Software Update: TrueCrypt 5.0a

Last week, for the first time in ten months, a new version of Truecrypt was released with a large number of changes. It is therefore not inconceivable that a few small errors slip through the quality control. That is why an update has now become available in the form of version 5.0a. Truecrypt is an open source encryption program for Windows 2000 and later, Linux, and Mac OS X, which can encrypt physical volumes (a hard drive or a partition) and virtual volumes (a file accessed as a partition). In addition, it is also possible to create a hidden volume in the encrypted disk. This second volume is only visible if the correct password is entered. So if you are forced to give the password, you can only give the password that gives access to the entire encrypted disk. The second hidden volume is then completely invisible. More information about this can be found at this page to be found.

In version 5.0a, the memory required by the bootloader when the system partition is encrypted has been reduced by 18KB. That doesn’t seem like much, but this should resolve the “insufficient memory for encryption” error in most cases. In addition, there are a number of bug fixes in this release, including the ability to access a Truecrypt volume residing on a network drive. The full changelog of this release looks like this:

Improvements:

• The memory requirements for the TrueCrypt Boot Loader have been reduced by 18 KB (eighteen kilobytes). As a result of this improvement, the following problem will no longer occur on most of the affected computers: The memory requirements of the TrueCrypt Boot Loader 5.0 prevented users of some computers from encrypting system partitions/drives (when performing the system encryption pretest, the TrueCrypt Boot Loader displayed the following error message: Insufficient memory for encryption).

Bug fixes:

• On computers equipped with certain brands of audio cards, when performing the system encryption pretest or when the system partition/drive is encrypted, the sound card drivers failed to load. This will no longer occur. (Windows Vista/XP/2003)
• It is possible to access mounted TrueCrypt volumes over a network. (Windows)
• TrueCrypt Rescue Disks created by the previous version could not be booted on some computers. This will no longer occur. (Windows Vista/XP/2003)
  Note: If your TrueCrypt Rescue Disk created by TrueCrypt 5.0 cannot be booted on your computer, please upgrade to this version of TrueCrypt and then create a new TrueCrypt Rescue Disk (select ‘System’ > ‘Create Rescue Disk’).
• Many other minor bug fixes. (Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux)

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