WinQuota home
WinQuota 4.5 - disk quota management software
Key features (full list)
limit the maximal size of each file or directory
set up different limit values for different users
set up different limit values for different groups
serve any existing user or group credentials from domains
WinQuota quota management tool
WinQuota - disk quota utility download Buy WinQuota now
  • 1 year support of all present features
  • free updates and bug fixes
  • no limitations by processor
    Action! $199/server
  • WinQuota - disk quota utility download Download trial (2,2 MB)
  • $0
  • limited support
  • limited functionality when trial period expires
  • Frequently Asked Questions

    Back to Index

    Table of contents


    Common questions

     

    Q: What is WinQuota?
    A: WinQuota is a fast and reliable solution to provide per-directory quota management, including user notifications, hard and soft limits, and fully automated process of quota management.

    Q: Why I need to use WinQuota?
    A: Please, take a look at disk space management advantages it provides, and how you can use different quota settings

    Q: What WinQuota means by "real-time"?
    A: It means that all WinQuota limits work in real time, without any periodical scans or something like that. WinQuota handles (and declines if necessary) all file operations before they are taken to file system.

    Q: What are the WinQuota requirements?
    A: Pentium suitable processor (AMD64, Itanium), 128MB RAM, 15MB free disk space, see requirements and features for details.

    Q: Which operating systems are supported?
    A: Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows 2003, Windows 2008 in any distributive (Small Business, Enterprise, etc).

    Q: Does WinQuota support Windows 2003 Appliance Edition?
    A: Yes, directly.

    Q: Does WinQuota support Windows 2003 and Windows 2008 IA64/AMD64 platform?
    A: Yes, but at least Windows 2003 SP1 is recommended for these architectures.

    Q: Does WinQuota support Windows 2008 Core?
    A: Yes, except inexistent components to integrate, like Windows NT Explorer.

    Q: Does WinQuota support Windows 2003 and 2008 Cluster?
    A: Yes. WinQuota works in cluster environment well, especially with standard configurations with 2 nodes (active/passive node in particular). One important point: according to the license agreement, you need separate license for every cluster node, so in case with cluster environment it will cost 2*299$ for typical configuration.

    Q: What kind of software is WinQuota?
    A: WinQuota is a server side software; you need to install it to your file server, hosting computer, or other server.

    Q: Can I install WinQuota to my personal notebook?
    A: Yes, but quota settings will be applied only for your computer directories and files. Please take a look at possible ways of using WinQuota.

    Q: Can WinQuota work without continuous administrator assistance?
    A: Yes, WinQuota was designed to make your administrator free of manual quota settings tracking; WinQuota is able to work fully automatically.

    Q: What is the difference between soft and hard quota limits?
    A: The hard limits cannot be exceeded at all; soft limits may be exceeded but WinQuota will warn your system administrator.

    Q: Can I use custom notifications?
    A: Yes, without any limitations.

    Q: Does notifications work in sandbox?
    A: Yes, every program works with credentials of standard user with minimal rights. You are able to escalate rights for a user at your own risk.

    Q: Does WinQuota have ability to notify me of quota limits excess via handy/pager?
    A: Yes; please read the notification questions section for details.

    Q: Does WinQuota have programming level API?
    A: Yes. It is available for any COM suitable program starting with C++ and ending with any WSH capable script. Please, read the appropriate documentation.

    Q: I have Opteron, Athlon 64 or Intel Xeon with EM64T enabled. Which version of WinQuota should I use?
    A: WinQuota AMD64 edition, if you've using 64 bit Windows. Use x86 version for all other cases.

    Q: How to setup quota limits precisely?
    A: Please, take a look at our examples.

    Q: How to send you a bug report?
    A: Please, take a look here.

    Q: Are there any compatibility problems for WinQuota?
    A: WinQuota has no compatibility problems now. But we would appreciate any information concerning the problems you encountered.

    Back to top


    Licensing questions

     

    Q: Does WinQuota have corporate licenses?
    A: Yes, but in case you need one private requests by email is required

    Q: Are there any discounts for WinQuota possible?
    A: Yes. All discount opportunities are reviewed separately for every particular case. You can also request about a discount or send out your proposal by email.

    Q: Do I need to buy 4 licenses if I have 2xXeon HT processors on my server?
    A: No, WinQuota doesn't require per-processor payment. One license will be enough.

