Programs For U3 Smart Drives
This program can manipulate object properties in running applications. You are given a list of all top level windows, you can open the windows and browse the child. What are U3 Smart Drives and what programs can I use on them.
Petite USB drives, already handy for carrying data, are getting smarter: New technology from a company called U3 allows a drive to store and, when plugged into any PC, securely run applications--without leaving a trace of data on the host computer. The applications (which must be U3-compliant), data,. SanDisk today introduced its first USB smart drive using U3 technology, a powerful new platform that enables users to store and manage their 'personal workspace' - including files, programs, passwords and settings - on a tiny device the size of a pack of gum.
If you have bought a USB flash drive that comes with U3 Smart Drives platform, such as, SanDisk Cruzer Micro or Titanium, or Memorex Mini TravelDrive U, you will have U3 features which enables users to install and use software, carry and transfer data beside share information seamlessly between multiple computers. However, not every U3 smart drives flash disks owner would like to use the features of U3, and U3 Launchpad application is not necessary to utilize the main function of a USB flash drive or thumb drive – that’s as mass data storage device. You can always easily remove and uninstall U3 Launchpad that comes preinstalled and embeded in the USB flash drive or pen drive with. However, the problem is that, once you uninstall and remove the U3 Launchpad from the USB U3 smart drives storage device, it may not no longer possible to download the U3 Launchpad to install the U3 Launchpad into the ‘used-to-be-U3-smart-drives’ USB flash drive again.
So if you’re unsure or in doubt whether you will use the features and functionality of U3 Launchpad in future, it’s better that you just disable the U3 Launchpad by preventing and stopping U3 Launchpad to automatically start when the U3 smart drive is inserted into the computer. Users can prevent the U3 Launchpad from automatically running each time the U3 flash drive is inserted by holding down the SHIFT key while inserting the U3 smart drive. Keep holding the SHIFT key until Windows has properly detect and enable the USB flash disk drive, indicating with the USB device started sound. Now the U3 smart drive has been recognized by Windows operating system as a normal USB mass storage device, which can be used and accessed just like a normal USB storage disk or memory key.
If you want to start the U3 Launchpad after suppressing it, locate and right-click on the U3 smart drive’s CDROM drive letter in Explorer, and select AutoPlay. U3 Launchpad emulates itself as a virtual CD drive in the Windows operating system and uses the built-in Autorun and AutoPlay features in Windows to start the U3 Launchpad automatically. If you feel that pressing the SHIFT key every time during insertion of U3 smart drive is troublesome and easily forgotten, then you can disable the auto-run or auto-play features in Windows XP and Windows 2000 operating system. To disable automatically running CD-ROMs and Audio CDs, users must edit the registry value:.
Click Start - Run. Type RegEdit in the Open text box, then press ENTER. In the Registry Editor, locate and click the following registry key: HKEYLOCALMACHINE System CurrentControlSet Services CDRom. Modify the value of the Autorun to 0 (zero) so that CD-ROMs and Audio CDs do not run and start automatically when inserted.
Next navigate to the following registry subkey: HKEYCURRENTUSER Software Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Policies Explorer. Modify the value of the NoDriveTypeAutoRun entry to 0xb5 value to turn off the AutoRun feature for CD-ROMs by right-click NoDriveTypeAutoRun and then click Modify to type B5 in the Value data box. Select Hexadecimal, and then click OK. Quit Registry Editor. Restart your computer. Thanks for the great write up This was a necessary thing to do on my end, because the Memorex 2GB Mini Travel drive U3 launchpad does NOT work in Vista. So I'm stuck using it only as a regular thumb drive.
And often time, prior to fixing this AutoPlay function, it would try to automatically boot the U3 Dashboard, and just freeze up, staying on my screen, and making the drive itself un-usable even as a regular drive. Wish they would hurry and make an update for this drive. I know Kingston has one, as well as Verbatim, that updates the drivers to work with Vista, but sadly, memorex does not!!! I have a better & easier solution than the above I made the mistake of buying one of these. I'm an IT professional, but I wasn't aware of this U3 nonsense.
