Talk:U3/Archive 1

I archived this page because it was more than 30kb. Bry9000 (talk) 22:58, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Advantages?
I think it would be great to figure out the advantages of U3. Unfortunately the website is not clear to me.

This article linked from their website confuses me. http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/index.php/id;1808953200;fp;2;fpid;1

It's not possible at the moment to run an application directly off a portable USB drive, and the U3 platform will allow users to do that," said Tricia Arana, a spokeswoman for startup U3, which announced the platform earlier this year. "It can be considered to be a portable virtual desktop on its own," she said. The data remains stored on the USB drive; none of it is transferred to a PC.

First I HAVE used programs from a regular USB drive, also I think "none of it is transferred to a PC." is incorrect. So what did she mean to say?

Am I just being paranoid? To me it seems the idea is to make more money by forcing people to buy more expensive USB devices. Like I said paranoid, anyway I would like to understand what they are talking about. It is worth noting is that you can run applications from read-only media also, such as a cd or dvd. Unoriginal 14:47, 29 August 2005 (UTC)'''
 * It's a marketing thing. Programs are packaged specially, and in order to be certified programs have to obey certain rules about unobtrusiveness.
 * U3 technology can indeed copy files or registry data to the host computer, but it must be removed when the U3 drive is ejected to be fully U3 compliant. However, the application doesn't have to install files to the host computer; it can run fully from the flash drive.
 * However, most applications do a combo of both; install executables and DLLs to a temporary folder, and leave configuration data (that will exist from session to session) on the flash drive.
 * U3.com provides a good bit of info.
 * The original question has never been answered. Can someone please explain what "applications can be executed directly from a specially formatted USB flash drive" means? What prevents executing applications directly from a standard USB flash drive? I do it all the time. This article shouldn'tuncritically repeat misleading marketingspeak. Ntsimp 14:27, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I have added a couple sentences to the intro which should better definne the advanteges of u3. TimL 05:38, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

What makes U3 hardware different?
I still do not understand why the u3 compatible flash drives have to be different in terms of hardware. Any USB flash could have an autostart loader for programs, where is the need for specific hardware?
 * I'm confused on this too. Can any usb drive potentially become a u3 compatable drive?
 * As I understand it, the hardware is the same, but with partitions.
 * Here's my 5 cents: on a U3-USB-stick there is a up to 5 MB large launchpad read-only partition which has to be factory written.  That's why you can't just transform any ol' USB stick into a U3-USB-stick.  Apart from this small ROM-unit the hardware is identical, which keeps prices in line with regular USB sticks. Maikel 19:51, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
 * A regular USB flash drive can not autorun like a CD/DVD. Neither can an external USB hard drive.  It's a Windows restriction.  U3 drives have some way of fooling Windows into thinking that part of the drive is a CD-ROM drive, so Windows will kick off the autorun located there. Ratbert42 10:23, 14 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The USB controller on the device presents to the operating system two different drives. The controller tells the computer that one drive is a standard disk drive and the other device is a CDROM. The controller has to be specially made to do this. You would not be able to convert a normal USB disk into this. I wonder if it is possible to load the startup software onto a standard USB disk and then manually start it without the autorun. jteich 4:19, 29 Nov 2006 (UTC)

The article section "hardware" says: Disk Management shows two drives, one drive has a CDFS partition with the autorun and LaunchPad, and the other drive has a FAT partition that includes a hidden SYSTEM folder with your installed applications. I think that there are several problems with this Whatever is done, it should be include links to other relevant articles.
 * What is "Disk Management"? If it is some piece of MS WindowsXP, say so.  That isn't hardware.  Talk in terms of the USB specification.
 * CDFS is not a partition type. CDFS is surely not what is meant.  CDFS is (among other things) the name of a 32-bit MS Windows driver.  Probably what is meant is ISO 9660 plus some extensions.
 * FAT is too generic a term. FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 are all different.  Most likely FAT32 is used (to allow for greater than 2GiB)

My pure guess is that this presents itself as a USB hub with two different USB mass storage device class devices behind it. One looks like a CD drive with a CD-ROM in it. The "disk" would follow ISO 9660 perhaps with El Torito extensions so that it could be booted from. The second device would be a plain ordinary flash drive (USB mass storage device class formatted with FAT32) DHR 18:49, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

only a "standard" for some
This "standard" is not (yet?) widely adopted. About half the industry players seem to be pushing the U3 standard, and the first production line with "U3 compatible" drives was in october/november 2005.