    Q: How many licenses do I need to buy for a cluster?
    A: One license for each cluster node.

    Q: How to get a WinQuota license for free?
    A: Generally we do not propose free licenses; but we provide various actions from time to time. Please, refer to our news.

    Q: We are a non-profit organization. Is there a way to get WinQuota license for free?
    A: Please, contact us via email and we'll discuss special conditions for you.

    Q: How to buy WinQuota?
    A: Please, contact us via email and we'll provide you all the required information.

    Q: Do you have volume discounts?
    A: Yes.



    Enterprise features support

     

    Q: Does WinQuota support Windows 2003 Advanced server and/or Windows 2003 Datacenter?
    A: Yes, WinQuota supports both of them.

    Q: Does WinQuota support Windows 2008 Enterprise and/or Windows 2008 Datacenter?
    A: Yes, WinQuota supports both of them.

    Q: Does WinQuota work within a Windows Server 2003/2008 cluster environment?
    A: Yes. Physically WinQuota works at the intermediate level behind all software like MS Exchange and IIS, so all WinQuota limitations are applicable to any kind of software you're using in cluster.

    Q: Is there a special way of installing it onto a clustered system?
    A: No; you just need to install WinQuota to every cluster node as usual, and use central storage to manage your files and limitations.

    Q: Are there any other things to be aware of when using WinQuota on a clustered system?
    A: In case of using central storage (CAS/SAS/NAS/etc) you are able to maintain quota settings from any active cluster node; all other nodes will acquire your changes on the fly.

    Q: Is this product applicable for a big company with TBs of data?
    A: Yes. WinQuota works with 64bit file sizes, so the maximum quota limitations sizes are terabytes.

    Q: Can I use WinQuota with AMD64/EM64T platform?
    A: Yes. Currently AMD64/EM64T version is available for trial download.

    Q: Can I use WinQuota with Itanium platform?
    A: Yes. Currently Itanium version is available for trial download.

    Back to top


    Installation questions

     

    Q: How to install WinQuota?
    A: Please, refer to our installation guide.

    Q: Does WinQuota provide Web-based installation?
    A: No.

    Q: Does WinQuota provide remote installation?
    A: No.

    Q: Does WinQuota provide silent installation?
    A: Yes, but not in downloadable version.

    Q: I tried to install WinQuota but, it seems, I haven't administrative rights to install. What's wrong?
    A: The first possible reason - you really haven't permissions (you are not a local administrator at the computer you try to install WinQuota to). Another possible reason for the problem is that your architecture is not Win32 compliant (you're using AMD64 architecture). Please, use suitable version for your architecture.

    Back to top


    Notification questions

     

    Q: Does WinQuota support any kind of notifications internally?
    A: Internally it supports event logs only. All other notifications are external and can be configured as you wish. Using, for example, Google, you can get either commercial or non-commercial components for any suitable kind of notification.

    Q: Why does WinQuota use external notifications?
    A: In general you either have such components as AspEmail already installed, or are going to use them; and WinQuota uses the component you have already installed. We decided to support compatibility with dozen of other email/SMS/whatever notifications software in our product because free tools have enough capabilities and provide lower cost for the whole solution.

    Q: Does WinQuota support email notifications?
    A: Yes. You can use any of predefined scripts, or write your own version yourself.

    Q: Do I need a 3rd party email sender component?
    A: In general, yes. Please, take a look into our email notification scripts overview.

    Q: Does WinQuota support pager/SMS notifications?
    A: Yes. You can use any of the preinstalled scripts, or write your own version yourself.

    Q: Do I need a 3rd party SMS/pager component?
    A: In general, yes. Please, take a look into our pager/SMS notification scripts overview.

    Back to top


    Troubleshooting questions

     

    Q: Control Panel and Web Console display different information. When I added new limits via Control Panel, they were not reflected by web console, even after refreshing the screen.
    A: WinQuota Control Panel does not apply quota limits until you store them by Ctrl+S (File->Apply quota limits menu). So WinQuota WebConsole still display only applied limits.

    Q: It seems to me, Web Console provides litle security, as I have no login page.
    A: WinQuota Web Console requires NTLM authentication, and administrative rights to work (WinQuota Web Console just uses Windows Single-Sign-On mechanism to not disturb you with additional login screen unless it is necessary).

