Setup I have both my private portable programs and my regular portable programs inside of a 10 gig truecrypt container. I don't want to encrypt my entire OS, as that would slow everything down.
Startup
- Step 1. Once I start up my machine, I run mount.bat, which is just a text file that contains the following:
TrueCrypt's site has an explanation of the different command-line switches used above. The effect of this file is to pop up a password window, open the d:\volume.tc file to the "J:\" drive, and then make TrueCrypt disappear into the background. This means a lot less action on my part to get to my files.Code: Select all
@echo off "C:\Program Files\TrueCrypt\TrueCrypt.exe" /auto /quit background /letterj /volume "c:\drive.tc" exit
Step 2. Note that the DOS window won't go away unless TrueCrypt is already running so I put it in the Startup folder and added /quit background to the end of the "C:\Program Files\TrueCrypt\TrueCrypt.exe" shortcut.
Step 3. I run start.bat file, which is located in my portable programs folder and contains the following:The "private" pstart copy auto-starts Taskswitchxp and Notepad++. I used to have the Everything search program running but I think this program was interfering with ejecting my external drives.Code: Select all
@start "" "%~dp0pstart\pstart.exe"
Shut down
This is unnecessary when doing a standard system shutdown, it's here for the rare machine that needs you to dismount everything manually.
- EjectUSB to shut everything down quickly. I know EjectUSB is a very smart program and I could make it do things a lot smoother, but I admit that the thread on that was over my head.
- Run this dismount script:
Code: Select all
@echo off "C:\Program Files\TrueCrypt\TrueCrypt.exe" /quit /dismount j exit
TrueCrypt corruption issue in VMware [resolved]
- Problem: I've run TC for years and had no problems but, as mentioned above, there appears to be some issue when Windows goes into Stand By mode under VMware and the volume is on the Mac side. I wasn't concerned about this until I noticed random files in my TrueCrypt volume (unrelated to portable software) disappeared.
Resolution: Save the TrueCrypt volume locally. In this case I expanded the size of the Windows install, created another partition, and saved it locally to the windows system. Essentially what's happening here is that the computer is accessing TrueCrypt over the local network and it must dismounted before putting the computer to sleep.