I just needed a device to move files, not some monolithic app that interrupts me every time I plug the USB stick in. If you're reading this you're probably like me Unfortunately this solution is not good for me since I use it quite promiscuously but as a simpler/elegant solution to the above: Disable the virtual CD in your device manager by: 1) Plug in the U3 drive 2) Start-Run compmgmt.msc 3) Go to device manager under CD/DVD Drives 4) Right click on Verbatim/Memorex CD ROM and select disable. 5) Unplug U3 drive, and test again! This is will prevent plug and play from re-detecting the virtual CD drive that boots U3.
This leaves you with just a regular old stick, provided its not your first time on the computer. U3 is like a solution looking for a problem. Why on earth is this software not simply installed by choice on first run? Not everyone needs help maintaining a portable profile. Fix for when U3 Launchpad Cruzer Micro 1.0 removal tool does not work: A friend asked me to remove the U3 software from three Cruzer Micro 1.0 disks. He said he wanted to use the disk on any computer and as a standard USB disk to store and play music.
U3 Smart Drive
The first Cruzer Micro USB uninstalled perfectly leaving me with a regular thumb drive with no U3 software. I used the U3 removal tool that I downloaded from the Internet. The other two did not. I kept getting a message that the software would only work the first time or something similar. I would click on the executable file on the Cruzer but it did nothing.
I tried something counterintuitive. I downloaded the upgrade software for the Cruzer USB, re-installed the U3 Launchpad software. After installation, I could click on the red square U3 icon on my desktop and I could see the options on the left screen. I selected uninstall. The U3 Launchpad asked if I wanted to save the data or format the data and it would be lost. I chose to save the data but uninstall U3. It worked without a hitch.
His data was saved and the software, U3 Launchpad that drove him crazy was gone. I found that the U3 Sandisk Cruzer removal tool works only if the software on the Cruzer USB is still installed. I had three Cruzer USBs with U3 technology on them. The tool can be found on. Whatever you all do, if you decide to disable the auto-boot feature of the U3 drive, ensure there is no password set on the U3 drive because if there is, you won't be able to access the drive. Also, I found out the hard way that if you can't remember your password, it'll give you about 5 tries and then it disables itself. The only other way to access it would be to tell U3 you forgot the password before it disables itself and it will then allow you to reset the drive.
Then it formats itself, leaving only the U3 on the drive. And the information before hand will not be recoverable, well, at least not with PC Tools recover that is. That's what I attempted to use to recover the lost data. I don't know if it does a zero-fill on itself or what, but I lost all of my data.
I recently discovered the true evil of the included software on my Sandisk Cruzer Micro 1 GB flash drive with 'U3 Smart' technology. It automatically installs this U3 program onto any Windows PC it is plugged into. Also, the drive itself is partitioned such that a small portion is recognized by WinXP Pro as a CD drive.
Therefore, the files on this 'CD' partition can't be easily removed by me. When I erase the program files on the writable partition of the flash drive, they come back the next time I check the drive. I think this happens because the files on the unwritable partition get copied over every time I plug in the drive. Also, (and here's where it gets really evil) the U3 program that was automatically installed is near impossible to remove. It's not in the add/remove programs list, it's not in the registry, and it's not running as a service. Yet, even after I had a friend open up the flash drive in linux and remove the partitions, and format the drive by writing 0 to every bit, the files were magically back the next time I plugged the drive into a PC with the hidden program. The hidden program restored all the deleted files on the USB device!
So, does anyone know how I can erase this hidden program on my PC and Flash drive once and for all? U3 was designed for portability 2. U3 will load a small program on your Windows XP or Vista or 2000 so that upon insetion the device launches rapidly. You also need enough RAM, for the device to work efficiently.
