This section of the manual records the history of all the fixes, changes and new features added since the introduction of this major release (version 3.x.x series). You should read through all of this to see how the product has evolved over the lifetime of the v3.x.x series and to be brought up-to-date on the latest changes to the program.
Thank you for the support for our efforts!
Art Schumer, President
Evergreen Software, Inc.
v3.9.2 DONE: 18-Jul-92
FIX: A bug that sometimes caused troubles during recovery to the effect that during recovery from an external floppy the copy of MacPassword would revert to the Demo version. This would not affect recovery however it meant you had to re-personalize MacPassword. I recommend everyone to not use v3.9.2 and only use v3.9.3.
v3.9.2 DONE: 17-May-92
NEW: VERY IMPORTANT! The installation instructions have been extensively changed. Make sure you print out and read the entire manual again to make sure you are up-to-date on all the changes to the product. The Emergency Recovery prodcedures have also changed. Spend some time reviewing them before you have to use them!
FIX: A bug that messed up the "sleep now" and "never sleep" screen saver rectangles for the Radius Pivot monitor was fixed. When the monitor was 'pivoted', the rectangles never changed position. Now they do. {Thanks to Paul Specter of Eastman Kodak for pointing this out!}
FIX: A bug that didn't log the shutdown or play the shutdown sound when there was nothing to protect was fixed.
FIX: Some changes to the screen saver code to get along with products like Net Octopus and GraceLAN.
FIX: In some cases, you could beat the password dialog coming up in the Control Panel and actually turn off MacPassword *if* you clicked in the correct location of the On/Off checkbox. This is now prevented.
NEW: In the Demo version, a reminder dialog is presented after the password dialog to allow the user to fill out on online form to be printed out and sent in to register themselves with us.
NEW: Much more robust recovery techniques built into the MacPassword‚Ñ¢ Utility program. Especially benefical for PowerBook and Quadra owners although anyone using System 7.0 will benefit also. Only use v3.9.2 with any version of System 7.x.x.
NEW: Support for detection of the new MBDF, INIT 1984 and CODE 252 viruses is built into MacPassword‚Ñ¢ and I've included the v2.8 version of Disinfectant on the distribution disk I send my registered owners.
NEW: The MacPassword‚Ñ¢ Utility program now has support for System 7.0 balloon help in all the menus (not the Control Panel, just the Utility Program).
NEW: The MacPassword‚Ñ¢ Utility program has new menu items for recovery of the "System 7.x.x Disappearing Folders Bug". Use this menu item if you experience any loss of folders.
v3.9.1 DONE: 04-Nov-91
FIX: There's a subtle change to the THINK C development system (that I use to build MacPassword‚Ñ¢) in their latest release (v5.0) that caused the Guest checkbox to not be checked when you flipped to another option window. The Guest mode was still enforced, however you couldn't tell if it was on or off.
v3.9.0 DONE: 23-Oct-91
FIX: There was a problem in using the recovery procedures to recover a hard disk with System 7.x.x on it from a floppy disk created with System 6.x.x. IN some cases, you would have lots of trouble recovering your hard drive if a problem occured with MacPassword‚Ñ¢. Only use v3.9.0 with any version of System 7.x.x.
v3.8.9 DONE: 05-Oct-91
FIX: Small fix to the key sequence that initiated the Screen saver. It now correctly only initiates when the SHIFT+OPTION+ESCAPE keys are held down at the same time.
CHANGE: The control panel code now uses the popup menu control that Apple provides in place of the one it used from Chris Johnson.
CHANGE: Previous versions had a four (4) character minimum for password length even though the manual called for six (6). Now both are the same (6).
FIX: The message string for virus detection as well as the string for when the Mac Portable wakes up are now in the resources file (instead of being hard coded into the program) so it's easier to localize.
ADD: For System 7.0 users, I've added a new button that allows you to turn off the ability to use the Shift key to bypass the loading of INITs and CDEVs.
v3.8.8 DONE: 18-Jun-91
NEW: Thanks go to Bruce Bowman of Apple for the new Control Panel icon being used for the first time in this release!
CHANGE: Under System 7.0, the !MacPassword file and !MacPassword Sounds file must be in the Extensions Folder. The Log file will be created in the Prefereneces File.