    Q: Are there any way to pass LIMITS information to an external file like excel CSV?
    A: Yes, you can use WinQuota command line or WinQuota sample scripts to collect all information about limits. For example, the following script (we just named it as get-quota-limits-in-csv.vbs) will provide you information in CSV form:

        dim api, item, path
        dim i, j, k, count, qcount
        
        set api = CreateObject("WinQuota.API.2")
    ' Writing CSV header to standard output
        WScript.Echo 'Quota path; Hard limit in Kbytes; Occupied in Kbytes; User/Group name'
    ' Enumerating all folders were used to specify quota settings 
        count = api.getPrecachedPathSize()
    ' For each path we discovered we looking for quota settings
        for i = 0 to count - 1
            path = api.getPrecachedPathItem(i)
    ' For each path with settings we discovering all settings step by step
            qcount = api.getQuotaListSize(path)
            for j = 0 to qcount - 1
                set item = api.getQuotaListItem (path, j)
                ' Important issue: all counters are seeing in kilobytes
                WScript.Echo path & ";" & item.hardLimit & "K;" & item.occupied & "K;" & item.account
            next
        next
    ' Marking all resources to be unused
        set api  = Nothing
        set item = Nothing
        
    and by calling this script with command line
        cscript get-quota-limits-in-csv.vbs > report.csv
        
    you'll get a complete file, to import into Excel CSV format.

    Q: Sometimes I can see the data acquired for more than 100%. Why?
    A: There is an indication of how much data were requested by the latest rejected file operation. For example, you have 100K of limited space remained, and try to copy 10M file to this limit with an intellectual program like FAR manager. The initial request contains 10M, and it is indicated as limit overburn. But physically no data can be written over that 100K, so you may be confused by looking at operation beeing in progress. As soon as the operation will be rejected and the file will be deleted, all limits will be restored and displayed as they were originally set.

    Q: But why didn't you reject this 10M file writing request, if we have 100K of free space?
    A: When working with multi-user and multi-process environment we cannot lock disk space until actual writing takes place. For example your program works with logs, and it consumes much time. While this program works, other programs can free additional disk space. That is why we count requested disk space only when file operation is complete.

    Q: Do I need to backup quota limits in any specific way?
    A: All WinQuota limits are being backuped together with folders, so you don't need to make separate backup copies for quota limits. Every backup program, which recognizes named streams, such as standard NTBackup or even xcopy, will backup your limits too.

    Q: I've created a notification script and it works well when I start it manually; but it fails when I specify it to WinQuota. What did I do wrong?
    A: In general, you start script with more privileges than WinQuota uses. Follow additional steps to add more privileges:

    • - Add required rights to IUSR_WQUOTA user
    or
    • - Disable IUSR_WQUOTA user completely
    • - Specify account which has necessary privileges for WinQuota Service, using Windows Control Panel.

    Q: I've created notification script and it works well when I start it manually; but it fails or produces incorrect results when I specify it to WinQuota. What did I do wrong?
    A: The possible problem is that your script uses your account settings (registry, files, etc). So you need to specify your account to run with WinQuota Service, to share your registry and file settings:

    • - Disable IUSR_WQUOTA user completely
    • - Specify account which has necessary privileges for WinQuota Service, using Windows Control Panel.

    Q: Why WinQuota user named IUSR_WQUOTA has minimal privileges?
    A: That was made for security reasons.

    Q: How to limit WinQuota usage for limited list of users?
    A: WinQuota Control Panel and Windows NT shell extensions requires administrative rights to run. Just verify, that all required users (and only them) have administrative rights.

    Q: Does WinQuota API have the same administrative rights requirements?
    A: No, command line tools and WinQuota COM API work without administrative rights requirements. This possibility was designed to correspond to infrastructure integration needs, when you need to provide correct access rights for scripts and programs based on WinQuota API and command line tools yourself.

    Q: I have an unknown problem with WinQuota. What do I need to do?
    A: Please mail us the details of the problem.

    Back to top

    Back to Index

    Home - Technologies - WinQuota - WinArmor - WinJail - Site Map - Services - Support
        Copyright © WinQuota LLC, 2004-2018. All Rights Reserved.