Pismo File Mount build 23X Release Notes
Pismo Technic Inc. Copyright 2003-2023 Joe Lowe
https://pismotec.com/
2023.11.22
Quick Start
Example using Explorer extension:
1) Browse to a .zip or .iso file in explorer.
2) Right click and select "PFM Open" from the context menu.
- Explorer browse window will open showing mounted contents of
.zip/.iso file.
3) Right click on .zip/.iso file in explorer and select "PFM Eject"
from the context menu.
- Open explorer window to .zip/.iso will close.
Example using command line:
From a command prompt in cmd.exe,
- pfm mount website.zip
- start c:\volumes\website\index.html
- ...
- pfm unmount website.zip
Example using PFM UI:
1) Find "Pismo File Mount" in start menu and open it.
2) Select "Mount" command from "File" menu.
- Open file dialog will appear.
3) Browse to a .zip or .iso file and click "Open" button.
- Mount options dialog will appear.
4) Click "Mount" button.
- Explorer browse window will open showing mounted contents of
.zip/.iso file.
5) Double click on file in list.
- Explorer browse window will open showing mounted contents of
.zip/.iso file.
7) In PFM UI window, right click on file in list and select
"Unmount" from context menu.
- Open explorer window to .zip/.iso will close.
Overview
Pismo File Mount (PFM) gives users the ability to access files stored in container files, using the same tools used to access files directly on hard drives and removable media. PFM provides functionality similar to the Compressed Folder shell extensions built into Windows Explorer, or to CD image mounting utilities such as Microsoft VirtualCD or Nero ImageDrive.
PFM varies from existing utilities in a few key areas.
1) Ease of use.
PFM gives quick and easy access to the contents of the container files with fast and simple installation and fewer UI steps, no need for using a drive letter for each mounted container.
2) Format support.
PFM supports container file formats for which there is no native file system support. Image based products are limited to supporting built in file system formats such as CDFS and FAT.
3) Application compatibility.
Shell extension and file manager type products must copy one or all of the files from an archive to the hard drive to allow application access. PFM allows applications to access files directly from the container.
4) Enterprise security environment support.
PFM includes security mechanisms to protect the system and provide data access and visiblity control, even when being used from non-privileged user accounts. IT teams can deploy PFM for use by users who do not have admin rights on their workstations.
Features
- Explorer integration.
The core features of PFM are available through an Explorer shell extension. Context menu commands and drag-drop operations can be used to perform most operations.
- Command line interface.
All functionality is available from the command line via pfm.exe .
- CD/DVD image file reader.
ISO, CISO, and CFS format CD/DVD image files can be mounted in place and contents accessed, without first burning to media.
- ZIP archive file reader.
Most .ZIP format archives can be mounted in place and contents accessed. Contained documents and executables can be opened without being extracted to the hard drive.
- PFO, Private Folder reader/writer.
Private Folder is a full featured container file system that provides encrypted and compressed storage of user data and applications. Private Folder utilizes AES encryption and PKCS5v2 key generation.
Pismo File System Redirector
This application utilizes Pismo File System Redirector (FSR), an operating system extension that enables access and modification to user and program data through the file system interface of the operating system.
Commercial and non-commercial developers can integrate FSR into their applications using the Pismo FSR Development Kit.
Release History
-- build 192 - 2018.11.30
Windows 10 SQL compatibility improvements.
Resolved Linux kernel module build script issue with patch versions over 100 .
-- build 191 - 2018.03.11
Updated linux kernel module compatibility for kernel version 4.15 and 4.16 .
Various compatibility and stability fixes.
-- build 190 - 2017.11.16
Fix compatibility with Windows 1709 "Fall Creators" update, causing save-as failures in various applications.
Fix compatibility with MacOS 10.13 High Sierra.
Updated linux kernel module compatibility for kernel version 4.14 .
-- build 189 - 2017.09.30
Fix marshaller socket read timeout calculation, causing volume unmounts in some configurations.
-- build 188 - 2017.09.28
Fix build 187 regression causing intermittent marshaller disconnects and crashes.
Fix build 185 regression on windows preventing local drive type mounts with no mount point.
Fix issues on linux with file renames.
-- build 187 - 2017.08.24
Updated linux kernel module compatibility for kernel version 4.12 and 4.13 .
Fix windows performance issue in marshaller, causing excessive page faults during request processing.
Fix windows 10 kernel panic regression from build 185, related to interop with windows file sharing offline caching.
-- build 186 - 2017.06.30
Fix UNC mount point handling regression.
Fix an issue related to handling of 8.3 short names.
-- build 185 - 2017.06.23
WHQL signed windows kernel module, for compatibility with recent Windows 10 builds when secure boot is enabled in the BIOS.
Changes to volume mount points on windows, for improved compatibility with some applications.
Updated linux kernel module compatibility for kernel version 4.10 and 4.11 . Dropped support for kernels older than 2.6.32 (RHEL 6).
Fix build 184 data corruption regression, related to certain file IO patterns involving file truncation and appending writes.