U3 Flash Drive
U3 devices are minature hard drives and as such you must unblock the hidden file system files in Control Panel or you will not be able to see all the software. U3 devices are excellent for travelers who must utilize computers that are not their own. Therefore programs like Robo and Open Office Org are ideal allowing one to read any downloaded email attachments. My experience is that you need a minimum of 8GB this allows several gigabyte for software and sufficient space to store personal files.
Also like a hard drive sufficient space to swap files in and out to RAM. That is why you need sufficient RAM. A U3 device can be erased and used simply to store personal files or business files without any software, but then you must manually identify the drive through Windows Explorer and know the location to enter files. U3 devices can become infected with virus or trojan horse like any windows drive. The free anti-viral softwares are great for scanning your drive just prior to removal so that the next computer you use does not become infected. I recently downloaded an Opera upgrade the zipped file was infected and my portable viral software caught the infections (four) immediately. We must remember that these drives are relatively new and eventually this type of technology will replace hard drives in all computers up to including over one terabyte of storage.
U3 devices on older computers that only have USB 1.0 technology are very slow, but with patience they work even on an older computer. U3 devices used for password storage and password creation to hide from key logger software should be backed up and/or a duplicate USB device kept locked up in a critical place or you may never be able to enter your password protected websites. Robo encrypts your password. I JUST put in a new SanDisk flash drive, and noticed a weird system folder with zip file. I clicked on the 'launch.exe', and it had a help window trying to get me to try their other apps, or just use the flash drive for storage only.
I checked first thing to see how much space this 'extra' stuff was taking, and it was taking up 2.something MB. I was also suprised that when I plugged it in my windows was recognizing multiple things, one of them being the segmented CD drive, which I was very confused. So I clicked on the 'storage only' button, and it said just a minute while it removed the software, but it said I could always hit the restore.exe to get it back. Now I noticed a NEW restoreU3.exe icon next to the launch.exe icon, and the CD drive was now gone. The system and zip folder are still there unchanged. HOWEVER, I check the flash capacity, and NOW it's using 4.28 MB!!! It DOUBLED in size!
What the eff??? Why can't I just have a flash drive with nothing on it? What is all this malarky? I wonder if the flash drive will be hurt if I just delete all that junk. I came to this thread in search for a different solution.not to remove U3, but to return it to the condition it was delivered in. I bought the drive with the intent of using it for ReadyBoost in Windows 7, but that turned sour, not improving anything, and in fact I'm having a problem with boot hangs since installing it.
However the hangs are not the reason for my post. When Windows converted it to ReadyBoost, it kept 7MBs of CDFS containing U3 and converted the rest to FAT32. I'm assuming that for the drive to regain it's potential as a U3 drive, that everything needs to be changed back to CDFS. This is something that can not be done via formatting in Disk Management, but if it were, I assume that it would be necessary to copy/paste the U3 files elsewhere, and copy/pasted back after formatting is finished to preserve the files. However, this leaves two questions.is there something else involved that is not apparent on the surface, that would need to be addressed to restore the drive properly, and what to use to do the formatting? If you only want a thumb drive, then use Angie's solution or buy a different model without U3.
I've had a U3 for several years and I think it really has a place in a PC tech's toolkit. If you can find a useful application that is written to U3 specs, it is a great solution. Avast makes a U3 version of their virus scanner. A great way to be safe as you move from machine to machine. Thornsoft has a clipboard extender product called Clipmate that runs totally on the U3. I can take all of my favorite settings, passwords (encrypted), and all of my clips from machine to machine legally.
How many times have you needed to load a helpful utility to a friend's or client's machine, use it, and then have to uninstall it before you leave to stay marginally legal. If you have U3 applications, all of the programs execute and all of the needed data is stored on the U3 drive and you are totally legal and it just saved you a bunch of time not having to install and uninstall the utility you need. And I don't have to run CCleaner to clean up any mess I've left behind, because there isn't any. The U3 concept is a very good one, but you need to read the U3 consortium's website info to really understand the ins and outs. If you haven't read the manual, don't complain when something goes wrong. I personally love my U3 and plan to buy a bigger version soon.
