PCCTRLRM.RVW 910910 Comparison Review Company and product: Ashton-Tate 20101 Hamilton Ave. Torrance, CA 90509-9972 USA 213-329-9989 BBS: 213-324-2188 or Department CR-10 52 Oakland Avenue East Hartford CT 06108 Control Room system management package with antiviral utility Summary: Control Room is intended to assist in managing system specifications. Viral detection is a limited and minor part of the package. Cost Rating (1-4, 1 = poor, 4 = very good) "Friendliness" Installation 4 Ease of use 4 Help systems 4 Compatibility 4 Company Stability 3 Support 3 Documentation 2 Hardware required 4 Performance 2 Availability 3 Local Support 3 General Description: Control Room provides extensive management of a wide variety of system parameters, with thorough explanation of all aspects so as to be suitable for even the most naive users. Although such systems are available to provide system information for experienced users, Control Room is unique in the amount of assistance given to the average user. Virus checking is intended to be automated at run time, and is restricted to file image checking. Comparison of features and specifications User Friendliness Installation The product is shipped on unprotected diskettes. The distribution files appear to be self-extracting archives. The security risks involved in this practice have been discussed extensively on VIRUS-L. The installation process is quick, clear and well thought out. The program is well prompted, and will install "from" anywhere "to" anywhere. The only change made to system files is the addition of one line to the AUTOEXEC.BAT. This change is optional, and can be made automatically at a later date. The implications of not allowing the program to make the change are clearly stated. Changes made to the system often wait for the next "reboot" to become effective. Additions of files to be added to the virus checking list requires that the user know the names of program or susceptible files on the system. Addition of files after installation is easy enough with a text editor, but must be done manually. Ease of use The program is extremely easy to use, with menus, mouse support and context sensitive help. Virus protection is a bit hard to find, being "buried" under the "general" menu. For those used to more "active" antiviral systems, it will appear quite passive. Help systems Help is available for all menus, screens and fields, as well as a "searchable" index. Compatibility As is appropriate for a "system information" package, the program does not appear to conflict with any hardware tested. In terms of virus protection, the program appears only to check for file infecting viri at boot time. Boot sectors and memory are not checked. Company Stability Ashton-Tate is well established. Company Support Support is provided for a number of products, and a standard "Support and Services Guide" is included with all Ashton-Tate products. Unfortunately, support for Control Room itself seems quite limited. Documentation The documentation is very brief, and not particularly clear in regard to the operation of the program. Hardware Requirements 384K minimum, DOS 3.x or higher and at least two drives. Performance Virus detection is limited to file "image" checking at boot time. This would appear to limit detection to file infectors. Since the check is run at boot time, it may catch "stealth" infectors which have not yet been invoked. However, the check is run at the beginning (by default) of the AUTOEXEC.BAT, and so may be affected by programs run in the CONFIG.SYS, or by an infection of COMMAND.COM. Boot sector infectors are not detected. The fact that the check is run at boot time makes its operation automatic, but the lack of opportunity to run at other times limits the possibility of checking "suspect" programs, or of catching an infection before it has spread too far. Since the detection is limited to file image changes, it will "trigger" on programs which make changes to themselves, such as WordPerfect, Muse or SETVER. The alert that is given, when a change is found, is quite mild, and offers to option to "recertify" the file. It is very similar to the notice that a new file has been added to the list. Local Support Ashton-Tate maintains offices in most major centres. Support Requirements Since the virus protection is only detection, removal of the virus will require expert intervention. (It should be noted that the program does have a "Wipe Out" file overwrite deletion capability.) General Notes Control Room is not intended primarily as an antiviral package, and is reviewed for completeness sake because of its virus protection claims. Personally, as one involved in technical support, I wish all my clients had it, so as to be able to answer my questions about the state of their machinery! copyright Robert M. Slade, 1991 PCCTRLRM.RVW 910910 ====================== roberts@decus.ca rslade@vcn.bc.ca slade@freenet.victoria.bc.ca "If you do buy a computer, don't turn it on." - Richards' 2nd Law of Security Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" 0-387-94663-2 (800-SPRINGER) ============= for back issues: AV contacts : telnet://guest@freenet.victoria.bc.ca (command "go virus") list, reviews : ftp://cs.ucr.edu/pub/virus-l/docs/reviews and review FAQ: http://csrc.ncsl.nist.gov/virus/virrevws/ http://www.freenet.victoria.bc.ca/techrev/avrevfaq.html http://www.freenet.victoria.bc.ca/techrev/quickrev.html Viral Morality: http://www.bethel.edu/Ideas/virethic.html Book reviews: telnet://guest@freenet.victoria.bc.ca (command "go tbooks") http://www.freenet.victoria.bc.ca/techrev/review.html http://www.webwaves.com/books/slade ftp://x2ftp.oulu.fi/pub/books/slade http://mag.mechnet.com/mne/books/reviews/slade/ gopher://gopher.technical.powells.portland.or.us:70 http://www.utexas.edu/computer/vcl/bkreviews.html RobertS Rules of Internet Order: http://www.techbabes.com/zine/rules.html http://www.brandonu.ca/~ennsnr/Resources/order.html