IMPORTANT: In the past, you could just move MacPassword‚Ñ¢ out of the System folder and effectively turn it off. Now, you MUST turn it off as the Alias Mgr will locate it wherever you've placed it and the MacPassword shutdown code to lock up your Macintosh will be able to execute. This will place you in the position of having to use the Customizer utility to recover your hard drive.
IMPORTANT: You MUST use the new {Customizer} Utility program that accompanies this release. Older versions will NOT work correctly on a System 7.0 volume. Also note, the name of the program has changed to reflect it's main purpose.
PROBLEM: This version of MacPassword will NOT resolve aliases to folders or aliases to volumes. This means, do NOT select a folder or volume alias from the Folder selection dialog. Likewise, do not select entire volumes to protect from within the Desktop list. Only select volumes using the Volume selection dialog.
FIX: Conflict with SAM v3.0 (from Symantec) and previous versions of MacPassword when running under System 7.0 is now resolved. The problem was that when you opened the MacPassword Control Panel, it brought up the password dialog, then immediately closed it and shut the window (obviously not giving you enough time to enter the password and be allowed to make changes to your security).
CHG: Change Password dialog now will map the use of the Return key to be the same as pressing the Tab key (move to the next test editing box) instead of dismissing the dialog. You can still use the Enter key to dismiss or click in the OK button. {Thanks Eddy Cue of Apple!)
CHG: The name of the button used to remove items from the list of volumes and folders to protect has been renamed from "Delete" to "Remove". It's less scary terminology for most users. {Thanks Eddy Cue of Apple!)
CHG: Protection characteristics under System 7.0 have changed now to reflect differences in this new Operating system. When "High Level Protection" is on under 7.0, the folders will be invisible in the Finder's Window as well as within the Standard Get/Put file dialog. Under System 6.0, the folder is greyed out. The 7.0 Finder's "find" command will not be able to search within protected folders.
NEW: System 7.0 compliant color icons are now in place for use in the new Finder windows as well as the Apple Menu. To make sure you get them, rebuild your desktop by holding down the OPTION + COMMAND keys when you restart. Be aware, this WILL remove any comments you have placed in the "Get Info..." dialogs for your files. Not too many people place comments there so it should be no problem for most of you.
NEW: The padlock cursor displayed at shutdown is now shown in color if you have a color Macintosh.
PROB: System 7.0 virtual memory has a problem with MacPassword locking the volume that it's placed the memory image on. I'm working on a solution but for now, either leave virtual memory off or do not use the "Lock Protected Volumes" option.
v3.8.7 DONE: 06-Feb-91
NEW: Added a check to eliminate the situation where the mouse was in the sleep corner when MacPassword‚Ñ¢ went to sleep and stayed there when you woke the Macintosh up. It would immediately go back to sleep. Now you have to move the mouse out of the sleep corner to 'reset' the ability to go to sleep when in that corner.
FIX: Fixed a problem in the bouncing ball screen saver where I wasn't disposing of a region handle I had allocated. After a billion hours, this may have caused an out of heap space error.
FIX: A long standing problem with the list box acting weird when it gets filled up with volumes/folders to protect. I've been working on this for a year and was finally able to get it fixed (yeah!). It took most of MacDTS to help me track it down last week when I visited them at the MacWorld Expo. You can now put tons of items in the list and it will always scroll properly.
FIX: OK... a much improved and vastly different screen saver activity checking code is now installed that should prevent the problems people have been reporting with the screen saver not kicking in when a wide variety of boards are installed including MacMainFrame, MacIRMA, etc.
FIX: Another stab at fixing the problem with the screen saver kicking in at weird times. Now I'm checking two separate timings to detect if it's really time to go to sleep.
NEW: Added a new checkbox to the Options panel in the Control Panel display to allow users to turn ON/OFF the ability for MacPassword to always have a password dialog at system startup time even if there are no items to protect. It will be ON by default and you will have to uncheck it to eliminate the dialog.
FIX: Screen saver wouldn't blank out properly on multiple monitors. This is fixed now. Note, the patterns stay only on the main monitor.
NEW: Added protection against the recently found ZUC B virus.
CHG: The protection scheme was changed slightly to accomodate System 7.0. Please make sure you use the new Customizer Utility to perform remote unlocking under both System 6.0 and 7.0. It also has a version number of 3.8.7.