How to uninstall?
I've recently obtained a U3 Flash drive, and the latest version of the U3 system has the ability to remove U3 and transform it to a standard USB drive.

U3 -> Status and Settings -> Remove -> Uninstall

--- I'm speaking from recent experience. The U3 flashes are being sold with no warning at all what they are. I believed I was buying 2 gigs of flash space, and I only found out different when I put it into my machine. What if that had been not two mysterious and unexpected partitions and stuff on them; but serious malware? So I feel the sales tactic of dumping the U3 stuff on users is ill advised. (If I've busted protocols here I apologize: I'm not an experienced Wiki user.) -- Martha Adams, mhada@verizon.net ---

CobraA1 22:22, 30 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The article notes that a uninstaller was created in response to criticism from Best Buy. If the reason for the criticism is gone, then should it be removed from the article altogether, or should the article move it somewhere else, such as a "U3 Responses to Criticism" header? 71.103.112.18 00:03, 5 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, the article says that "U3 has responded to this criticism as they have recently made available an uninstall feature on their website." This may be misleading, as the feature has been added to recent updates of Launchpad software on the drive itself, not just on a website. Perhaps this could be phrased differently to make it clearer that soon after the uninstall was made available on the website, it was also made available on the drive itself? CobraA1 06:06, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

There are no tools that allow users of "other systems" (anything besides 2K and XP) to remove the U3 "features". And the only way to Uninstall U3, under 2K and XP, is to first Install the driver-management-etc. package. Which is exactly what someone who does not want U3 does not want to EVER do. So, someone who really wants to completely avoid U3 still has no options, when stuck with a USB drive with U3 "features". 69.87.204.122 22:40, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

There is a report that it is possible to use Virtual PC on a Mac to mount the USB drive and run the uninstall program. 69.87.193.21 21:54, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Windows XP PE (Preinstall Environment) boot CDs, with no hard drive, are able to see the SanDisk Cruzer 1GB USB partitions (coldplug, not hotplug). They see the CD-emulation partition and it's contents; there does not seem to be any way to see these contents in any Linux LiveCD, which seems odd. But it does not seem possible to run any of the U3 software, not any version of LaunchPad or LaunchpadRemoval. LP must be running to run LR. Which is crazy, since the whole purpose of removing is to avoid running LaunchPad. There does not seem to be any safe way of uninstalling the U3 features, without the unknown risks of running the proprietary software on a real live XP system. 69.87.199.176 21:48, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Warning when using launchpad provided uninstall tool: Two choice:backup your data (863MB) or not. I select backup "it take 36min to proseed uninstall. Are you sure or not" Yes After some minutes: "there was problem, you'll find backup data from C:\documentsetting\aplicationdata\U3\temp\.." Check backup dir: 0 bytes Stick was dead, windows don't find it anymore etc. My linux guru friend help me and was able to partition and format it again. I lost only data on stick. Happy now U3 was gone. --

Linux CD-partition Viewing Tools?
The CD-ROM partition is the second LUN, read-only, and somewhat hidden. What easy-to-use Linux tools exist to see this partition? What Live-CD or Live-DVD is best? On a new Compaq Presario V5303NR, a number were tested with a new SanDisk Micro Cruzer U3 1GB, SDCZ6-1024-A10. Knoppix 5.0 DVD and Slax 5.0.6 CD did not seem to see the CD partition. PCLinuxoS 0.92 CD did see /dev/sr0 /mnt/cdrom2 scsi/.../lun1/cd, but there was no obvious way to mount/view it. RR4 3.0b0 did best, showing /media/sr0 LUN:01 CD-ROM U3 Cruzer, but just thought it was a blank CD. (They all seemed to have no trouble seeing the regular USB MSC partition, and working with it in normal ways.) 69.87.204.122 22:57, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Faults in Article
I'm horrible at editing the wiki, so I just want to point out a few things.

