Finding Answers and Getting Help

By default, SafeHouse creates its encrypted volume (container) file in the root of drive C. This has always worked very nicely; however, starting with Vista, the operating system adds extra protection to files in the root which causes and undesired read only behavior for SafeHouse. The solution is simply to move your SafeHouse .SDSK volume file(s) to some other directory.

Registered SafeHouse users may obtain the latest point release for their major software version at any time. For example, if you purchased any 2.xx version, you are entitled to all 2.xx updates. Click here for details.

For registered users, simply download and install again using the link and activation key provided by email at the time of purchase. If you lost the email, click here to apply for an update and have the link information emailed to you. The system can look you up using your email address. Unregistered users should download the trial version again. Once SafeHouse is up and running, you can copy your volume files to your new drive from your most-recent backup.

Please visit our Application Support page for details and information about using SafeHouse with popular software products such as word processors and email programs.

We sometimes receive reports of Explorer windows popping up when mapping volumes even when the /explore feature was not selected; and in some cases, two windows when the /explore feature is selected. This is due to Windows detecting a new fixed drive coming online and trying to be extra helpful by showing you its contents in a window. Since Windows is popping up one Explorer window automatically, you may wish to remove the /explore option from the map shortcut to prevent SafeHouse from additionally showing an Explorer window. Alternatively, starting with SafeHouse v2.10, a /removable command line option is supported for mapping which forces SafeHouse volumes to appear as removable media instead of fixed drives. Windows does not automatically display Explorer windows for new removable media volumes. The only down side to this is that you lose the recycle bin inside the SafeHouse volume. If you are using the SafeHouse system tray utility to map your volumes, the aforementioned options can be adjusted using the property page checkboxes. See the next topic for information about other solutions.

Note: The v2.10.072 update released on 3/2/2002 includes enhancements to minimize or eliminate this problem.

The simplest way to prevent Windows from popping up Explorer windows when you map volumes is to always map using the /removable option (starting with v2.10). This can be done by placing a file named config.ini in your SafeHouse program directory containing the two lines shown below. Click here to download this file and save it to your SafeHouse program directory; typically named C:\Program Files\SafeHouse.

If you installed SafeHouse on a PC running Windows 95/98/Me and then subsequently upgrade your system to XP, SafeHouse will fail to load its device driver. The reason for this is that a different driver is needed for XP. The solution is to run the SafeHouse setup program again. The required changes will be made automatically and SafeHouse will run fine after you restart your system. You do not need to uninstall and no changes will be made to your encrypted volumes during this procedure. Please note that you must use SafeHouse v2.10 or later on XP.

Microsoft introduced a new feature into Me called System File Protection which interferes with how SafeHouse interacts with encrypted volumes. Starting with SafeHouse version 2.00, SafeHouse switched to using .SDSK instead of .DSK as its standard volume file extension in order to circumvent this problem. Please make sure your volumes all use the new .SDSK extension.

SafeHouse supports volumes as large as 2048GB on Windows NT, however, a few extra steps are required because NT does not support the FAT32 disk format. Windows 2000 and XP do not require these extra steps.

First, as in all cases when using volumes greater than 4GB, your host drive must be formatted using NTFS. Create your volume at the desired size and specify the file system format to be NONE. Once the volume is created, map it to a drive letter and use the standard NT FORMAT.EXE program to format the drive letter for the mapped volume using NTFS. Be careful not to reformat your host drive! That's it. The volume may now be used normally.

There are some documented bugs in some versions of Windows that could affect your ability to freely copy or move large volume files. First, please know that SafeHouse volume files are ordinary disk files. As long as the volume is not currently mapped, you should be able to copy them or back them up just as you would for any other file. If you are using Windows 98 and receive the message "Cannot create or replace Filename: the parameter is incorrect", then the solution is to open a DOS box and perform the copy using the DOS copy command. This gets around the bug in the Explorer shell. There are also some problems on Windows 2000 (Microsoft Q259837) which are corrected in service pack 2. Finally, please be aware that the largest file possible on a FAT32 drive is 4GB. This is a theoretical limit and the only solution is to use the NTFS disk format that is native to NT/2000/XP.

SafeHouse supports mapping volumes on most network file servers. This feature is compatible with Novell servers when using the Novell Netware network provider designed by Microsoft and included with Windows. However, if you instead use the Netware network provider created by Novell, you will not be able to map SafeHouse volumes residing on your Netware file servers due to a known problem with this driver. This is not a bug in SafeHouse and is unfortunately out of our control.

SafeHouse volumes appear to Windows NT and Windows 2000 as normal SCSI hard drives. This allows you to use the standard Windows FORMAT.EXE program to reformat the volume to any desired format supported by your version of Windows. Please note that once you reformat a volume to a format that is not natively supported by SafeHouse, it can no longer be resized.

SafeHouse volumes may be placed on CD ROMs and other read-only media and mapped directly to a Windows drive letter with needing to be copied to your hard drive. You must check the Read Only checkbox when using the mapping utility, or alternatively, specify the /READONLY option on the SDWMAP32.EXE command line. If the volume file on the CD already has the read-only attribute set, then SafeHouse will know to automatically map the volume in read-only mode.

SafeHouse does not automatically change the encryption method used on a volume when you upgrade to newer or stronger versions of the software. This is for your protection since any unexpected system failure would cause irreparable damage to your volumes. The solution is to create a new volume using the desired algorithm and size and then use a simple drag and drop operation to copy the files from the old volume to the new one. You will need to map both volumes at the same time to accomplish this. Once you are satisfied the transfer was successful, you may delete the old volume.

Normally, SafeHouse places an exclusive file lock on a mapped volume to ensure its integrity. This is important because of the way Windows performs file system caching. SafeHouse may not, under any circumstances, allow two people to have write access to a volume at the same time. To have a volume be simultaneously accessible to more than one network user, all users must map the volume for read-only access. This is most-easily accomplished using the /READONLY command line option for the SDWMAP32.EXE utility. Once a volume is mapped in read-only mode by any network user, no other user will be allowed to map the volume for writing. A common practice used in this kind of environment is to have two copies of each public SafeHouse volume; one is the master and updateable only by the administrator, and the other is a recent copy of the master and is used for public read-only access over the network.

SafeHouse volumes are not associated with a specific machine or hard drive. You may copy a volume at any time to a new drive, ZIP disk, network server or CD ROM.

PC Dynamics cannot help you recover lost passwords. If we could, the product would not be secure. If you've lost your password, the only way to recover is to use the product's administrative password recovery feature which must have been implemented in advance of creating the volume you are unable to access.

SafeHouse encrypted volumes may be safely backed up to other drives or tape. To do this in a way that remains secure, you must unmap the volume and back up the large volume file. This is the only way your data will be stored in an encrypted format. If instead, you map your volume and instruct your backup utility to back up the Windows drive letter used by the volume, then the saved files will not be encrypted.

If you are a registered SafeHouse customer and need to update your email address or other contact information, please click here and follow the instructions for getting the latest code update. One of the screens will allow you to change your contact information.

Although you never need to worry about erasing evidence of files contained within a SafeHouse volume (they are encrypted), you must be careful about leaving traces of old files on your main hard drive. Deleting files does not completely remove them. You might consider using a secure delete program to eliminate any evidence of these files after they have been relocated to a SafeHouse drive. Eraser is a popular free utility that can help clean up your drives.

SafeHouse volume files are just regular Windows files. Provided the volumes are not in use (not mapped to a drive letter), you can delete them with Explorer by right clicking on them and selecting the Delete menu item. We recommend using Shift + Delete to bypass your recycle bin and save a few steps.