BUG: Thanks Apple!!! They found a bug that caused the protection to fail when under guest mode and you drag a folder into another folder. You could then rename the folder and have access to it. Now, I've closed that hole.
BUG: I've fixed a intermittant problem with some versions of QuickMail that cause the following behavior. When MacPassword‚Ñ¢ goes into screen saver mode, and the press a key (any key), the password dialog come up briefly, then goes away immediately. The only way to get the dialog to stay on the screen is to click the mouse.
CHG: The way you change the Administrator password has been changed. You now need to hold the CMD+SHIFT+OPTION keys down and click on the Change Password button when logged in as the Administrator. This was a multiple customer request.
NEW: Support for the Mac Portable. See the documentation about how it works.
v3.8.6 DONE: 03-Nov-90
FIX: Rearranged the StdGetFolder dialog box to get along better with Directory Assistant from Norton Utiltiies. The View drop-down wasn't able to be activated.
CHG: Ordering information and About box now reflect the increased WA sales tax from 8.1% to 8.2% (Thank you Governor Gardener...)
NEW: Virus protection for the newly discoverd MDEF-C virus and now I am distributing Disinfectant v2.3 on the registered disk.
v3.8.5 DONE: 02-Oct-90
NEW: added a much more robust virus detection and prevention algorithm. Now all known viruses, including nVIR (all clones too), MDEF, WDEF, ANTI, Scores and the new CDEF viruses are detected and prevented from further infection. In addition, the application that is the source of the infection is shut down, thus preventing further infections. Finally, the log file entry and notification alert has a much more definitive error message to tell you exactly what happened.
NEW: John Norstad and Northwestern University has graciously given me permission to distribute their free virus scanning utility called Disinfectant. When MacPassword‚Ñ¢ detects a virus attack, use
Disinfectant to remove it.
NEW: added support for the MacIrma card/driver from DCA. This card/driver would not allow MacPassword ‚Ñ¢screen saver to automatically'kick in'.
NEW: added a special cursor to let you know MacPassword‚Ñ¢ is locking up your volumes. Look for it during Shutdown. The shape is a padlock.
NEW: found a method of detecting wheter a volume is remote or not (eg. AppleShare file server) and do not allow such volumes to be selected for protection.
BUG: some bug fixes were taken care of in the log file code. Too smallto mention, but in short… all messages will now be logged properly.
CHANGE: there is a new Customizer Utility program also that fixes some bugs and MUST be used with this new release.
BUG: fixed bug in how I detected whether a removable disk was inserted or not into the volume selection dialog.
v3.8.1 DONE: 30-Jun-90
VIRUS: Added support for detecting ‘MDEF’ (Garfield) virus.
SCRNSAVE: Added new code from MacDTS to remove the menu bar from the screen during screen saver operations (I was just blanking it out).
SCRNSAVE: All screen saver options take effect when you leave the Control Panel instead of having to wait for a restart of your Macintosh except for turning screen saving on or off itself. Make sure you temporarily force screen saver mode immediately after leaving the control panel (move the mouse to the sleep corner) so the new settings will be read in.
SCRNSAVE: Now you can initiate screen saver mode via a keystroke. Right now, it is hard coded to be OPTION+SHIFT+ESCAPE. In the future I will put a user interface on changing it. Let me know if this key sequence interfers with anything you can't program around (eg. QuickKeys...)
FIXED: a bug in the screen saver mode which intermittantly prevented sleep.
CHG: Administrator now has to log in to the Control Panel to be able to change their Admin password. There will be visual identification of the Adminstrator log-in mode at the bottom of Screen 1. In addition, holding the OPTION key down while clicking on the Change Password button will reset the User’s password to the default ‘password’ if the Administrator is logged in.
v3.8.0 DONE: 05-May-90
SCRNSAVE: I'm now doing a FlushEvents of key and mouse events before the start of the screen saver to prevent occasional programs that force the password dialog to immediately come up whenever the screen saver goes into action.
SYS7.0: Will now run on System 7.0 as I’ve had a chance to test under it and it seems fine (ie. previous versions checked to see what version and specifically prohibited running under 7.0).
