The unofficial Shadow Defender Support Thread.

Discussion in 'sandboxing & virtualization' started by Cutting_Edgetech, Feb 14, 2011.

  1. sdmod

    sdmod Shadow Defender Expert

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    As far as I know there is no 'Shadow Defender Pro' or '2019 Pro' or 'Pro 2019'

    I can't imagine what a 'Pro' version would do anyway.

    I think that Shadow Defender is reasonably priced at 39 US$ for a single copy , bought from it's home site using Avantgate and considering that it is for a lifetime licence

    Patrick


     
    Last edited: Nov 9, 2020
  2. MPSAN

    MPSAN Registered Member

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    No problem but do not know if I need it at all.
     
  3. pvsurfer

    pvsurfer Registered Member

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    Unquestionably, that is pirated software! While SD can be procured from authorized affiliate websites other than the official Shadow Defender website you would still be redirected to Avangate to execute the purchase. If not, you are buying pirated software which will eventually be blacklisted and non-upgradable!

    SD is a terrific app that I wouldn't be without and it deserves our support. As @sdmod indicated, it is well worth $39 (US) for a lifetime license (and that price may soon be discounted during the Black Friday - Cyber Monday period), so please support continued SD development by buying a legal license.
     
    Last edited: Nov 11, 2020
  4. Ulysses_

    Ulysses_ Registered Member

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    It has a different certificate now. Or I'm being MITM'ed.

    Image2.png

    Is this company trying to hide something? Such as being owned by the Chinese government, one wonders. Such as having backdoors for use in future cyber warfare.
     
  5. sdmod

    sdmod Shadow Defender Expert

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    Yes there is a new certificate but it seems legitimate and maybe is to do with the new China's moves towards safer certificates, as previously, many were faked, which impacted on business confidence.

    Link to
    TrustAsia SSL White Paper
    here is a pdf

    You could search for China’s "Belt and Road Initiative" (BRI) which is about upgrading China's trading structure and infrastructure.

    Patrick

     
    Last edited: Nov 13, 2020
  6. sdmod

    sdmod Shadow Defender Expert

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    re earlier post

    'Igor Pavlov' is just the developer of 7-Zip
     
  7. MylesMoPete

    MylesMoPete Registered Member

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    Does anyone have an update about the file corruption mentioned for years in this thread. The Dev released a version a couple of months back but file corruption still occurs when Shadow Defender is stressed and under load copying a lot of files. The issue even occurs when testing on a clean Windows 10 install with only Shadow Defender. Sadly I can't find a good alternative that allows excluding folders on the C:\ Drive.
     
  8. sdmod

    sdmod Shadow Defender Expert

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    @MylesMoPete
    Yes it's the same or similar issue for me in XP. If you have a certain large number of files it won't 'commit' at all...and yet...a single large file of the same overall size probably would be ok. Seems to be more about the numbers of files than the size. I've tried to engage in dialogue about this issue and others but I never get a reply these days. Whether it is the Great Firewall blocking or the developer Tony's particular communication preferences, I don't really know.
    There have always been communication inconsistency problems from an early stage. Tony at first told me that it was because he was overwhelmed by a page of written English and struggled with it but later as his English seemed to improve, to some degree, the regularity and consistency of his communication diminished.
    Sometimes he seriously engaged and followed up with a particular issue and other queries, questions, issues were completely ignored. With all due respect he seemed to cherry pick...that was my impression anyway. I have sent a vast amount of emails that received no reply and yet occasionally have received an email as if nothing had happened. Even after his return from a long time away (years) he just re-appeared and resumed with no apology or explanation about his absence.
    I've often wondered if this large number of files problem was to do with enough free space of the hard drive or some sort of caching parameter limitation.

    Regarding fast startup or hiberboot that Tony recommends to turn off when Shadow Defender is installed.
    I read somewhere the other day that even if you have hiberboot turned off, Windows 10 will turn this back on when it updates.

    and there is a registry way to turn it off

    Turn on/off fast startup through Registry Editor

    hiberboot



    'Tips: You will need to make slight editing in Registry editor. You are generally recommended to be careful or firstly backup your Windows 10 registry before start editing just in case of error editing.

    Step 2: Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Power.

    On the right-side pane, find the HiberbootEnabled key and double-click on it.

