Download FTP Drive v3.5	214 Kb
FTP Drive - program, that allow working with FTP for those programs, that don't know what is FTP.  Emulates logical drive, where selected FTP servers are mounted as folders  Usefull fot example for viewing films, listening files directly from FTP server without pre-downloading whole file.  This is achieved by emulation of virtual drive, on which FTP servers are placed on the Native NT API level.  Both unsecured and secured by SSL/TLS FTP connections supported  FTP drive completely implements read operations for FTP files  FTP drive partially implements write operations for FTP files (see 'How to use')  FtpDrive can intercept opening ftp:// links from other applications - simple press Ctrl key while opening ftp:// path and it will be opened on FtpDrive  FTPDrive can work under Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista FTP Drive is compatible with many applications, except those, that uses own drivers to access files  FtpDrive can cache directories structure and read files data. Directories structure stored in memory, cached files resides in %TEMP%\FtpDrive.tmp\ directory. You can change caching settings (see following section)

FtpDrive settings:

• General:

  • Drive letter

  • Prefer passive mode for FTP data connections: In case when FTP data transfer mode is not specified for selected host, then Passive mode will be used if this option is enable, otherwise defaulted to active mode . 
  • Applications control list: Applications list, for those FtpDrive is allowed (or denied).
  • FTP servers list: -Here you can specify how and where FtpDrive will retrieve FTP servers list and servers settings
    • Try retrieve from local NetView: If NetView v2.90 or later is running on your system then program will retrieve servers list from it.
    • Try retrieve from NetView Client-Server: FTPDrive also can retrieve servers list from any reachable on network NetView, that running Client-Server plug-in, you should specify host, port and login/password to NetView server. 
    • If you don't have NetView (btw you can freely download it from http://www.killprog.com) then you can manually edit FTP servers list FtpServList.txt by licking on the large button. Also it will be neseccary to check whether server is online manually (for example by ping.exe utility). 
• Advanced:
  • Enable directory structure caching
  • Enable files data caching
  • Use guard pages to emulate memory mapping - this option allow effectively emulate memory mapped files. It work only onWin'XP and higher. If it is disabled (or you are using Windows 2000) then if application will try to map file to memory - file will be completely downloaded from server.
  • Enable forward seek auto-bypass - this option allow avoid re-initialize data connection if application will ask to bypass some fragment of file while reading. In this case FtpDrive will simple bypass some received information.
  • Directory structure cache expire
  • Data files cache expire
  • Maximum file size can be cached -  If you hase alot of free space on local disks - then  set this value higher than any file, that can be opened on FTP. 1024 mb for example.
  • Pre-seek guard delay - delay, that FtpDrive will use before (re)estabilishing data connection to allow work with some buggy FTP servers.
  • Idle connection timeout - 
  • FTP command replies timeout - how much time to wait replies on requests from FTP server
  • FTP data replies timeout - how much time to wait data on requests from FTP server
  • Enable IO errors interactive control for FTP files - enable asking user what to do when an error occured while working with FTP server. Possible answers are retry operation, ingore error and return it to calling application and it is possible to select what action should be used automatically next time when such error occurs for current application.
  • Load into system and console processes - enable this options to enforce loading FTPDrive engine into system and console processes on startup (if not enabled only console processes that started after starting FtpDrive will got FTP volume). Chnaging of this option applies only after FtpDrive (or sometimes wholse system) restart. But be carefull with this option - if you will get any problems after enabling this option  - disable it.
  • Virtual desktop support - if enabled FtpDrive will show notification icon and all messages on current virtual desktop

FTP sites settings:

