RAM Snapshots

[TheRetroSpectrum]

If you don't want to read a lot, skip to the bold part for the request.

Hello,

I've been using SandboxIE for many years now, and purchased it about 6 months ago.
The program has worked so well for me, I haven't been able to think of a good additional feature until now.
In short, SandboxIE is AMAZING. My favorite piece of software, by far.

On to the show~

I would like to request a 'Snapshot' feature, if you will, for SandboxIE. This would mean saving the processor state of all processes running sandboxed and their respective RAM dumps, then closing said processes. Upon restoring a snapshot, the program states would be restored, and the programs would resume. This is comparable to hibernation, but it's basically a partial, sandbox only hibernation.

Since programs can run in SandboxIE and SandboxIE can control permissions of said programs, what other things can potentially be done in terms of program control? I figure it should be relatively easy to get RAM dumps and restore them if SandboxIE has permissions to do so.
*edit* - Forgot that I was working with something more complicated than a micro controller - this could get messy. Still a great idea though, if it can be done using SandboxIE to seperate the programs out completely from other associated goolosh.

One particular problem that may occur would be changes being made to program files that were in use by a program that's currently in sandbox hibernation. One workaround would involve a reverse Sandbox, if you will, for all hibernation locked files.
All programs in Windows would be stopped from changing hibernation locked files UNTIL the prior version gets copied into the hibernation Sandbox. Depending on what language SandboxIE is written in, it could be relatively easy to attain a list of files that are locked by any given process.

If I could do this, I could open up Firefox and some random garbage-load of powerpoint presentations and lecture notes for one of my classes, start filtering through it to study for, say, the final exam, then snapshot it and come back to it later without having to deal with the stuff being open until I can filter through it (this can take days, and I don't like spending days with 20 PPT presentations on my taskbar and 50 different PDF open in Firefox).


I'm super excited about this idea, feedback please! ^.^

[tzuk]

I'm glad you like Sandboxie, but I'm afraid your feature request is too complicated to be a real possibility. I think there are old topics discussing it in more detail, you could try to search for them.

[lylejk]

Yea; requested this one myself, but like tzuk said, way too much out of the scope for SBIE. Still, in my case, if it wasn't for the idiotic way Yahoo and AT&T work together, I wouldn't need this. Takes time to rebuild the additional sandbox each time I launch it, but I either put up with that or just let the resources run in tandem (i.e., have two sandboxes run concurrently; this is what I usually do). If I could pause on of the sandboxes (hibernate it) and re-animate it at will, I would be happy though.

[TheRetroSpectrum]

@tzuk: I suppose my request was probably a bit out of line. You're right - the more I look into doing this in Windows, the more impossible a task it seems to become; it's quite a bit more complicated than I expected. Thanks for the feedback!

@lylejk: Didn't see your post! I should have looked harder xD
I didn't think about running browsers in parallel . . . It's such a simple thing, it just hasn't occurred to me that I could do that with a single web browser (DERP).

What about a feature to group taskbar items from the same sandbox? Perhaps also making this able to turn on/off actively?
Windows 7 already has a feature like this for multiple windows running with the same program - the windows are tied to one label on the taskbar, and upon hover, the windows can be viewed.
If this effect could be forced for all items in one sandbox, it would make a WORLD of difference ^.^

Cheers!
-TheRetroSpectrum

[tzuk]

You can probably find some desktop manager utility that will allow you to group programs together.
Maybe some "virtual desktop" utility where you put each sandbox in a different virtual screen and switch screen as you need.

[TheRetroSpectrum]

@tzuk: Once again - a simple fix that simply didn't cross my mind.

Though, I still think that it would be a really useful feature to have.

Thanks for the thoughts!