Operation & Use (continued):
If you are have trouble using the vault, Crucial has provided some instructions built into the "help" portion of the software. They also have a online instruction manual located
here. The most promising feature of the software is its ability to be upgraded. Updates to the software can be downloaded directly to your flash drive, if necessary.
While testing, a few issues involving the PortableVault software arose. First, the PortableVault reverted to a Trial Version that only allowed 200Kb files to be encrypted at sometime during our testing.
A quick phone call to Crucial technical support revealed the software was damaged and needed to be reinstalled. Technical support was very helpful and pointed us to this
download of the PortableVault software. Reinstalling the software was quick and painless, resulting in no data loss. After talking with the tech we learned this problem occurred when we renamed the "PortableVault.exe" in the root directory of the drive. It seems when you rename the executable and run the software, the software gets confused and reverts into a Trial Version of the PortableVault. In short, do not rename the "PortableVault.exe" file in your root directory.
The second issue we had is related to the first. During our tests we took the
Crucial Gizmo! USB Flash Drive to our public library. Library security is pretty tight, meaning no admin rights are granted to standard users. The PortableVault software would not work without such rights. In an effort to circumvent the library security we renamed "PortableVault.exe" to "iexplore.exe" (the filename for Internet Explorer - which usually has executable rights). Surprisingly the software opened and appeared to work correctly. However, at closer inspection this modification reverted the software to a Trial Version with severe limitations. It would be great if Crucial could come up with a scheme that allowed their software to run on workstations without executable permissions - or at the least allow users to rename the file.