• FTP sites settings dialog can be opened by clicking on the local sites list edit button and on the 'FtpDrive sites' menu item in the context menu of NetView hostlist. 
• 'FtpDrive sites' menu item in the context menu of NetView hostlist will appear after coping files nvftpdrv.dll from FtpDrive installation folder to NetView\Plugins folder. Note that installatio program can copy it automatically during install. After coping plugin's file you should enable FtpDrive intergration plugin in the NetView plugins configuration window.
• In case of using of NetView as sites list source sites settings will be taken from extended settings stored by integration plugin or if such settings not stored for particular host - from general NetView host settings. Note that plugin stores extended settings into metavariable '!fdrv'.
• After changing any settings of FTP sites list (local or in NetView) it is better to update list of folder on the virtual drive in order to force FtpDrive refresh information.
• In the sites settings dialog you can create, delete or edit any FTP site. Every site should have unique display name and some FTP-specific settings:
  • Server host - IP address or DNS name of FTP server
  • Server port - port number for FTP service on server. Usually 21 or 990 for implicit SSL/TLS connections.
  • Login user/password - 
  • Home directory - 
  • Connections limit - specify here how many connections server can accept from one IP at one time or zero if server doesn't limits connections count.
  • File names encoding - 
  • Data transfer mode - passive/active/defalt data transfer mode. Default means that desision what transfer mode will be used will be made based on NetView host or FtpDrive general settings.
  • Secure connection - specify here secure connection type that FTP server supports if you want use this feature. Note that using connection increase both server's and your's CPU usage and slightly decreases speed of the file operations, so use secure connections only when you really need it. You should install OpenSSL from http://www.openssl.org/ to use this feature

How to use:

• If NetView (at least v2.90) is installed on your or remote (with Client-Server plugin) system FtpDrive can use its hostlist to retrieve list of ftp-enabled hosts. To force NetView detect what hosts has FTP use Resources Scaner with enabled FTP/NETBIOS autodetection. checkbox. Don't forget save hostlist in NetView after scan completed (File/Save or F2). You can also explicitely define FTP transfer modes (passive/active) for different hosts in their advanced settings.
• If you have no NetView then FtpDrive can use locally-stored list of FTP servers. Just click on the button to edit FtpServList. and write down there list of FTP servers of your network. Every server - on the separate line. You can specify server hostnames or IP addresses or login:password@server.
• Now you can work with FTP servers with any file manager by opening virtual drive letter. It is prefferable do not use Windows Explorer when working with FtpDrive, since this causes many files being opened and read in background that FTP servers don't like.
• FTPDrive don't support opening files for changing on FTP. Instead, you can directly copy files to FTP, rename files on FTP and delete them. Read operations completely supported..
• After changing any settings it is recommended to clear caches by using tray area context menu to apply new settings completely

Possible problems:

• Problems possible with buggy FTP servers. Please report author about such servers. .
• Also you can find incompatibility of FtpDrive with some specifical software, for example if it uses own drivers to access files
• If server doesn't support REST command (possibility to resume downloading file from any position) then it will be impossible to work with it.
• Some problems may appear if server has too low connections per IP limit. Specify correct connections limit count in site settings in this case.

History:

• v3.5 [06/11/2006]
  [FIXED] Implicit SSL/TLS didn't work
  [FIXED] Improved compatibility wih some applications
  [FIXED] 4GB FTP file size limit removed
  

• v3.4 [29/10/2006]
  [FIXED] Conflict resolve beetween NetView's nvapi.dll that installed into Windows folder and nvapi.dll from NVidia that installed into Windows\System32
  [FIXED] Possible loss of last file's fragments when uploading files to some FTP servers
  [ADDED] Last FTP server replies history in the I/O error window
  

• v3.3 [28/08/2006]
  [FIXED] Possible instability with some FTP servers
  

• v3.2 [28/08/2006]
  [FIXED] Compatibility problems with some FTP servers, that don't support 'CWD /' command
  

• v3.1 [20/08/2006]
  [FIXED] Incompatibility with KAV - KAV often crashed when FtpDrive was active. Also sometime when both FtpDrive and KAV worked other applications failed to start
  [FIXED] 100% CPU usage in Total Commander on virtual drive when WatchDirs was enabled
  [FIXED] Resource leak (event handles) that could cause system performance and stability problems after long time active FtpDrive usage without its restart
  [ADDED] Hotkey to "unfreeze" application that hung while working with FTP
  [ADDED] FILE_ATTRIBUTE_REPARSE_POINT attribute for symbolic links (many file-managers indicates links by special color or icon)
  