    Step 3: In the pop-up Edit DWORD (32-bit) Value dialog, to turn on the fast startup, set its value as 1 and click OK; to turn off the fast startup, change its value to 0 and click OK.'

    Disclaimer.
    I am not recommending anything in particular and if you change these settings you do so at your own risk



    Patrick




     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2020
  9. MylesMoPete

    MylesMoPete Registered Member

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    Fast Startup and Hibernation are the first things I turn off on new computers. So it can't be that.
     
  10. Osaban

    Osaban Registered Member

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    I used to exclude folders many years ago. Nowadays I prefer to leave SD with default settings (the only thing I change, in the Administration tab I uncheck "Notify me with low free space on the protected volume" to avoid inaccurate notifications of low space when entering shadow mode). If I need to hold on to a file or folder after rebooting out of shadow mode, I use the right click menu "Commit by Shadow Defender", it really works reliably and it is very fast.

    Alternatively I also have a USB flash drive (16 GB) always plugged in and in normal mode to quickly save file and folders as a backup to the right click menu, although I have never experienced file corruption using the commit command. I believe SD works properly and its protection is more robust with default settings.

    Incidentally, I have fast startup and hibernation on with no problems whatsoever (although one has to check in Administration "Enable hibernation in Shadow Mode" My OS is the latest Win 10 home edition 64 bit and SD's version is 1.5.0.726
     
    Last edited: Nov 27, 2020
  11. sdmod

    sdmod Shadow Defender Expert

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    @Osaban

    I'm happy that fast startup and hibernation work for you using Shadow Defender.

    This is from Shadow Defender Website 'Frequently Asked Questions'

    'Q : Why Shadow Mode works only if I restart the computer, If I shut down the computer, all changes remain after reboot.
    Fast startup is turned on by default in Windows 8/10. When it is turned on, Windows will take hibernation instead of shut down, so after reboot all changes will remain. To discard all changes made in shadow mode after shut down, please disable fast startup.'
     
  12. Osaban

    Osaban Registered Member

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    I'm not trying to contradict an excellent advice which should be heeded by most users. I'm not special, but if one activates the reboot/shut down out of shadow mode from the main SD GUI (which I always do) the computer will restart/shut down (fast startup doesn't work with a restart anyway) out of shadow mode even if fast startup is on. I'm not advocating this practice, but it works following this protocol...
     
    Last edited: Nov 27, 2020
  13. sdmod

    sdmod Shadow Defender Expert

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    Thanks @Osaban for explaining how you use Shadow Defender.
    I am a 'creature of habit' and tend to have my fixed routines of usage with programs, including Shadow Defender but if there are other ways of doing things, that work, I'm happy to know that and to pass that on to others.
    I tend to mention the Fast Startup/hiberboot information because when people have 'glitches' it's something that comes to mind and I refer to Tony's website statement as a possible, not generally known, solution, to various problems.

    I mentioned the Windows 10 re-instating fast startup/hiberboot without user knowledge, after Windows 10 Update (after a user had previously manually turned it off) because I wasn't aware in the past that Windows 10 was doing that. If we had made an adjustment to not use Fast Startup/hiberboot so that we could use Shadow Defender as Tony recommends then problems might be re-instated too after Windows update.

    Patrick

     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2020
  14. Osaban

    Osaban Registered Member

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    @sdmod, you are welcome. You know the odd thing is, whether I have fast startup on or off, my computer always boots in about 6 seconds and shuts down in about 6 seconds as well.

    I think it's got to do with my having a SSD, fast startup will probably benefit computers with a traditional HDD, as a matter of fact even exiting shadow mode is extremely fast with SSD (the same time as a normal 'restart), I remember when I had a HDD rebooting out of shadow mode would take between 2-3 minutes. Exiting shadow mode and shutting down the computer from the SD GUI takes about 6 seconds as well...
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2020
  15. Cruise

    Cruise Registered Member

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    With SD release 726 I'm experiencing a serious performance impact running resource-demanding software such as Photoshop! I never had this problem with release 680 or prior SD releases. Since upgrading to 726 no other software has been added/changed that could possible account for this. So I'm wondering if anyone else has observed anything similar? As a 'sanity check', I'll be reverting to release 680 (assuming I'm able to download it)!

    I'm running Win10 Pro x64, on a laptop with an i7 processor, a 512GB SSD and 8GB RAM.
     
