Mini-Review: Executive Software - Undelete

[PCBruiser]

One of the very few things I liked about Norton System Works was the protected recycle bin. It seems I am always letting my fingers go in gear before my brain engages, and from time to time deleted things I shouldn't have. Now, I have all sorts of recovery software, but they are time consuming to use, and I liked just being able to use the Norton recovery feature.

With my new build, I had no intention of installing SW, I am no longer any kind of a Norton fan, and wanted to get something that had similar capabilities to the Protected Recycle Bin. There isn't much out there, but what I did find was an extremely well designed program from Executive Software (developers of Diskeeper as well, which is my third favorite defragger after PerfectDisk and the O&O product) called Undelete. It is shareware, $30 for the proggy for home use. And, it is a good one, much better than the Norton way of doing things.

What it does is replace the Recycle Bin with a Recovery Bin that has some well thought out features.

First, it intercepts deletes from any software, not just Explorer. That means if you delete a file using software that bypasses the Recycle Bin, the Recovery Bin catches it.

Second, it has an Explore feature that opens an Explore window and lets you see exactly what is in the Recovery Bin, and restore it with a single click - very easy to do.

Third, it handles versions. For example, you have auto-save enabled in Office, and it saves over your documents every x minutes. Each of the versions that are saved over will be captured by the Recovery Bin, and you can set up this feature to work with any extension. That also means that if you set it up to capture dll files, and malware replaces or modifies a Windows system file, or any dll for that matter, Recovery Bin will capture the old version(s) (can be set to keep either a fixed number of versions or all of them), and recovering it is as simple as Exploring the Recovery Bin to find the file, and right click and then click Recover. And, it file protects every file in the Recovery Bin from being overwritten until you delete it from the Recovery Bin.

Fourth, it has a nice feature that creates a bootable floppy based recovery program called Emergency Undelete. You can use it to find and undelete files on any system, not only the one(s) you have Undelete installed on.

Finally, you have a neat option to consolidate all the Recovery Bins for all drives on your system onto a single drive if you want, or you can keep a Recovery Bin on each drive if you prefer doing that (which I do). And, you can individually set the sizes of the Recovery Bin on each drive, or on a single drive if you use the consolidation option. And when you do delete files from the Recovery Bin, there is an option to delete them securely using the DOD method. Executive recommends not turning that feature on unless security is an issue because of the additional time and disk use it takes to securely delete the files.

All in all, I am very impressed with this software, and while it isn't free, it is highly recommended, and for $30 well worth it.

[mcdonald43]

PCB,
Thanks for the insightful review. I currently run Diskeeper 9.0 from Executive Software and find it to be everything advertised. It sounds as if Undelete is continuing that tradition. BTW I have had outstanding customer support from Executive Software as well. FWIW
Thanks again,
Mike

[PCBruiser]

...bump...

[SupDawg]

Originally Posted by PCBruiser

One of the very few things I liked about Norton System Works was the protected recycle bin. It seems I am always letting my fingers go in gear before my brain engages, and from time to time deleted things I shouldn't have. Now, I have all sorts of recovery software, but they are time consuming to use, and I liked just being able to use the Norton recovery feature.

With my new build, I had no intention of installing SW, I am no longer any kind of a Norton fan, and wanted to get something that had similar capabilities to the Protected Recycle Bin. There isn't much out there, but what I did find was an extremely well designed program from Executive Software (developers of Diskeeper as well, which is my third favorite defragger after PerfectDisk and the O&O product) called Undelete. It is shareware, $30 for the proggy for home use. And, it is a good one, much better than the Norton way of doing things.

What it does is replace the Recycle Bin with a Recovery Bin that has some well thought out features.

First, it intercepts deletes from any software, not just Explorer. That means if you delete a file using software that bypasses the Recycle Bin, the Recovery Bin catches it.

Second, it has an Explore feature that opens an Explore window and lets you see exactly what is in the Recovery Bin, and restore it with a single click - very easy to do.

Third, it handles versions. For example, you have auto-save enabled in Office, and it saves over your documents every x minutes. Each of the versions that are saved over will be captured by the Recovery Bin, and you can set up this feature to work with any extension. That also means that if you set it up to capture dll files, and malware replaces or modifies a Windows system file, or any dll for that matter, Recovery Bin will capture the old version(s) (can be set to keep either a fixed number of versions or all of them), and recovering it is as simple as Exploring the Recovery Bin to find the file, and right click and then click Recover. And, it file protects every file in the Recovery Bin from being overwritten until you delete it from the Recovery Bin.