VISUAL: I was off by one pixel in the placement of the scroll bar in the list box.
SCRNSAVE: Now prevent any FKey from running when the screen saver is in action (except on SE where there is an OS bug that prevents me from preventing FKEYS…).
CDEV: In the "Volume Selection" dialog, I now prevent you from selecting illegal volumes (eg. floppies). I had implemented the prevention of selecting remote servers, however too many people are using the Desktop Manager which would tell MacPassword their local volumes where remote so... maybe next time.
CDEV: I re-enabled the "Lock Protected Volumes" checkbox at all times so you can now have the volume locked even if you allow guests to log in. The volume will be locked until the guest actually logs in.
SCRNSAVE: Now you have a choice of having the password dialog come up after a screen save or not. Your choice now... make sure you really want the security disabled and just a pretty pattern betwen your desktop and an intruder.
SHUT/START: Now, if MP can’t find a folder or volume to protect either at startup or shutdown, an alert will be displayed to advise you of the problem. This is to alert you if you decide to rename your volume or folder.
CUST: Fixed a bug that caused the Customizer Utility to not recognize some older versions (v3.6.0 <-> v3.9.9).
CHGPSWRD: This dialog will now allow you to move to another text entry box using the mouse. I used to prevent this as it didn’t make sense to allow the user to set the intertion point in the middle of protected text. As logical as it seems to move between the boxes using the TAB key, a number of people called to complain so...
V3.7.0 DONE: 04-Mar-90
FIX: ScreenSaver wouldn’t kick on or stay off if the topleft corner was chosen.
CHG: ScreenSaver wouldn’t kick in if PackerLink was active.
CHG: ScreenSaver will not kick in if AppleTalk is active and there was network traffic coming in or going out.
CHG: Documentation: Clarified how to use the TAB key to move between the TextEdit fields in the Change Password dialog. A lot of people couldn't figure this out.
FIX: Protection: Closed hole in moving a protected folder to within another folder (I was checking ParID’s, not DirID’s)
NEW: Protection: Closed hole in Rename command. Now neither protected folders or the volumes they are on can be renamed.
FIX: ScreenSaver: Fixed bug where the cursor wouldn’t come back when using SS in Guest mode logon.
NEW: ScreenSaver: Background processing under SS is now OK (Retrospect timed backup , AppleLink timed dialup, Public Folder, etc all work fine now as long as they are running in the background, not the first application running under the screen saver)
v3.6.1 DONE: 07-Jan-90
Fix: MacPassword would crash if the following was true: Log File option was ON and MacPassword Active option was off during a restart.
Fix: Screen saver used to kick in occassionally after long disk I/O has ended instead of waiting for the prescribed period of time.
Change: Remote unlocking of volumes (registered users only..) is now easier. The MacPassword Cusomizer will now proceed thru the list of protected files and folders unlocking and unprotecting them instead of asking you to point them out individually.
Fix: There was an incompatibility with MultiFinder 6.19 (used only by MPW developers for SADE) that is now cleared up.
v3.6.0 DONE: 31-Dec-89
New: I've now included a separate Customizer Utility Program that will personalize MacPassword and provide some other functionality such as remote unlocking if your Macintosh has crashed.
New: Better security in the Lock Volumes feature. Now you cannot even mount a protected volume at the Finder level! Be sure to check this out by clicking the "Locked Volumes" checkbox in the first options window.
Change: The screen saver now will block out all atached monitors but only draw the patterns to the main graphics device.
Change: The screen saver now will only move from drawing pretty patterns to the password dialog if the mouse if clicked or a key is pressed. It used to do this if the mouse was just moved but this proved too senistive for most people.
Change: The screen saver now has another pattern option that replaces the Moire choices. Now you can either have a random shape Moire pattern or a bouncing ball pattern.
New: Protection from the new 'Jude' and WDEF (strain 'A' and strain 'B) viruses.
New: Significant changes to the way the "Change Password" dialog works to provide better security during password entry.
New: The manual has been rewritten and split off into separate sections covering ordering, bug history, what's new (this document), the main manual as well as a new manual covering the functionality in the Customizer utilty program.