1) "Problems - Where a user has insufficient privileges he may run into problems getting the launcher to work. In such a case the launcher might actually prove a hinderance to using the device"

---Note that by pressing and holding shift, you may disable autoplay preventing U3 Launchpad from loading. (tested under windows XP with a Sandisk 1 Gig drive)
 * Source  U3 website, common questions

Also, it appears that as a limited user, one may circumvent the privileged escalation denial by entering the old Windows 2000 style login on XP   (Press and hold the Alt + Ctrl keys, then press the Delete key twice). Once there, enter your login user name. Then insert your U3 drive. If you quickly type in your password, the U3 software will often load. (Checked at school, limited rights user setup as default)

2) Benefits •	Software can be taken with all its personalised (sp personalized) settings to any computer running a compatible version of Microsoft Windows, with no need to install the software if not already there, or to use different settings and options, and no need for administrator access privileges.

3)This is due to Best Buy's Geek Squad who in early 2006 raised the issue of not being able to uninstall U3, and got them to write a (an) uninstaller for first the Geek Squad branded drives and then all the U3 drives

I have some other stuff that should be added, I'll add more here when I have the time. If sources are needed, I'll try to find the articles that pointed what I wrote out, its just that your not going to find a "credible" source on the login bypass.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.224.85.47 (talk • contribs) 04:05, 8 December 2006


 * I've seen hinderance/hindrance spelled both ways. But I changed a uninstaller to an uninstaller. Melonjuice 20:50, 9 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I removed that spelling fix after noticing an online dictionary referring hinderance to hindrance as an alternative spelling, I originally posted that because both Word and my in browser spell checker tagged it. I finally got around to registering, so I am the above poster by the way. OpEd 02:23, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Critical NPOV-ness
The Criticisms section is poorly written and quite non-NPOV. E.g.:

Additionally, since the data partition is not encrypted, an end-user's data may not actually be secure as the U3 CD-ROM partition can be easily be used to store any program.[10] However, no one has posted a USB U3 drive hack program yet, so how would anyone find or recover otherwise "locked" data?

Apparently these additions were made by Peterblaise.

-- Peter Blaise here: There's scant little evidence that U3 is either secure or hackable. In other words: there's no proof for a prospective buyer that U3 is secure in any way the purchasing customer expects, and, there's no tool yet to recover locked U3 data. I do not understand so-called "NPOV" objections here. I'm only stating facts and concerns about U3 appropriateness. Most people want to control their data - keep it private but recover it after a crash. No one has shown how U3 meets that criteria in either protecting data from unwanted scrutiny, nor in recovering lost data on a U3 drive. I'm not against U3, I'm merely pointing out a mismatch - the market apparently thinks one thing, and the product delivers another and may not match purchaser's expectations. So, if what I write is accurate, where do you think it should go? Perhaps I should copy these notes to a "U3 general specifications" section and NOT bury it in a criticism section? ;-) - Peter Blaise, 2007-03-27 8:24 a.m. EST peterblaise@yahoo.com (and, hey, everyone, get the Google Toolbar so you can spill-chick! (I fixed a few.)

--155.97.18.144 20:16, 31 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with the above user. The additions appear to violate NPOV and should not be in the criticisms section and appear to have more focus than the :actual criticism.


 * I suggest that the following sections should be removed or rewritten (possibly to talk for further discussion).

''Note: this also happens with many USB or CD/auto-play systems where unforeseen incompatibilities come into play, such as, when any part of the              system goes to sleep, how does it wake up? Can any other part of the system wake it up or can only itself wake itself up? USB inconsistencies abound and are NOT a problem with U3; rather, USB problems are a problem with USB. ''
 * ---Poorly Written, perhaps a comment that the structure of the USB interface may affect all such USB drives in a similar negative fashion?