Fourth, it has a nice feature that creates a bootable floppy based recovery program called Emergency Undelete. You can use it to find and undelete files on any system, not only the one(s) you have Undelete installed on.

Finally, you have a neat option to consolidate all the Recovery Bins for all drives on your system onto a single drive if you want, or you can keep a Recovery Bin on each drive if you prefer doing that (which I do). And, you can individually set the sizes of the Recovery Bin on each drive, or on a single drive if you use the consolidation option. And when you do delete files from the Recovery Bin, there is an option to delete them securely using the DOD method. Executive recommends not turning that feature on unless security is an issue because of the additional time and disk use it takes to securely delete the files.

All in all, I am very impressed with this software, and while it isn't free, it is highly recommended, and for $30 well worth it.

Sounds pretty cool, but I must say, I hated the Norton Protected Recycle bin...

But this sounds cool, so if I wrote a batch file to delete a dir, it would save that dir in the bin?

[PCBruiser]

Originally Posted by SupDawg

Sounds pretty cool, but I must say, I hated the Norton Protected Recycle bin...

But this sounds cool, so if I wrote a batch file to delete a dir, it would save that dir in the bin?

Yes, until you delete it from there. It actually replaces the desktop Recycle Bin with a new Recovery Bin icon, and it functions just like the Recycle Bin, except that it does much more than the Recycle Bin does. There are plenty of proggies out there that delete files directly, bypassing the Recycle Bin; and, if you delete a file using one of these proggies, you have to use a file recovery program to find the file and recover it - and you have to be careful not to write to the drive before running the recovery software, because Windows can overwrite those deleted files. This software prevents that from happening, so until you are sure you are ready to delete files or folders, they resides in the Recovery Bin until you empty it.

[zsaz1029]

Big thanks for the review, PCBruiser!

[PCBruiser]

...bump for those who might not have seen this review yet...

[TweakHound]

Nice Al! Could you give us a read on resources used?

[PCBruiser]

Very little resources. From task manager, 0% CPU and 3.4mb of RAM. Now I assume that when you use the Recovery Bin a small CPU usage will occur. I doubt ever uses much of the CPU unless you are doing a secure delete. BTW, it runs as a service.

[grsamf]

PCB--to clarify the auto-save option on programs. I think I have this right. You mentioned Office, but I assume it would work with WordPerfect or other word processing programs. I spend more time on WordPerfect than I do here (if you can believe that), often having several documents open and being worked on at once. Sometimes when I close it, I stupidly hit the No button when it asks if I want to save changes and I really do want to save the changes. WordPerfect has no way to retireve the changes when I do that. Am I understanding correctly that if I set the autosave on WP to save changes every x minutes, this proggie would save the changes in the bin and each change saved would stay there until I removed them no matter what I did with the doc in WP? Please say yes. I will get my wallet out and order immediately.

[PCBruiser]

Yes, get your wallet out. Your understanding is correct. It comes preset for MS Office files, but you can set it to capture versions for any file extension(s) you want. Just add the WordPerfect file extension(s) to the version inclusion list and it will save either a pre-determined number of versions, or an unlimited number if you set it for that.

BTW, you can also set it to automatically bypass the Recovery Bin for any type of file or folders as well. For example, you can set it not to retain files from either a specific folder or file extension, i.e., add *.tmp to the exclusion list and it will immediately delete any *.tmp files you delete rather than capture them to the Recovery Bin.

[grsamf]

I will order later today. I have to get to work soon. If this works, I will come to your house and kiss your dog.

[PCBruiser]

Originally Posted by grsamf

I will order later today. I have to get to work soon. If this works, I will come to your house and kiss your dog.

We have 4 dogs, so pucker up! ROTFLOL!

[TweakHound]

Al, what version are you running? A site is reporting v 5.0 like it is new?

[PCBruiser]

Originally Posted by TweakHound

Al, what version are you running? A site is reporting v 5.0 like it is new?

v5.0.108, it is new. I only bought it late last week when I started to set up my new system.