The unofficial Shadow Defender Support Thread.

I suggested write cache encryption to Tony back in December and he said that he'd look into it, I'm glad that he has made it happen so quickly.

Regarding the TRIMcheck issue: I can't test it ATM because I also have Rollback RX installed on my SSD testbeds, and RX definitely cripples TRIM anyway. Can you guys run TRIMcheck both in and out of Shadow Mode and post your results? Patrick and myself will contact Tony about it as soon as we have concrete proof that a TRIM-disabling workaround is in effect here.

 

Hello,

Do not get me wrong as it is a good thing to be adding features to SD. But many of us have been having problems with SD (whether it is settings of apps mysteriously resetting to their defaults or task scheduler corruption) and it would be nice if Tony would address these issues before adding more features. To those of us having issues, we would much rather have our problems fixed before more features are added. To us new features added to an already buggy software does us no good at all.

 

On my SSD the results are clear. Shadow Def enabled: TRIMCheck says TRIM is disabled. ShadowDefender disabled, TRIMCheck says TRIM is working.

This isn't some "obscure" bug that may or not appear. If Tony has an SSD, he can see for himself. He just have to run TRIMCheck on his SSD.

 

First of all I want to thank you for sharing this program with us Fuzzfas! It is great that we can now have an easy way of testing actual TRIM functionality

I will e-mail Tony today about this.

I couldn't agree more my friend, I hope that Tony will be able to address the current issues before he actually implements more new features. The problem for him is that the "lose settings" issue varies so much between different software configurations, so it probably wouldn't be a "one solution fits all" kind of thing.

 

The credit goes to Pandlouk. It was him who found this program, in the relevant Rollback thread. That's how we found out that Rollback indirectly disables TRIM. I simply had the idea striking me yesterday "why don't i run it with Shadow Defender too" and i was disappointed with the result. For now i have uninstalled Shadow Defender.

 

I have e-mailed Tony with the TRIM issue, also prompting him to re-address the loss of settings issue. Lets see what he says...

 

I have not kept up with this forum in several months. Has Tony reappeared? I see there is new builds being released now, and talk of users corresponding with Tony by email. I have an incompatibility with SD, and WSA (WebrootSecureAnywhere). I can't run them together without getting a BSOD almost immediately. If someone believes they are corresponding with Tony then how do they know its really Tony?

 

Don't worry, it's Tony. He even posted once here with his account to say he is back.

 

Welcome back Cutting, it's good to see you Great Father and Original Thread Starter coming back to greet Your children!

The latest version of SD features Win8 compatibility, a user-configurable RAM buffer, write cache encryption, plus SSD compatibility (although its current implementation seems to be crippling TRIM while in Shadow Mode ATM, just like Rollback RX). I am proud to say that the RAM buffer and encryption have been my own suggestions which I e-mailed to Tony back in October. He has managed to implement these features very quickly and I have been in direct communication with him ever since.

 

Thanks for the welcome back Cyberman! I'm really excited to be back, and to see that Tony appears to have reappeared! I was actually quite worried about him. I have to say though I still have to be a little skeptical that it is actually him. I know that after he went MIA some of his account credentials were stolen or being used by unknown individuals. The site had been taken over by unknown individuals, and they refused to answer any questions as to who they were or what happened to Tony. The SD support forum was also compromised. I will get in contact with him, and see what he has to say about his long absence.

Yeah, I was looking at the change logs on the site. I hope he can work with Webroot to get the BSOD resolved. I have not been able to use them together on some machines, and on others I can use them together. I have worked with Webroot on the issue, and they informed me they would be unable to resolve the issue. I gave them remote access to the machine, and also created many bug reports. They have their own utility that runs to gather all needed info for bug reports that they use.

 

I just sent an email to support. I hope to get started on bug reports soon. I don't have my test machines at the moment. It wouldn't matter though since my test machines are not affected by this issue. I do have one of the affected machines though, and I hope that will be enough. I hope to get the issue resolved by working with Webroot, and Shadow Defender. Webroot informed me they would be unable to resolve the issue without assistance from the developer of Shadow Defender.

 

Btw.. thanks to all the guys, and gals that kept this thread active in my absence!

 

I read on another forum that Tony has trouble responding to questions, and support due to not speaking much English. I wonder what dialect of Chinese he speaks. My first guess would be Mandarin, but if he speaks Cantonese I have a close friend that lives in Hong Kong that speaks English well. Maybe he would offer some help. He also has worked in sales for many years. Maybe they could find some mutual beneficial grounds to work with. Shadow Defender desperately needs marketing beyond the tech community. Even many in the tech community do not know about it. They don't know what they are missing!