''- but again, there is as yet no independent, objective testing standard to compare against. For instance, what is the alternative to USB or U3 flash drives? Does anyone know the reliability of those? Does anyone know how implement a standard to test and compare?''
 * --- See above comment

''Note: the purpose of uninstalling it to revert the USB flash drive to be equivalent to a non-U3 device, presumably to use the storage on systems incompatible with U3 (Mac?). With the price of USB drives failing, none of these limits seems a show stopper, and users will carry a variety of USB drives without hesitation.''
 * --- NPOV violation, seems to support the purchase of U3 drives in the criticisms section. Also, if the U3 device is not password protected, it should be viewable under Mac and Linux as a generic USB drive.  (If source needed, browse the U3 site or let me know and I'll see if I can find it.)

However, no one has posted a USB U3 drive hack program yet, so how would anyone find or recover otherwise "locked" data?
 * --- A question presented as a statement in the article. Also, I agree that this breaks the NPOV, again because of its location in the criticisms section.

Again, this is a USB problem, and older computers are less likel to behave well with any newer USB devices.
 * --- Notice the spelling error in likely, see first correction.

However, since it does not require computer administrator privileges to run, this "right" issue seems moot - Microsoft Windows security systems so far do not presume to include USB flash drives in "admin versus user" sign on rights.
 * --- Notice spelling errors in "privileges" and "flash" above. I hope it wasn't my comment about bypassing the log-in at school that suggested such a              statement to be true.  To update the U3 drives, a user needs administrative privileges and the group policy settings can cause a conflict with the U3 drive, resulting in a failure to launch launchpad and the disappearance of the Generic USB Volume drive in My Computer.  If citations are necessary, will screen shots qualify?  Wikipedia specifies that sources must be reliable Internet/print sources, but for technical issues will bug reports and screen  shots do?

''U3 website knowledge base says Vista support will only be available after Vista's official launch.(Version 1.4 supports Vista)Data will continue to be accessible from any OS capable of reading from USB Mass Storage Devices, unless the U3 device is password protected [4]. "If the OS in question can normally see ordinary USB flash drives, then the U3 smart drive removable mass storage area (domain) should still be avai'lable for standard file system activities unless it is a private area protected by a password.
 * --- First of all, Vista has launched as a consumer platform. Second, Vista still appears unable to run Launchpad (source- http://portableapps.com/node/4744)

"Well, you are absolutely correct. I recently replaced a 7 yr. old Win XP PC with a new Vista PC, and indeed it does fail. I needed to get some items off the drive so I had to go back to a WinXP PC to retrieve them. I called SanDisk support, and they usually have been good about things like this, but all they told me a firmware update is needed, and if I wait until March, I can purchase their new Contour drives. I told them, "not going to happen", I purchased this two months ago, and I am not about to lay out more money for more USB drives. He then said, just keep an eye out, and it should be available soon (for my U3 Titanium drive)."
 * --- Other statements on the page concurred with the above user that Vista cannot indeed support Launchpad as of February 6th 2007 (his post date).

If my formatting is horrible, anyone is welcome to fix it, sorry. OpEd 06:21, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

The "Stress on drives" item could do with being rewritten as well; most of the current text shouldn't really be on this page; ISTM that this criticism applies to USB drives in general, and should probably be moved over to the USB drives page Raftermast 11:36, 10 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I've tidied up a few of the criticisms against U3 to make it more NPOV (the "compatibility criticism in particular), and give a more neutral tone. Raftermast 03:42, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Security Problem?
I'm not very familiar with this software, but I have heard from a source of admittedly spotty reliability that one can install a program such as a password recovery tool onto a U3 drive from an account with Administrator privileges, and then run it on any computer on whatever account they're signed in on, regardless of user type. Is this true? If so, this is a huge security risk. Is there a patch I can download to protect against it, or a setting to disable that function? -- A concerned parent of a computer wizard, March 3, 2007


 * What you heard is partially true, solutions exist to replace the default U3 software with a prepackaged iso (see the switchblade and hacksaw packages) and they can indeed be run on a computer that does not have an administrator logged on, however the program will fail to dump the password hash in that situation. Thus nothing bad happens.  However, in most cases a computer is left logged on with an administrator account allowing such exploitation.  If someone has the capability and knowledge required to operate a package like the switchblade your computer is compromised anyway.