Where else can you get truly portable and legal apps that work on any machine (with the correct OS) without having to go through the install process. I think there are partitioning apps out there such as HPs flash formatter that can clean off your thumb drive and U3 allows you to install the latest version of their software from the U3 website. I have not seen the CDFS issue, but usually flash drives want to use FAT32. As I understand it NTFS is not desirable on flash drives although I am using it on an SSD. I received a phone call to look at this page, because a person purchased a USB mem chip, and called me because it had something on it she couldn't under stand, she searched and eventually ended up on this page after she decided she wanted to remove it.
U3 Flash Drive Software
I went over this page with her, I got a few laughs, and mainly I really want to open a few peoples eyes to reality. USB drives are not stable, and not fully reliable, though many will work for long periods, you WILL run into corrupt data. If you use them for encrypting your passwords and storing them, and don't maintain a written or secondary copy, one day you will lose it all. USB is in more accurate terms, SSD, meaning Solid State Drive, USB is just the connection type for that drive, and SSD handles data differently than a REAL hard drive. Which has a FAR GREATER chance of recovering data with much easier methods than SSD. Personally, I SSD from my experience, is far less secure, deleting only moves the data, it doesn't record like a true hard disk, do a little research on data recovery seminars on youtube, you will find the more involved information you need to understand why SSD is so high risk you need to avoid it use for anything you may need a password for. I've had a U3 for several years and I think it really has a place in a PC tech's toolkit.
I wouldn't understand any system technician needing some program that is not legal to run on any machine he or she is working on. I am a well known tech, I do a lot of extensive recovery work, from personal to sensitive business systems. I keep only a few things, a good large hard drive to recover data to temporarily, several cd's and dvd's that are bootable with various custom OS's, and containing the softwares I use. AND it is fully legal to run these on any number of computers I choose, because these tools have special licenses by their given nature or they would be worthless. I despise U3, and all other similar types of programs, for their false security they promote. Avast makes a U3 version of their virus scanner.
A great way to be safe as you move from machine to machine. One thing I see you have right, Avast is a great company, I communicate with regularly, and maintaining a FREE version for home/personal users, which I fully promote, WITH the instruction to use it free, and learn it, and after you fully understand the way the software works purchase it to get the added benefits.
I prefere Avast due to the speed of updated definitions in their data base, and their promise to have those updates online within 24 hours of a discovered virus being posted on ICAR or various other places. This is where my use of a simple USB drive comes in.
I just keep a small one with simple formatting, and used as data only storage. I have several Freeware programs I will install for people and show them the basics to get them started. I have several versions for businesses I do the same with.
Still with this there is no reason for me to obtain licenses other than what I have as all the stuff on my USB memory chip is freely downloadable, with trial period options. All of these I can easily replace, and I do retain 2 to 3 versions of everything on 1 USB chip. So if I ran U3 it would be IN MY FACE EVERY TIME I plugged it in a computer, and I DO NOT HAVE TIME for that junk. That is another reason, and in it's own is enough just like the false security. So each in it's own way is more than enough reason NOT to have any U3 or similar. Thornsoft has a clipboard extender product called Clipmate that runs totally on the U3. I can take all of my favorite settings, passwords (encrypted), and all of my clips from machine to machine legally.
If your a student, and needing to do work in several special programs, and choose to use a USB chip, you DO NOT need U3 to do it. Considering the fact that the schools have labs with the software needed, you only need to edit/save your files on your chip, do not allow local saves on the computer, such when you close it asks to save changes to, or save as project, just pay attention to where you are saving, and what you are saving, don't just click and run. And I don't have to run CCleaner to clean up any mess I've left behind, because there isn't any. Why would anyone need to run CCleaner AFTER cleaning up some ones computer and fixing it?
I leave everyone with maintenance software I have found to be most reliable of all available, or in some rare cases, easiest to use with some level of reliability, and all is either free or with trial periods. All the best companies offer these; FREE for home use. Trial for Business use. AND the big, and most IMPORTANT feature of all; A REMOVAL TOOL THAT WIPES IT ALL OUT. Not just a few files, like those antiviruses provided by comcast and a few others which are as bad as an infection, and many times even worse.