Various other minor fixes and enhancements.
-- build 184 - 2017.01.05
Fix compatibility issue preventing local-drive-type mounts after some USB and DVD media has been accessed on a system.
Add linux kernel compatibility through kernel version 4.9 .
-- build 183 - 2016.06.30
Fix windows client unmount race introduced in build 181, causing intermittent crashes.
Fix windows client data caching issue causing corruption of file sizes with certain IO patterns.
Protect windows \Volumes mount points from accidental deletion by the user.
Convert certain windows client features to use the kernel mini-filter mechanism, for compatibility with future windows releases.
Restored support for the UNC-only mount flag, to mount volumes without a \Volumes mount point.
Windows install self-extracting stub performance enhancements.
Add linux kernel compatibility through kernel version 4.7 .
Linux install now runs ldconfig for compatibility with certain linux distributions.
Volume unmount on Linux now cleans up mount point even if it is open in other applications.
-- build 182 - 2016.04.20
Compatibility fixes for network and local-drive-type mounts with Windows search indexing and WinRT photo and music apps.
Fixed mac installer GUI not working on high-DPI displays.
-- build 181 - 2016.03.29
Windows and Mac support for local-drive-type mounts. This allows for greater compatibility with WinRT apps on Windows 10.
New installer GUI for all platforms.
Add linux kernel compatibility through version 4.5 . Fixed linux kernel module compilation issue, causing crash on 4.3 kernels.
Mac filesystem compatibility enhancements related to folder renames and case-changing renames with carbon APIs.
Mac and Linux clients report mount "source" in UNC format for improved compatibility with some applications.
Various minor fixes.
-- build 180 - 2015.12.02
Fixed windows client access checks.
Fixed issue in windows client mount name indexing, causing inaccessible mount points in some cases.
Implemented Microsoft WHQL signing of windows client kernel module for compatibility with Windows 10. Improved mac client file/folder rename handling for carbon-based mac applications (finder).
Implemented mac client signed kernel module, and made various other changes to support system-integrity-protection on OSX 10.11 .
Updated linux kernel compatibility through version 4.3 .
Various other minor stability and application compatibility fixes.
-- build 178 - 2015.06.30
Various stability and application compatibility fixes.
- Intermittent truncated file name in directory queries.
- Intermittent premature exit of pfmstat process.
- Intermittent file open failure with racing concurrent opens.
- Mishandled wildcard handling during folder iteration.
- Mishandled attribute and symlink data on mac client.
- Null ptr dereference in linux client.
-- build 177 - 2015.05.07
Fixed Windows data corruption issue when same file handle is used for both memory mapped and synchronous IO.
-- build 176 - 2015.05.05
Optimized kernel cache memory usage on all platforms.
Fixed issue on Windows causing 100% CPU utilization when sharing mounts over the network on Windows XP.
Various minor install/uninstall, program, and compatibility fixes.
-- build 175 - 2015.03.29
Fixed intermittent refernce leak, sometimes preventing unmounted volumes from properly cleaning up.
Restored compatibility with Pentium 3 processors in 32 bit executables, and reduced 32 bit kernel memory utilization for better Windows XP compatibility.
Fixed a Windows file system compatibility issue affecting some applications, such as setup.exe for Office 2007.
Updated linux kernel compatibility through 3.19 .
-- build 174 - 2015.03.25
Removed virtual-mount-point functionality on Windows. Now mounts get a real mount point in the c:\Volumes folder. Mounts now show in the Windows Explorer drive list even if they do not have a drive letter assigned.
Removed tray icon.
Per-user driver letter mount points no longer supported. System-wide drive letter mount points no longer require administrator privileges.
Various other Windows implementation changes related to namespace caching and remote file change detection for remote file systems.
Updated linux kernel compatibility through 3.18 and improved RHEL 7 compatibility.
-- build 173 - 2015.02.04
Fixed handling of the TRUNCATE_EXISTING option to the CreateFile system call, causing compatibility issues with various applications.
-- build 172 - 2015.01.12
Improved compatibility with Microsoft anti-virus. Various minor changes.
-- build 171 - 2014.07.11
Changed Windows virtual mount points to appear more like NTFS mount points. Fixed issue in UNC provider causing problems with network shares in some applications. Various minor compatibility and stability fixes. Updated linux kernel compatibility through 3.15 and RHEL 7. New end user license.
-- build 170 - 2013.12.30
Install package now self-extracting, instead of self-mounting. Fixed compat issue with Windows 8 RDP device redirection. Other minor fixes. Linux kernel module now compatible with 3.9 kernels. Improved Linux installer compatibility.
-- Build 169 - 2013.04.09
Fixed CFS/CISO password handling defect introduced in build 167. Reduced windows cache memory usage to compensate for changes in Windows 7 memory management. Added Linux support for 3.7 and 3.8 kernels.
-- Build 168 - 2012.12.11
Fixed PFO password handling defect introduced in build 167.