OpEd 05:01, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Would it be a good idea to link to the article by Jacob Löfvenberg ( http://www2.foi.se/rapp/foir2078.pdf ) ?


 * Not on the English wikipedia... besides its possible to do many of the things he cites on a regular flashdrive, people just aren't intelligent enough to do so. One way is through execution on opening a folder, say opening the flashdrive's folder in my computer... who plugs in a flashdrive without the intention of accessing it?

OpEd 05:01, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

See WP:NPOV and similar policies.
The below section, while perhaps relevant, fails to meet encyclopaedia standards. It is original research, it is non-neutral point of view, and it needs citing. Once/if these three problems can be dealt with, you might put it back. But I doubt that 'll happen. ~AFA If I swear, I could get into trouble. Fuck that is a scary thought. 06:54, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

tantamount to a virus?
This article does read pretty much like an advertisement like the warning at the top of the page says. Let me balance that by providing a first-hand account of one person's unfortunate encounter with this very poorly behaved software. - 		 - 	I bought a new 2G Sandisk Cruze flash drive (big mistake) and plugged it in to my computer (even bigger mistake) The result was that: 1. it registered itself as a cd-rom device, and 2. it immediately began installing and running software. This is right out of the box and i did nothing other than plug it in to my usb port. Some people might consider this about the same as getting a virus on your computer. It's as if you walk in to Circuit City and say "i'd like to buy a virus for my computer!" and the clerk says "here you go, take this sandisk flash drive. It's easy to install the virus, just plug it in to your usb port and let it do the rest!" Thanks sandisk, for foisting more intrusive, obnoxious, unpredictable and damaging software on the unsuspecting world. This product should be taken off the market immediately.


 * Pointing out the obvious, but this is literally the same "risk" as you have with putting a CDROM into your computer.


 * If you are really concerned about MS Window's autorun feature, you should seriously consider disabling this functionality on your computer (something I personally would recommend everyone does anyway!)


 * Your edit to the original article shows that (perhaps bizarrely) U3 devices are clearly a highly emotional issue for you; likening these devices to a virus and that they should be "taken off the market immediately" is neither correct, nor could it be ever be seen as an objective viewpoint (it's a loooooooong way away from WP:NPOV!)


 * There are valid reasons why MS introduced an "autorun" feature (i.e. for those users who don't know/understand what "drives", etc are) - though as far as I can see, anyone with even a minimal competence in using a PC should really be disabling it at around the same time they turn off the annoying (though mercifully short) "start" tune played when Windows starts up... Raftermast 19:30, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Potential virus threat:
 * http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/88/454451/30/150/threaded


 * Seriously, all i'm saying is that there should be a standardized warning on these things so that unsuspecting people can be clearly forewarned before they buy. For those of us who have been down that road, a clear and standard warning would allow you to confidently buy the kind you want.


 * Moved the rest of my opinions to my blog...
 * Scurbro 23:59, 9 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Point taken... Raftermast 17:54, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I dont know why some of the things i deleted got put back in here, but oh well i'm not too worried about it Raftermast. Let me just say this though: I don't care how many time you use italics and "quotes" it's still not the same thing!! U3 sucks!! I wouldn't even infect Raftermast's computer with it! Scurbro 16:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Wow, that's quite harsh, I'm a U3 user, and I find it quite useful for managing programs installed on my thumbdrive. Heck, I'm using Opera on U3 right now. I'm not quite sure how to fix the npov on this article, though. --The Listener 17:36, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

"However, the uninstaller doesn't work in all cases..."
I'll try to find a suitable citation, but I'd never heard of U3 until I accidentally encountered it yesterday and I can confirm that it's true that " the uninstaller doesn't work in all cases."