But I like those too, YES, they give me WORK, they promise me they will mess up one computer after another and leave me an endless line of JOB SECURITY. I think there are partitioning apps out there such as HPs flash formatter that can clean off your thumb drive and U3 allows you to install the latest version of their software from the U3 website. I have not seen the CDFS issue, but usually flash drives want to use FAT32. As I understand it NTFS is not desirable on flash drives although I am using it on an SSD. Hmmm, well, for starters, today there are not many systems running other than NTFS, if however, that is a concern to you, try partitioning and running a FAT32 and NTSF partitions.
ALL windows OS systems contain partitioning tools, and M$ has a very extensive and well structured and easy for you to follow set of help and support files on the Technet website. If you are at this stage of need and digging this deep, you won't have any problems going there and do this yourself. +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= OK, here it is. Now that I explained some facts, here is the easy way to remove U3. Make your self a good bootable disk, floppy is fine, such as the Windows Start-Up Disk, I like to keep an old w98se and wme pair of disks around to teach with, they contain all the tools you will ever need for this task, mainly FDISK, and FORMAT. Turn your computer off, plug in your usb chip (usb 1.0 for fat32, 2.0 for NTFS, but you will need an XP NTFS startup disk with FDISK and FORMAT on it) boot up the computer, tapping F8 untill you get the boot menu if needed to force it to boot from your startup disk you prepared.
After booting run the FDISK utility, and you see 4 options, you can create logical, or extended, delete, and view. You will want to view to see what partitions you do have, then run the delete options, deleting any and all logical and extended partitions on the USB chip.
View again to be sure there are NO partitions left on the chip. Create a Logical partition only, and use the full amount of space available. Format, and select your choice of full format.
Remove the startup disk, if you wish you may remove the USB chip also, and reboot into your normal OS. Plug in the USB chip or open your file viewing program and inspect your USB chip size, and format, it should be ready, and empty, you should have only seen a USB mass storage device installation occur, no CRUZER or other devices, and you should also have seen an option to pick a way to view your new device. All I intend to do is help people avoid the scams by the big companies who use malicious methods to deceive you into using their malwares and keep paying into their system to monopolize YOU.
It will stop you from learning, and advancing, you will become dependent on them for everything, their apps, if you call them by that CLICHE, and you will be their enslaved prisoner. I run about every OS you can imagine, and I have servers running 24 hours a day under different OS's and technology levels as far back as WinME on a simple 750 Mhz Duron and serving well effortlessly. It's not what you run, it's how you run it, how you maintain it, and what is available for it. Today there are 3 OS's that far surpass any others for opportunity with coices of available software that DOES run well, these are; XP Pro w/SP2 and up. Vista Ult x86 w/SP2 (to cure all the problems that scared people way from vista) Seven x86 (most versatile of all) With the x64 systems quickly moving up into a far better level of uses than previously known to home computing. As more and more programs are being updated to work well in the x64 environment. Allan kardec e-books.
Unix would be next. Then Linux but very insecure do to it being tooled up by everyday programmers, and many wannabe programmers keeping the doors open for security breaches. I would be left without the low level of Linux on a bootable cd, for running under the security barriers to do recoveries. Linux doesn't understand Windows Security so it passes through a disk containing with very few limitations when running in a live ram drive configuration.
MAC from experience, I call the current Dinosaur because of the lack of software available that runs very well, the cost is way over priced, ill equipped systems requiring expensive add on external parts, yes it can run SOME windows software, with programs like Bootcamp, but they eat up all your resources to run those leaving almost nothing for the windows software to run, and MS designed the software for MAC to run Windows stuff, NOT MAC. Why not just add a second hard drive, and install Windows, set up a dual boot option or use other means to choose which disk to boot from. I don't advertise, spam or try to drum business for myself, I have enough, I try to direct people to things that will enable them to learn right, and to efficiently manage their own systems.