• v3.0 [13/08/2006]
  [FIXED] Problems with terminal services and FUS
  [ADDED] Own FTP sites list editor
  [ADDED] Additional FTP server parameter - command connection port
  [ADDED] Additional FTP server parameter - home directory
  [ADDED] Additional FTP server parameter - encoding (automatic UTF8 encoding detection removed - now you should explicitely specify encoding)
  [ADDED] Additional FTP server parameter - maximum per-site connections limit. Usefull when server limits connections count per-IP to avoid IO errors
  [ADDED] Now it is possible to specify some FTP sites, that should differ at least by display names
  [ADDED] NetView integration plug-in to edit additional FTP servers parameters in NetView hostlist (but NetView itself will not use that parameters)
  [ADDED] Writing to the end of existing files (for KillCopy upload resume support for example)
  [ADDED] Possibility to fast pending connectins cancel using context menu
  [ADDED] FTPS connections support by SSL/TLS, if OpenSSL (http://www.openssl.org/) installed
  [ADDED] Symbolic links support
  [ADDED] Optional virtual desktops (created by HKM for example) support for UI
  [CHANGED] Default per-file data cache limit increased to 128 Mb
  [CHANGED] Improved file data cache algorithm 
  [CHANGED] Better compatibility with Windows Vista beta 2
  

• v2.9 [02/04/2006]
  [FIXED] Some apps crashed after FTPDrive being closed
  [FIXED] Passive data transfer mode was incompatible with some servers
  [FIXED] Hang on FtpDrive startup from drive that specified as FTP virtual in settings
  [ADDED] Files upload support (via usual files copy, see help for details)
  

• v2.8 [11/02/2006]
  [FIXED] Fixed some bugs
  [ADDED] Interface localization. Added Russian language.
  [CHANGED] Better UTF-8 compatibility
  

• v2.7 [29/01/2006]
  [FIXED] Improved UTF-8 compatibility
  [FIXED] Fixed some problems with long filenames
  [FIXED] Fixed error message when trying to enumerate files in empty directories
  [FIXED] Login and password fields in FtpServList.txt was muddled up
  [FIXED] FtpDrive used passive mode regardless on 'Prefer passive mode' checkbox if in NetView host settings both active and passive modes was specified
  [FIXED] Improved compatibility with other software
  

• v2.6 [10/09/2005]
  [FIXED] Possible hang on multiprocessor/hyperthreading systems
  [FIXED] Possible compatibility problems
  [ADDED] Now it is possible to specify username and password in FtpServList.lst in form of user:password@server
  

• v2.5 [04/09/2005]
  [FIXED] Some problems with starting DOS aplications when FtpDrive is active
  [FIXED] Problem with starting wedit.exe (that is the part of lcc-win32) when FtpDrive is active
  

• v2.4 [03/09/2005]
  [FIXED] New disk was not appeared in Windows Explorer if FtpDrive was started not by autorun
  [FIXED] Now compatible also with Windows Media Player
  [FIXED] Some application couldn't be executed from FTP
  [ADDED] Possibility to intercept IO failures and retry operation transparently for other applications
  [ADDED] Current transfer speed and total size of downloaded from FTP content
  [ADDED] Loading into system processes option
  [ADDED] Possibility to quickly clean caches by tray icon context menu
  [CHANGED] Now servers can has only one connection limit to allow work with FtpDrive
  

• v2.3 beta [20/08/2005]
  [FIXED] Some problems with stability
  [FIXED] Unable to execute DOS application from console, if FtpDrive is running
  [FIXED] Problems with starting MSOffice on some systems, if FtpDrive is running
  

• v2.2 beta [14/08/2005]
  [ADDED] XP styles support
  [ADDED] Button in settings, that launchs notepad with opened FtpServList.txt
  

• v2.1 beta [14/08/2005]
  [FIXED] Some compatibility problems
  [FIXED] Bug that can cause FtpDrive.exe to crash when actively working with FTP directories tree