I bought a couple of what I thought were generic SanDisk thumb drives because they were on sale at Staples. My wife and I needed drives with about a 256-512 MB capacity but the 1GB SanDisk Micro U3 was on sale and had the lowest price per MB. On my Mac I spotted the extra crap and was mildly annoyed that it was installed in such a way that Disk Utility couldn't remove it by erasing or repartitioning, but it wasn't a big deal.

On my wife's XP machine, it popped up a boatload of intrusive in-your-face tours and desktop icons and things, like the bloatware that came preinstalled on her machine. The drive was slow to mount. It wasn't clear how you were supposed to eject it, because it presented itself as two devices--did you need to eject both? and it wasn't clear when it was ejected... it appeared that the U3 system kept remounting itself or kept remounting the other drive or something.

Worst yet, her Norton Internet Security package kept popping up warnings about the software trying to address some DNS server it didn't like. My wife isn't the least bit interested in any of this stuff. Her instructions to me were to "buy her a thumb drive," like the other one she has--which turned out to be impossible as it's no longer available...

According to the SanDisk site, all you need to do is "simply go to the U3 Launchpad and, under Settings, select U3 Launchpad settings and click Uninstall." When I tried this, it failed with an error message complaining that it could only uninstall from a single U3 USB device and I should remove the "extra" devices and try again. The problem is that there weren't any extra devices; it was the only USB thumb drive attached. After about an hour of struggling (would it work if I manually ejected one of the two "drives" before running the uninstaller? No. Is it possible that it really did uninstall it and the message was misleading? No. Did I just need to reboot the machine? No. Is it possible that the drive I was using had somehow been corrupted by exposure to the Mac's Disk Utility? No, the virgin drive displayed identical symptoms.) Dpbsmith (talk) 10:51, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I also had troubles uninstalling the U3. When I ran the uninstaller, it asked me to plug in an U3 USB flash drive, but it was already plugged in. Apparently the uninstaller didn't recognized my U3 USB flash drive. I tried it in another computer and then it did work fine. Jayme 17:13, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Missing information
The article states that a U3 drive consists of a read-only ISO 9660 partition, and a standard FAT partition. However, it is obvious that there is another part of the device that is written to by installed software, and which is not accessible to the user - at least from Windows. It would appear to be like a mini-registry. The primary use of this part of the device seems to be to store license information such as license serials and monitor trial periods of software.

It seems strange that there is no information on this. Clearly the software companies must have the full details of the necessary information to write to this part of the device. Jamesthebod 15:36, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The article is correct; when applicable the U3 programs use the windows registry itself and for data like license information it is stored on the fat partition of the disk. Theres a hidden "System" folder on the fat partition, and license information is stored within that; it could be hidden from the windows gui and only viewable in command as well. OpEd 23:53, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

If that is the case, then by uninstalling the U3 software, formatting the drive, and reinstalling the U3 software, you should have a device that is indistinguishable from a new device. But for some U3 software, the device identity does get written to the registry of every PC it is used on. I have read that U3 devices leave behind no evidence that the device was connected to the PC. That is incorrect. --194.46.111.93 15:26, 5 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes (that'd be correct). Ok (Did you read my comment?? This part especially "when applicable the U3 programs use the windows registry itself"). The device doesn't leave behind parts in the registry. You also didn't backup this claim. Furthermore, you confuse the idea of device and software that runs on said device.  The U3 platform can accept many programs, some of which aren't certified and some that are. Just because a program is certified does not guarantee that when terminated unexpectedly it will correctly remove all entries stored within the registry. The methods to remove any registry entries can only be called at program termination, and are not the responsibility of the U3 device or launchpad platform.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by OpEd (talk • contribs) 20:11, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Mac OS X & ISO9660 Partition
The article says that the ISO9660 doesn't work in Mac OS, but when I put my U3 Cruzer Micro 1GB into my iMac, the CD does show up. It is necessary to eject both separately in order to prevent a Device Removal dialog (possible data loss alert). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kainino (talk • contribs) 23:50, 26 October 2007 (UTC)