I am not associated with any company, I contract by the job and do it, and move on. I recommend how and what to learn for the best level of security, otherwise I am not doing unto others as would choose to have them do to me!
Must have tools for every computer user, Avast5 from www.avast.com, Spybot Search and Destroy 6.2 from www.safer-networking.org, Spywareblaster from www.javacoolsoftware.com, Malwarebytes Antimalware from www.malwarebytes.org, and Ad-Aware from www.lavasoft.com, all of which maintain a FREE version continually updated, and that is important to do daily or weekly, and as you get to understand how to use them, and feel ready to get the extra advantage of features offered by obtaining a puchased license, I am sure you won't be disappointed. You MUST maintain very stringent concerns when locating the software, because the better they are, the more likely it is you can be deceived by some web site and download and install a counterfeit forgery with a very malicious intent. Ont he download pages, be carefull, many of the sites that mirror these to help relieve the download bandwidth issues contain ads, and MOST of those ads will will DECEIVE people who try to download one of these programs who think they are getting the program but actually getting something from an advertiser on the download sites page. Such as the case with MajorGeeks, or FileHippo, you need to be very diligent in reading that page, and just holding your mouse over the link to be sure it is the file your after, your staus bar on your browser is like your dash board on your car, cover it up and your sure to get a ticket have a serious breakdown. Also when you search, you will get the frauds, for instance, if you search for Ad-Aware, you will see things like AdWare, Ad-ware, ads-aware, etc. BE SURE LETTER FOR LETTER DOT FOR DOT.
I personally am tired of being physical with a computer, I don't like to have to sMACk and Toss it about, I prefer to use the BIG GUNS and just POINT AND CLICK. 7 Ult x64, 4.6Gig Quad, Triple SLi.
And know the Truth. Class is over, discussion settled, all questions answered, properly, your assignments are to go pick up a small cheap U3 USB chip and experiment with FDISK to understand what partitions are, and how to delete and create them. Then read up on formats and see which will suit your needs best. I was around here when Tom put his first web site up dealing with hardware, I watched it grow, and I have to admit the end of the first year it was at it's best. Someone longer winded than me. Angie's post was in the queue just before mine, have no idea where it went.
I would agree with the assessment of thumb drives, but certainly some are better built than others. You probably get what you pay for. Go with someone you trust and not just the special of the day. If you were to keep a 'password safe' on the USB drive, I would hope you would back it up often to your main system.
The thumbdrive as a tech toolkit is a great idea. You can keep links on the thumb drive to resources and include utilities that you might want to use on a client's machine.
You can also create a bootable thumb drive to be able to access partition management or defragging software or just to be able to boot a non-bootable system. All I can say about the U3 concept is that there were people who ported their applications to be portable with the U3 drive. They must have seen a need for their software in that format. As for now, I haven't been able to reach www.U3.com at all. I wonder if U3 is now a dead product/platform. For all the idiots that don't know, in my highschool, ever studen't got a free usb thumb drive so they could transfer homework and have no excuses.
The students were saying that this annoying u3 launcher opens up, the school tech lady, said you can open the launch pad it self, go to settings, and uninstall it. And that solves the problem for any version of U3, so. For all the idiots installing it on your pc. Or trying to download fake programs. THE U3 HAS A UNINSTALL BUTTON!!!!! THAT U CAN CLICK ON!!! U3-tool 0.3 - U3 USB stick manager Usage: u3-tool options Options: -c Change password -d Disable device security -D Dump all raw info(for debug) -e Enable device security -h Print this help message -i Display device info -l Load CD image into device -p Repartition device -R Reset device security, destroying private data -u Unlock device -v Use verbose output -V Print version information For the device name use: The drive letter of the device u3-tool -p 0 (eg.
'u3-tool -p 0 i') NOTE: You will have to SET a password in order to be able to disable/change security and password. You can do this through the u3 launchpad from the auto run programs that the device forces apon you.