Frequently Asked Questions

When Smart Restart is enabled, it is protecting your system folders and other folders vulnerable to malicious changes. When you visit a website and choose to "Remember Me" that login information is being stored as a cookie in a Smart Restart protected directory on your system. Additionally, your Office toolbar settings and the Outlook address book settings are also being stored in Smart Restart protected directories. For security reasons, Smart Restart is protecting these directories while its protection status is enabled. To make changes to these settings, you will need to disable protection.

Click here for detailed instructions on how to disable protection.

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In most situations, Smart Restart will install in several minutes. In some cases, depending on the amount of user information being established in the Keep Zone, installation may take longer and in extreme situations could take up to 45 minutes or more. This is a one-time process, however, and is consistent with the high level of protection provided by Smart Restart. During this installation process, Smart Restart is moving folders from each profile into the Keep Zone. This process allows Smart Restart to successfully protect your computer while still allowing you to use your computer as normal. Please do not restart your computer during the installation process.

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During the installation process, five folders and their contents for each user profile are moved to the Zeep Zone. These folders are: My Documents, Favorites, Desktop, History (from Internet Explorer), and Application Data.

Note: If a user is created after Smart Restart is installed, the new user's folders will NOT be in the Keep Zone. You must uninstall and reinstall Smart Restart to put the new user's folders in the Keep Zone

Click here to review the installation guide.

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Unlike antivirus software, Smart Restart does not allow data to be physically written to the drive. If a virus invades your computer while Smart Restart is enabled, that virus is actually being written to the Temporary Zone and will be deleted, along with any damage it caused, on the next reboot. This method ensures 100% protection from viruses.

Antivirus software requires definitions in order to "catch" data that has already been written to the drive. This is not a 100% foolproof way to eliminate the risk of viruses and other malicious code. Antivirus software generally has to be updated periodically to address new viruses and renewed annually, whereas Smart Restart is a one-time purchase.

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If you have installed Smart Restart XP, you will need to uninstall it before upgrading to Vista. Once Vista is installed, install Smart Restart Vista. Your activation key will work a second time as long as the hard drive on the machine has not changed.

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No. Smart Restart does not block outside users from accessing your local computer or network. It is highly recommended to run a firewall on either your local computer (if directly connected to the internet) or on your router.

Smart Restart will, however, eliminate adware and spyware that is downloaded to a machine when the computer is restarted.

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Smart Restart automatically sets the Temporary Zone at a level that works for the majority of users. If you deal with large data files and experience delays, you may want to consider adjusting the Temporary Zone to half of the available space on your drive.

To determine what available space you have:

With XP: click on "Start", then select "My Computer," right-click on Local Disk (C:/), choose "Properties", under the "General" tab you will see the "Free Space" listing for your C: drive.
With Vista: Click on the Windows logo (Start button), select "Computer", right-click on Local Disk (C:/), choose "Properties", under the "General" tab you will see the "Free Space" listing for your C: drive.

Click here for details on how to designate half the free space amount listed to your Temporary Zone.

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Folders are moved to the Keep Zone at installation. Folders that are put in the Keep Zone are available to be editted and permanently changed when Smart Restart protection is on and off.

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McAfee Anti-Virus, by default, has a setting that prevents ".exe" files from being installed to or run from the Startup folder. Smart Restart will install an ".exe" file to this location. Sometimes, this results in the "Access Denied" error.

Smart Restart will NOT affect the everyday effectiveness of your McAfee Anti-Virus protection programs.

You must take the following steps to disable the McAfee setting.

1. Right click on McAfee icon in the taskbar on the bottom right of your computer screen.
2. Open the "ViruScan Console".
3. Right click on "Access Protection" and select "Properties".
4. Choose the second tab named "File, Share, and Folder Protection".
5. Uncheck the "Prevent access to suspicious startup items. (.exe)".

Note: This setting must stay unchecked for Smart Restart to run correctly.

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No. Smart Restart does not scan your system for malicious code. You MUST install Smart Restart on a "clean" system. Meaning it must be free of viruses, spyware, malware, or any other problem code. Once a system is clean, enabling Smart Restart protection will ensure that it stays that way.

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Smart Restart will only run on the NTFS file system. Windows XP has the ability to run on NTFS and older FAT32 file systems and will occasionally come loaded on FAT32 from the manufacturer. If you get the "NTFS" error code, your system is FAT32, and you can convert the file system to NTFS. Not only will this help Smart Restart function, it is essentially upgrading to a more advanced and secure file system with greater features.

To convert your older FAT32 to the newer NTSF, go to the "Start" menu, then choose the "Run..." option, then type "cmd" and hit "Enter". In the command prompt type "CONVERT C: /FS:NTFS" (without the quotes).