 

I believe the Shadow Defender Logo should be placed back on the GUI as shown in the Screen Shot? I had to look at it for a moment to realize what was missing. It has been removed in this version. I added it myself in the Screenshot below. The GUI looks cleaner, and more professional with the Logo. Also the margins are off where I placed a vertical red rectangle. The padding needs to be removed horizontally.

 

Can he say Sale?

 

My thoughts exactly, when the latest version was released I thought the changelog might contain something about Bug fixes.
I am disappointed so far...

 

I've never had any problem communicating with Tony. He seems to understand all e-mails I have sent him, most of which are full of computer terminology. All his answers seem to be in pretty decent English with some grammar mistakes thrown in - but then again he may have another person at hand who translates for him.

Regarding SD marketing: It's a true shame that light virtualization programs are still an unknown quantity to many computer users. I have introduced CTM, Rollback RX and SD to many of my clients in the past and the reaction I always got was one of amazement at the ability of such programs to undo computer changes with just a reboot. The common reaction from many people has often been in the lines of "why the hell didn't I know that such a program existed?"

In my capacity as a software reviewer I hope to make LV/IRS apps more widely known. I have already submitted a thorough LV/IRS technology introduction to a major technology website for publication. This will be followed by individual articles dedicated to related software. I'm trying to write those articles in a language that is as jargon-free as possible, so even vanilla users could get what such programs can do. SD will be the first one of those articles. Tony is aware of this forthcoming review; he has been very helpful answering all my questions regarding the functionality and inner workings of SD.

 

I have received a brief answer from Tony this morning regarding this latest TRIM issue:

Hi Alex,

Thanks for your feedback and informations.
I will make some research and hope to solve it.

Best regards,
Tony

 

For me Shadow Defender 1.1.0.325 is the most bug free and stable to date but I don't like change if it detrimentily effects the gui or stabiility. I think that Tony should build on 1.1.0.325. I've been using 1.1.0.325 for a long time now and although it is nice to see that Tony is working on stuff like the Trim SSD issues etc (to keep up to date with current hardware and Operating systems) I fear that the "essence" of the program could be diminished by driven "change for change sake", "get bys" and "patches" especially if in implementing those changes that Shadow Defender's sructural integrity, stability and reputaion is thrown into question.
I know that many of us wanted/want to see the software that needs re-boot to install issue resolved cleanly and of course ssd stability and compatibility is a big issue these days but fundamentaly, other than that, Shadow Defender 1.1.0.325 is a cult "classic" stable program .

Regarding Tony's communication abilities in the English Lanuage
As Alex says, I have found that Tony seems to understand (by whatever means) even quite complex and technical questions about the software but in answering, I find that more often than not I will receive an "I'll look into it" sort of answer (as Tony's answer to Alex above) rather than an engagement with the full depth and breadth of the question. I tend to think that as Tony is a "one man show", that maybe time is a major consideration.
In some way I accept the language contraints but I would like to see a more pro-active "mutual" usership engagement like Ronen Tzur has with his Sandboxie usership rather than these sort of behind the scenes question and answer sessions where we are left guessing what will happen next and where there is not a fluid usership input mechanism in place. Usership developer "partnership" is how Shadow Defender could really grow and maintain momentum. I've written to Tony about this in the past many times, isolation of the usership and the developer will stifle the program. This is not necessarily Tony's fault but I believe that it is a major issue that needs to be addressed.

Patrick (ex Shadow Defender Global Mod)

 

I think that would be the last thing you would want to see. SD could easily end up in the hands of the wrong developer. SD V 1.1.0.325 has still been the most secure Light Virtualization App in existence! I've never seen any proof that SD has been breached. All the others have been breached except for maybe this new LS App that I learned of recently ( I don't remember what it's called) It hasn't really been around long enough to be tested like SD though. Most software goes though buggy stages when making considerable changes like Tony is making with SD now.

 

The incompatibility issue I have experienced between SD, and WSA is not present in SD V 1.2.0.368 on the affected machines. I was experiencing multiple BSOD's so frequent that it made the machines unusable. SD V 1.2.0.368 has a few cosmetic blemishes, and it seems at times the GUI can't be accessed from the SD Desktop Tip or system tray. Such as right now

 

hi,
what is the advantage of the encryption of the write caches, the new feature from sd 368?

 

Relevant to the above question. Has anyone noticed increased CPU time with SD, because of the encryption? I haven't ran the new version, but i m afraid that the CPU may be the one to pay for the price of encryption.

 

Good question.

I suppose it is addressed to users that worry about somebody reading the "cache" (whatever it is) created by SD, either while in shadow mode or after the cache is deleted. For me, this isn´t important.

 

Thank you Fuzzfas/Pandlouk for posting SSD TRIM check tool, very useful.