The unofficial Shadow Defender Support Thread.

WoW you guys! This is an an exciting re-read for me, we had a lot of fun putting PowerShadow thru it's paces and sharing our opinions & findings with it. I think somebody got jelly seeing all the success of it and out came ShadowDefender all of the sudden grabbing the limelight away from PowerShadow.

@Chuck57-

Thanks @stapp!!!!

 

That long thread is a little bit of nostalgia. Power Shadow was nice. I don't recall ever having a problem with it. It just worked. Actually, kind of like Shadow Defender which I now have on board again. It just works, if you remember that bad guys in containment can still steal stuff outside. But for keeping garbage from accumulating on your hard drive, it does the job.

 

I'm new here, but I follow this thread for some years. Since I started using Windows 10, I always had problem when I keep the system in Shadow Mode for a few days: the system take a lot of time to boot up, even with SSD, but if I choose the option "exit Shadow Mode on shutdown", the problem does not occur. I emailed the support two times, but never get an answer. Has anyone went through it or I'm the only one?
I have fast boot and automatic maintenance disabled.

 

Support will not answer, it has been an ongoing problem for years. The Chinese developer used to reply to only one person who was in charge of its forum, but lately he doesn't reply to anyone. As for your problem I don't know as I've always used the "exit Shadow Mode on shutdown". My first thought would be that perhaps your SSD gets too full and slows down, or if you are using "ram used as write cache", exceeding its value would slowdown your computer... I've never encountered this problem as I keep the shadow mode session for about 2-3 hours at the most...

 

My computer has 16 GB RAM and I assign 3 GB that doesn't close to get filled up. My SSD has a lot of free space. I think that's a bug in Shadow Defender. I tried using different versions, running SFC, CHKDSK, DISM and didn't work. It's strange that Tony doesn't reply, because every program need a support, especially if it's paid.
Something I noticed is that in the "welcome" screen, I look at the disk's LED and is like the SSD "stop" reading for a few seconds and continue reading after that.

 

@Frib004, have you tried uninstalling SD and then reinstalling v1.5.0.762? If that doesn't remedy the problem, you might give v1.4.0.680 a try ...good luck!

Ps: And as @Osaban implied (unfortunately) - don't hold your breath waiting for a reply from 'Tony' (or whomever is supposedly supporting SD).

 

I still run 1.4.0.578 and you can't kill that thing.
I hammered it to bits and on reboot (or hard shutdown) it dumps session like nothing ever happened.

As @Osaban & @pvsurfer keep making the point. It's no use trying to get a reply from SD's Developer.

 

I've used other versions and the problem holds. The "solution" is using the "exit Shadow Mode on shutdown" option every time I boot up the PC.
@pvsurfer there's no 762 version. Just 726:

 

Anyone has the v.591 setup?

 

Of course (I ran out of coffee and was in caffeine withdrawal)!

 

I very much doubt that it's on SD's server any longer. However, v1.4.0.591 (or any other version) is available HERE.*

* courtesy of @The Shadow

 

I installed v.608 and looks like the problem disappeared, but need a few days to see... and I noticed that even though this is an old version, runs better than the v.680 or v.726.
One doubt I have is that I assigned 3 GB RAM for cache and SD uses space in disk too. Is it right? Thx for the support.

 

I prefer to use versions released after 591, because has a better MBR protection, as it seems:

 

Quite understandable. I use GPT UEFI and tend to lean toward if it isn't broke, working as expected, it's a done deal.

 

Glad to hear that your problem disappeared with v.608. Re your question about SD using disk for its write cache when RAM has been allocated for that purpose, it will do so only if/when the amount of RAM allocated for SD's write cache becomes insufficient.

 

I'm currently using the v.591 and seems like the problem is gone. Probably because of a specific incompatibility with current Shadow Defender's versions with my hardware/software config.

 

Did the problem reappear while using v.608?
Are you using any other security apps? ...if so, which one(s)?

 

I've installed other versions to see and stayed with 591. The v.608 didn't had any problems. I think the problem only occurs with the recent versions.
I'm using Bitdefender Total Security (6 month trial) and it's running fine alongside Shadow Defender.
I was using Kaspersky Standard, but after a few days in Shadow Mode the databases got outdated and the real time protection disabled automatically until I exit Shadow Mode to apply the update.
I don't think Kaspersky was causing this, because I had this problem with SD before I used Kaspersky.
One thing I noticed is that this version works much better than the newer, I feel the computer faster (maybe a placebo?).

 

@Frib004,
As the saying goes, "whatever works" - but I will be very surprised if that older SD version (released in Oct. 2015) continues to work well for you because it preceded Tony's patches (in several subsequent releases) to make SD compatible with Windows 10 as it evolved - which (you said) is your OS!

 

V.591 is working flawlessly in Windows 10 22H2 here. Seems like Tony is a really skillful programmer for a program from 2015 still working in 2023 without any problems (at least for me).
The only thing I don't like is the lack of support by the developer.

 

Whatever works... Let us know if you eventually experience issues running that 7 1/2 years old version of SD on Win10.

 

So... after a few days of test the problem returns, so I returned to v.726. I have two options:
Enable Shadow Mode manually (using "exit Shadow Mode on shutdown") given that the problem only occurs if I enter SM on boot
Or get used to the boot time which is around 40 seconds when Enter SM on boot. When I use the exit SM on shutdown, is around 20-25 sec.

 

I don't think Shadow Defender was designed for a computer to be kept in Shadow Mode for several days at a time, someone correct me if I'm wrong. This may be the cause of your issues, also, any updates to your browsers, AV , bascially anything that updates in Shadow mode will be lost once you exit.

 

I may be wrong on that but @digmor crusher raises something i always avoided myself. It could be worth looking into.
But it's a valid point (maybe) that Shadow Defender may not be intended to run in shadow mode excessively