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The need for antivirus software is greatly reduced by having Smart Restart enabled on your computer. However, there can be times when you disable Smart Restart that your system is vulnerable. For this reason, we recommend you run Smart Restart in conjunction with antivirus software. Additionally, there are great FREE antivirus solutions that offer excellent protection in detecting viruses.

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No. Smart Restart is only compatible with Windows XP and Windows Vista.

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No. Folders are moved into the Keep Zone during the installation process and out of the Keep Zone during the uninstall process.

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No, you must restart your computer to change the protection level. Smart Restart loads a sector level driver with your operating system. This driver is what is protecting your system. Due to this level of protection, your system must be rebooted in order for the protection status to change. This is the only way we can provide 100% protection for your system.

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Fragmentation can make a system run slowly. Installing Smart Restart on a system with fragmentation will cause the system to stay fragmented. Defragmenting your system is recommended to increase the speed of your computer and decrease the strain on the read/write head of your hard disk drive.

You cannot defragment after Smart Restart is enabled, so you should defragment your system before installing Smart Restart

If you have already installed Smart Restart you will need to uninstall before defragmenting. Click the "Uninstall" button on the Smart Restart interface to bring up the "Windows Add/Remove Programs" screen. Use this screen to begin the uninstall process by clicking the "Remove" button across from the Smart Restart entry.

To defragment your system: Click "START", then select "All Programs," then "Accessories," then "System Tools," then click on "Analyze." At this point the system will advise if you need to defragment. If needed, click on the "Defragment" button. After completed, you can proceed to install Smart Restart, which will keep your computer defragmented and running at optimal speed in the future.

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"Delayed Write Failed" errors happen when the Smart Restart temporary storage area becomes full and the system is still trying to write to the drive. There are several things you can do to reduce the chance of receiving these errors...

1. Make sure you are rebooting your computer daily. Each time a computer boots up it starts writing changes to the beginning of the Temporary Zone.
2. Make sure the Temporary Zone is set to half of the available space on your drive, which is the optimum size for the temp storage.(Click here or see question 18 below for more about Temporary Zone sizing)
3. If you are running Win XP and you are getting "Delayed Write Failed" errors while the computer is not in use, please try disabling the Windows Prefetching function. Click here for step by step instructions on how to do this.
4. Make sure you do not have Windows Updates running while protection is enabled. If this is the problem, click here for detailed instructions on how to temporarily disable Smart Restart protection to allow Windows Updates.

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There are two main reasons to increase the size of the Temporary Zone. First, you may need to increase the Temporary Zone size if you are running applications that are highly memory intensive. Graphics manipulation and video editing software frequently cause this problem. Secondly, if you do not regularly reboot/shutdown your computer (i.e. less than once a day) you may experience the "Delayed Write Failed" error that is evidence of a Temporary Zone that is too small.

The optimum size to set the temporary storage to is half of the available space on your drive. Do not set the size to more than half of the available space. Additionally, if you set the temporary storage to half of the available space on the drive and later add large amounts of data to your computer while protection is disabled, it is recommended to decrease the temporary storage area to reflect these changes.

Click here or see question 7 above for detailed instructions on sizing your Temporary Zone.

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If you receive the “Communication with Service is Lost” error message, Smart Restart may still be protecting your computer, but the “Graphical User Interface” or GUI, which is a non–critical utility may be malfunctioning.

Smart Restart has three main components that communicate with each other: a driver, a Graphical User Interface (G.U.I.)(the graphics you see) and a service that interfaces between the two. If the Smart Restart Interface looses communication with the service or the driver you will receive the “Communication with Service is Lost” error message.

Click here to see the steps that will guide you through fixing a communication issue with the service or driver.

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Customers who have encountered this issue have been able to solve it on their own by using one or more of these options:

• Activate Smart Restart through Safe Mode with Networking option. Follow this steps to do that:
  1. During Reboot Press F8 during start up sequence to enter Safe Mode with Networking option
  2. Go to C:\Windows and Double Click on ctsvc.exe to start the service
  3. Minimize Window
  4. Open GUI from Start/Programs/Startup/Smart Restart
  5. Double Click on Smart Restart Icon on System Tray by the time
  6. Click on Activation Tab on Left Hand Side
  7. Enter the Activation Code you were given
• Make sure all firewalls on your computer has been either disabled or turned off
• Uninstall and Reinstall Smart Restart
• Upgrade Internet Explorer to the newest version that is currently available
• Install Mozilla Firefox which is free and you can use this as a temporary Internet browser. The link is http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/

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