Change: The "Known Viruses" only checkbox is now on by default. Too many problem with people misunderstanding how it worked.
v3.5.2 DONE: 04-Dec-89
Fix: Wouldn't mount all the drives on a fully loaded (>2 external drives with high SCSI addresses) system. (Thanks to Eddy Cue of Apple-Cupertino for finding this bug!)
Fix: The Screen Saver timer option for 30 minutes of sleep was really on for 3600 minutes.
v3.5.1 DONE: 26-Nov-89
Change: Changed default number of minutes before sleep from 6 to 10 minutes.
Fix: Startup sounds wouldn't play.
Fix: "Allow Guest" checkbox wouldn't stay checked
(Thanks to Dennis Janecki of Apple-Chicago for finding these bugs!)
v3.5.0 DONE: 22-Nov-89
New: Added screen saver functionality. See documentation for details on it's use.
New: Removed the Desk Accessory companion as the new Screen Saver completely supplants its use.
Fix: Now illegal to enter control keys in the password verification dialog. Change Password and Password Verification dialog now use the same filter so whatever is legal to type in for a new password is handled the same way by the Password Verification dialog.
Fix: Fixed a bug that intermitently crashed the system upon a shutdown on an SE or Plus if the wrong password was entered three times at startup.
v3.2.1 DONE: 02-Oct-89
New: I've changed my mailing address and now include a phone number where I can be reached. Please keep in mind this phone number is located on the Pacific Coast and I would appreciate your consideration of the time zone difference.
New: There is a new button to move you to a screen saver option window. This is disabled now as I wanted to get the following bug fixes out ASAP. This feature is being completed now and will be in the next release (ie. "Real Soon Now...").
New: MacPassword has been successfullu tested on every Macintosh from a Plus to the new Portable and Mac IIci.
Fix: Under certain situations, MacPasword wouldn't work at all on a Macintosh Plus. This has been fixed now. Sorry to all people who were affected.
Fix: The DA wouldn't work occassionally (freeze up the Mac). This has been fixed and it should work on all systems.
v3.2.0 DONE: 22-Aug-89
New: There is a new checkbox to allow the user to select whether they want a log kept of all activity specific to MacPassword. Such things as owner logon, guest logon, bad logon, virus attacks, shutdown and program errors are now written to a log file along with the date and time of the occurence.
New: Passwords can now be between 4 and 40 characters.
New: Additional checking in place for the new 'nFLU' nVIR clone virus.
Fix: Don’t allow a guest to have access to the DA. Block it off with a message when they attempt to use the DA.
v3.1.2 DONE: 27-Jun-89
New: Added ability to mask out the NMI (interrupt switch) so that someone can't go to a debugger during the password DA.
v3.1.0 DONE: 21-Jun-89
New: Added a bunch (15) of new resources to check for possible virus infiltration (see manual for complete list).
New: Changed so that you can't select the "Lock Protected Volumes" if you also have "Allow Guest to Startup" selected.
Fix: Fixed a bug that intermittently affected deprotection on volumes protected with high security .
Fix: Systems older than 6.0.0 caused a error 12 because I was calling the new Sound Mgr routines from within the DisplayError dialog used to tell the user about the fact that they didn't have the right system version.
Fix: Can't set 'Guest logged on' flag when volume is protected by a volume Lock.
Fix If volume is locked and you goto the Control Panel, then the error. message says that MacPassword is locked... should say "No guest access" first..
Fix: When two or more protected volumes were specified to be locked, only the first would actually get locked.
v3.0.4 DONE: 15-Apr-89
New: Added self-check upon Shutdown to insure that an INIT Manager hasn’t changed our file type so we won’t startup. If our type has been changed, the we won’t perform protection as there wouldbe not way to deprotect until the INIT Manager changed us back to the right File type. Thanks to Charles Sherer for pointing out this problem!
v3.0.3 DONE: 13-Apr-89
Fix: Added virus protection for AIDS and the new MEV# varient of nVIRB.
v3.0.2 DONE: 11-Apr-89
Fix: An obscure problem that may have been responsible for not working properly with some hard drive partioning software. Also fixed the speed at which some external hard disk drives handled "Lock" and "Unlock" calls.
v3.0.1 DONE: 26-Mar-89
Fix: The "Guest" button (found in the various password dialogs)
couldn’t be clicked in. You could initiate guest logon by typing CMD
