consistency.

As to disabling Rapport not solving the issue it is probable that some background processes still load even when disabled.

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 Post subject: Re: Underscore prefix.
 Post Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2017 2:58 pm 
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jaylach wrote:
As to disabling Rapport not solving the issue it is probable that some background processes still load even when disabled.

Yup, and I've jumped through hoops trying to find the blighters over the months... even in Safe Mode with Rapport installed I couldn't get the 3rd party software to work at the speeds it should... I should probably tell you what the 3rd party software is, it's not a state secret and I'd be surprised if you haven't heard of it anyway LOL...

Video Thumbnails Maker:
http://www.suu-design.com/projects_vtm.html

The underscore is interesting, I've never heard of it before and now wonder why It isn't used more often if it's that simple :roll: ;)


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 Post subject: Re: Underscore prefix.
 Post Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2017 3:31 pm 
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Actually I am not at all familiar with Video Thumbnails Maker I clicked your link and tried to look at some samples but they all came up as 'invalid sources'. LOL! Mayhaps I should contact them to see if they want their site fixed. :mrgreen:

The underscore has been a commonly used prefix for many years. In fact older versions of Windows used it a lot on their install media. I don't know about current Windows versions. Pretty much all of the .sys and.dll files on the media were prefixed with the underscore which was removed during the install. I THINK that Microsoft used it to denote that the files were compressed but am not sure.

Here is a solution... I'm not serious but it would work. ;) Run which program is used less in a virtual environment.

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 Post subject: Re: Underscore prefix.
 Post Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2017 3:49 pm 
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jaylach wrote:
Actually I am not at all familiar with Video Thumbnails Maker I clicked your link and tried to look at some samples but they all came up as 'invalid sources'. LOL! Mayhaps I should contact them to see if they want their site fixed. :mrgreen:

Me thinks your new fangled sytem may be too fast for the interweb... the site works for me with IE11 and Firefox :lol:

Some of the screenshots on the website are Youtube videos so may require Flash?... is that something that Silver Surfers of your generation still use??... I mean, if it isn't 8K/16K UHD do you even bother getting out of bed??? LMAO!!!!!!

Seriously though, Trusteer have pretty much acknowledged the issue with VTM is there's when they came up with a workaround that worked... I had previously been in touch with VTM and they examined every log I could throw at them and they couldn't see any sign of the issue being theirs... I'm not going to waste any more time on the issue because I can replicate the problem at will and I know where the issue is ;)

I was just curious about the underscore prefix ;)


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