The unofficial Shadow Defender Support Thread.

Therefore it is not affecting boot time, is it?

 

TBH, I haven't timed it, I'm not that peeky.
But, I'm sure it doesn't increase it a lot. I just like to boot with as few autorun/autostart entries as possible, that's all.

 

Well the reason of my original query was related to my booting time with Windows 8 which is unaffected, 12 seconds to see the desktop. I tend to think without any slowdowns it is convenient to have SD on the tray.

 

I use Shadow defender on demand, maybe one day out ten so I really don't need to have the program start with Windows.

Boot time. I had SD start with Windows during the first few months that I used the program, personally I cant tell any difference in boot time in two computers either way.

Bo

 

Shadow Defender on demand here

Just barely trims a minute few seconds off bootup time which overall is insignificant. This is on Windows 8 of course.

Man i am geeked to the upteenth power with how extremely reliable SD performs over and over again with ease.

 

Oh I did not see that..Will definitely try that(right-click). That will save me from searching all that is changed. I'll just create a folder where to place it all once I am in SD mode (maybe the desktop) and from there right-click>commit.

Thanks!

 

I used to have it on demand too, but I then realized that with the RAM cach option enabled I could be running the virtual system directly from super-fast RAM. I now scheduled Shadow Mode for C: on every reboot, with 4000MB RAM buffer allocated. So far I've left the testbed switched on for 4 days and nights (with some heavy usage in between), and SD has only eaten through 2700MB out of its allocated cache. Not bad cache usage I'd say.

I understand that no everyone can assing this much RAM, but this works well even with less RAM. On my laptop I only have 4 GB of RAM and I assigned 2000MB to SD. It still gave me a good 4 days of usage before it came anywhere near its limit. Most people would commit and reboot much sooner than that anyway, and the cache would be refreshed.

Biggest benefits of SD RAM cache:

Speed
When the virtual system runs directly from RAM, it flies.

Device longevity:
When the virtual system runs in RAM your protected volumes won't take any write hits until you choose to manually commit data to them. This is especially beneficial to devices with limited IOPS like SSDs, memory cards, flash sticks etc.

Data Privacy/Security:
No disk hits also means no disk traces of deleted data left behind. It all stays in RAM and gets flushed at the next reboot, which is perfect for the more paranoid among us.

BTW: Latest from Tony:

http://shadowdefenderforum.com/index.php?topic=41.0

 

Hello guys,

I've been using Shadow Defender for months right now and so far it doing fine to me. But one time when I disable my SD to install a game and enable it again. And when I restart my computer the background in my desktop was error it says "Active Desktop Recovery". And I disable and enable my SD again to change my background but when I restart it again, the error in the desktop is still their. How to solve this thing? BTW I'm using Shadow Defender 1.1.0.325

 

Which version of Windows are you running (is it XP )? ...as I recall, that was an IE error under XP (and I really doubt that SD caused that error) ...also, how exactly did you disable/enable SD when that happened?

 

Thanks for passing along Tony's correspondence. Hearing anything from Tony is encouraging. I had a really good sense that it was just about time for him to release another new update to his great SD.

I did forget to mention that on Windows 8 i commit a mere 1024 = 1Gb memory to it's cache. More then enough on this end to ensure & complete session business.

 

Yes, Win XP Home Edition

I'm using Win XP Home Edition. I disabled my SD by clicking "Exit All Shadow Mode" in Mode Setting and after the installation was finish I click "Enter All Shadow Mode" to enable the SD. And when I restart or turn off/on my computer the desktop background was in error. Is this only happen in Win XP?

 

It has never happened on mine (or in my Windows7).

Bo

 

I used to have a somewhat similar problem with that version of SD and most of the other earlier versions as well on my XP system. I'm still using XP, but now with SD 1.2.0.376 I haven't had one single problem.

 

I basically use SD for testing a piece of software on my XP system from time to time and I only have a total of 2GB of RAM. For this "testing" purpose, would it be safe to assign 500MB to 1000MB in order to use the SD RAM cache option - or isn't it really necessary for just testing software?

 

Agree completely on all the myriad advantages of SD and especially the RAM cache option. It's likely one of the best features ever added to an already sturdy LV framework. My Win 8 unit also sports a mere 4gb memory and i quickly discovered by checking in on system status that in all the activity i was putting it thru it didn't consume as much RAM cache as i expected. Anything extra Tony decides to add such as requested features of "block driver loading" and " virtualize all" and the like can only serve to lock this app up tight in the Legendary category of best ever windows programs.

I been laboring very hard just to find a reasonably solid but fluffy lite HIPS for x64 but i guess those 32bit developers aren't ready to spring for a MS x64 driver signature yet.Outpost SS and Comodo. both for me exhibit way too much drag on a system to be of any real use let alone forking out for a fee just to bog your own system down.

It's coming to the point (in this camp anyway) that a single comprehensive and feather-lite LV technology such as Shadow Defender employs coupled with a Sandboxie then those complimented with a dependable Roll-Back/Imaging app is perhaps the most stable and best security a user would ever want.

 

+1 Easter, the proactive protection afforded by antiexecution and drop rights/drivers/hooks should be able to keep a system safe. Still, for people who want more mainstream uses out of their computers, such options may be limiting for their intended uses. Those users could still use SD with such options disabled, alonside conventional antimalware protection.

These future SD options are not there to compete with existing more traditional protections. They rather supplement them into a multi-layered system security shield.

 

any news? 18 day left just for UI
or adding more options?

 

Such is been the nature and history of Shadow Defender. It's a bang up super application with an almost equally mysterious trail.

It's followers/users get blue in the face holding their breathe anxiously waiting it out for the next new groundbreaking improvement. I know i am. LoL

 

I know what you mean Easter

Patrick

~ Removed Copyrighted Image ~

 

Yes, it sounds good on paper, but in practice it didn't improve speed at all in 2 of my machines: with Vista and 2GB of RAM I had to revert to version .325 as using a cache RAM of 1GB it often made reboots last a long time (3-5 minutes), and no change in speed.

With Windows 8 (64bit) and a fast machine (i7-3635 QM CPU @ 2.40 GHz 2.40 GHz, 8GB RAM) again no change in speed even using a cache of 4GB RAM. I'm actually using SD without cache RAM as occasionally it behaves like my Vista machine, some reboots take forever (that only happens when using the cache RAM.)

I'm not really criticizing, but we are not all experiencing the same performance improvements.

 

My experience with a rather average 3-year old Dell desktop computer with Windows 7 x64 and 4 GB of RAM, SD 376 with 500 MB of RAM write cache: zero problems, neither noticeable increase in speed nor delays in reboots.

I have noticed that SD almost always uses both disk space and RAM space, even when there is free space in the RAM cache. Sometimes it uses only RAM space. When the used RAM space reaches the maximum assigned (500 MB), the disk space increases, as expected.

 

Version 1.3.0.452 - July 8, 2013
What's New: Add Registry Exclusion List in Windows 7 and Windows 8.

http://www.shadowdefender.com/download.html

 

It is a beta version though.

 

I don't know if there is any change for xp users.

Patrick

The Official Shadow Defender Forum

 

One question. I could find no update option in the interface. Does SD normally automatically update to the latest version or do I have to manually install every new version over the last one?