-- Build 167 - 2012.12.03
Linux kernel module now compatible with 3.6 kernels. Minor API changes. Fixed kernel memory leak occurring when tracemon was installed.
-- Build 166 - 2012.08.20
Linux kernel module now compatible with 3.4 and 3.5 kernels, and Debian testing kernel headers.
Refactored Windows network provider DLL for improved compatibility.
Fixed drive letters not showing in explorer on some systems.
-- Build 165 - 2012.05.17
Improved support for OSX and Linux.
Support for "user" drive letter mappings on Windows that do not require administrator privileges.
Fix for intermittent Windows installation error related to space characters in path to installer package.
Various changes to user input handling during mount operations, including support for password entry via a command line switch.
Minor improvements to the zip and ISO readers.
-- Build 163 - 2012.01.09
New linux kernel module based implementation.
-- Build 162 - 2011.10.26
Minor enhancement/fixes to UNC support. New OSX kernel module implementation.
-- Build 159 - 2010.07.07
Implemented PFO recovery command in pfolder utility. Allows recovering user data from corrupted PFO file sets.
-- Build 158 - 2010.06.08
Fixed delay and popup dialog for empty floppy drive in mount options dialog.
Improved uid/gid handling for mounts on mac/linux.
Minor bug fixes and enhancements.
-- Build 157 - 2010.05.18
First public release of development Linux and Mac versions.
Fixed compression handling issue in Private Folder that could result in unmountable file sets.
Improved Private Folder mount logic to provide automatic recovery mount of some corrupted file sets.
Improved handling of "abc???" style file name wildcards from cmd.exe .
Switched SMX to use Igor Pavlovs public domain LZMA implementation.
Fixed installer to not leave zombie installer process when SMX driver is unable to load.
-- Build 154 - 2009.10.14
Bumped build number to avoid user confusion caused by leading zero in previous builds.
Fixed Explorer folder window hotkey issue affecting some users.
Various minor fixes for improved compatiblity with some applications and with checked(debug) Windows kernels.
-- Build 053 - 2009.08.18
Improved ISO reader compatibility with UDF 2.5 images (Bluray).
Improved driver compatibility with Microsoft DFS, used in some enterprise networks.
-- Build 051 - 2009.06.04
Work-around for compatibility issue with Dr. Web anti-virus.
Added LZMA and Bzip2 support to zip reader.
Improved UTF8 filename support in zip reader.
Improved compatibility with some installers (SQL 2005).
-- Build 050 - 2009.03.05
Protocol, marshaller, and driver changes to eliminate extra copying of file data.
Data caching performance improvements.
Support for unbuffered I/O from client applications, for improved performance with some applications.
-- Build 048 - 2008.11.03
Added SMX creation utility with GUI, ptsmxcreate.
Added ISO/CISO/DAA/CFS conversion utility with GUI, ptisoconvert.
Added CFS creation utility with GUI, ptcfscreate.
-- Build 047 - 2008.08.29
Added support for recent DAA image format extensions.
Changed driver load logic, to allow driver to load on systems where other drivers have exhausted certain limited system resources.
Fixed problem preventing some files from being accessible in large zip files.
Improved compatibility with a few 3rd party file system security products.
-- Build 046 - 2008.08.08
Added support for ISZ, DAA, and UIF image formats.
Improved mounted drive letter functionality.
Improved handling of require-admin applications on Vista with UAC enabled.
Fixed unicode case-folding issue causing problems with some european language characters in file names.
Expose .\.$media\image.iso file in mounted CD/DVD images. Allows on the fly conversion of image file formats for access by burning programs.
Support reading pure UDF CD/DVD images.
Various changes to driver loading and error reporting in installer and installer stub, to address some configuration specific install issues.
-- Build 045 - 2008.06.20
Updated ptiso tool and self mounting executable stubs to include support for LZMA compressed Compact ISO images.
-- Build 044 - 2008.05.14
Fixed issue in ptiso tool that would sometimes result in creation of corrupt images when using the create command. Issue did not affect the convert command.
-- Build 043 - 2008.05.01
Added support for CISO and CFS to ISO reader.
Added ptiso tool, and related executable stubs.
Fixed some minor file system compatibility issues.
Changed installer to use Pismo SMX technology. Result is elimination of Winzip dialog and a significantly smaller download package.
-- Build 042 - 2008.03.23
Fixed issue preventing some executables from running inside mounted files on Vista with UAC enabled.
-- Build 041 - 2008.02.25
Fixed issue preventing certain executables from running inside mounted files.
-- Build 040 - 2008.02.20
Drive letter support for mounted files, to improve compatibility with a few installer programs.
Added support for volume labels to the the ISO reader.
Add support for creating new Private Folders from explorer File/New menu.
Fixed handling of file create times for UDF format ISO images.
Fixed support for 32 bit formatters on x64 versions of Windows.
Resolved deadlock with Trend anti-virus.
Various driver changes to improve compatibility with 3rd party file system products.
Fixed pfmhost.exe holding up logoff in some configurations.
-- Build 038 - 2007.12.31
First public release.