  16. Osaban

    Osaban Registered Member

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    My laptop has exactly the same hardware specifications as yours, but I don't experience any performance impact with Photoshop (CS6) or any other software for that matter. Have you tried re-installing SD? Is it used with 'RAM used as Write Cache'?
     
  17. Cruise

    Cruise Registered Member

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    Thanks for your feedback. Yes, I allocate 1GB RAM for SD's Write-Cache, so that probably reduces the RAM that's available to Photoshop. Tonight I'll 'unallocate' the SD RAM Cache to see if that helps, but the thing is that I used RAM Cache with prior releases of SD and never noticed this kind of performance 'hit'. o_O
     
    Last edited: Nov 30, 2020
  18. Osaban

    Osaban Registered Member

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    I remember allocating 4 GB of RAM as Write Cache about 3 months ago, and after a prolonged session (5 hours) with many Chrome tabs open on Chrome, my computer slowed down dramatically. Checking resources with task manager revealed that all the RAM memory was used up (not just the Write Cache, the whole 8GB available in this computer). Obviously rebooting out of shadow mode brought things back to normal.

    I used to have shadow mode always on Write Cache memory, but speed is the same if RAM is available, therefore the only advantage is that nothing in your shadow session is written to disk. Is it useful? I don't think so, therefore nowadays I enter shadow mode without Write Cache, just in case. I guess you could increase the size of the page file, but I'm no expert to advice how much. I've started a new thread about page file, hopefully some experts will chime in.
     
    Last edited: Nov 30, 2020
  19. pvsurfer

    pvsurfer Registered Member

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    SD requires a write-cache, which up until v1.2 SD automatically allocated to disk. The primary enhancement of v1.2 was the option to allocate a designated amount of RAM for SD's write-cache. As RAM is faster than any disk-drive one would expect that allocating RAM for SD's write-cache would improve SD's performance (though I have not conducted any test to validate this assumption)!
     
  20. Osaban

    Osaban Registered Member

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    In theory you are right, in practice (I used to allocate 4 GB out 8 GB available) I couldn't see any improvement in speed, as a matter of fact SD doesn't seem to visibly affect performance anyway when in shadow mode, Write Cache puts the whole session in RAM memory so that when exiting shadow mode all information of the session disappears from the computer, it would not be able to be recovered even with powerful forensic tools. But maybe with a slow machine with lots of RAM speed would improve with Write Cache on.
     
  21. amiti

    amiti Registered Member

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    Hello,
    I am using windows 8.1 and latest SD with RAM used to write cache. All is working perfectly accept when converting large files into system drive. Then conversion is slowed down to a crawl. No other AV or realtime monitoring is active. Do you know why this is happening and how to fix it?
     
  22. Osaban

    Osaban Registered Member

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    When you say 'converting' do you mean 'Commit by Shadow Defender' using the right click menu? What is a large file for you? Up to 500 MB it should be very fast, 8 GB will take about a minute, it also depends on the speed of your CPU.
     
  23. amiti

    amiti Registered Member

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    No, I mean batch converting media files by separate application. It goes quickly about 1-2gb but that chokes.
     
  24. sdmod

    sdmod Shadow Defender Expert

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    I mentioned earlier on in the thread that there is a problem with large file numbers. I can't remember the exact number that makes this happen. What I mean is, that when I am saving files over to the real drive files by right click in windows explorer, Shadow Defender, 'Commit by Shadow Defender' if there are more than so many hundred (I can't remember the number) then Shadow Defender will not deal with it.
    On the other hand if it was a large single file it 'commits' fine.
    If those same files are broken into two lots then everything is ok. I don't know why this happens and I've written to Tony many times about it without reply. I don't know if everyone experiences this but I have noticed that this problem has occurred for other members with various operating systems and Shadow Defender versions.

    One thing that I suggest looking at is if some other deep level program is also trying to claim ownership of those files. System safety Monitor was one..,certain anti virus running currently could be another...In Shadow Defender early life there were conflicts with various other deep running applications...even Sandboxie at one time way in the past.

    Patrick

     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2020
  25. amiti

    amiti Registered Member

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    Windows defender and other monitoring apps are disabled. The thing is conversion starts at 70x speed and after 1.5-2gb continue at 1X or 2X speed. I thought that maybe because it is a 32bit application it runs out of its 2gb limit but 64bit app shows the same behavior.
    I ended up disabling "cache writing to ram" and things went back to normal. Just a tad slower overall...
     
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