The unofficial Shadow Defender Support Thread.

stupid question - any thought had to integrate content into wilders?

 

thank you for your hardwork; sad to see it has to end but anyway we are all here to keep talking about SD

 

+1

You always have a home here. You can't begin to know the appreciation so many of us have for you and it's been beyond noteworthy your tireless (and endless!) dedication to SD.

 

Thanks Easter, that's much appreciated along with other members' kind words.

I am still happily using Shadow Defender version 1.4.0.519 on my 32 bit Windows XP sp3 system ntfs ide but I am curious about how others with similiar setups to me are getting along with the newer versions.
I tend to stay in Shadow mode for a few days at a time then update anything that needs updating such as anti virus etc when I come up for air.
I run my browser sandboxed within Shadow Defender in and out of safe mode.
I have my browser Sandboxes with no Javascript as default and allow it as I need it, knowing that my settings will revert on deletion of the sandbox. I also run Adblocker Plus and Secret Agent in those browsers and use Keyscrambler Premium to prevent logger type stuff.
I run Avast Pro and use MalwareBytes on demand. I tend to use these mostly to check fresh downloads as they come in before I test anything in Shadow Mode before it is allowed onto my unshadowed system. I'm not big on exclusions within Shadow Defender, I to 'commit' files or programs when checked and tested from within Shadow Mode using right click in Windows Explorer then run those setups again later (if installation and useage is ok) in non shadowed mode.
I have had two system wrecker versions of Shadow Defender in the past but both are not used. One Tony withdrew immmediately on realization that something was wrong and the other one is a long time ago...I think it was was version .324 possibly. The problem with that version was that it seemed to have installed correctly but could not access it's engine to make it work and all subsequent versions installed after that wouldn't work either on installation except a very stable earlier version 1.1.0.278. That was back in my Windows 2000 days.
Some of the newer versions (for me) (on my system and configuration) have not been as stable as 1.4.0.519. I think that might have had something to do with the changes in Shadow Defender related to hibernation.
I don't use hibernation I always turn it off. Not many others seem to have the problems that I experienced.
Having only one system available to me I've been slightly scared to use the current version of Shadow Defender because one of the versions after 1.4.0.519 (the one that Tony withdrew) damaged my ability to connect to the Internet (on a deep level) with no easy solution. What I mean is that although I was fairly familiar with repair of LAN, Winsock, miniports etc it defeated me and I kept losing my connection and then had to disconnect the pc from the wall power and reset the ADSL modem before it would connect again
I'm over it now and have tried other newer version but found them glitchy. One of the problems that I (and others) had over many versions over the the years was loss of settings in other programs or apps reverting to default or unregistered settings. This was not a thing that happened consistantly.
In the newer versions where I experienced glitches it was changes to startup settings in a password manager which reverted to being open when I came out of Shadow Mode even though it had been locked in Shadow Mode...not every time but every few times.
They are the main sorts of niggles that I have had over the years but (for me) I'm happy with the 1.4.0.519 version whilst I remain with XP.
With my system and amount of ram some of the newer changes to use an amount of ram when shadowed have been of no use to me.
My preference is for the 'classic' Shadow Defender but with all the updates that made it secure against latest attacks.
Sorry this is a bit of a ramble, just a few thoughts.
Having said all this, I have used Shadow Defender from it's early versions and find it very useful and I'd be lost without it.

Patrick

 

I guess that it really wouldn't hurt for me to go with 608 on my Win 8.0 x64 rig but actually am quite confident enough as is with the version in my siggy.

I mean, there are only 2 apps that I can safely say that I luckily never ever had any issues with and those are Drive Snapshot & Shadow Defender and to this day makes me appreciate the efforts that went into coding them long ago and remains strong n stable as ever.

 

608 is working very well on my Win 8 (64 bit), chances are you'll be fine too...

 

Oh, i'm most definitely not saying that it won't. This is only one of 2 apps over my span from Windows XP to present that HAS NEVER FAILED or even gave any rise for pause either. Amazing incredible coding IMHO.

But can anyone advise on exactly what the newer version adds though in the way of new features that my current version doesn't already offer?

 

Windows 10 support was added, and several bug fixes. http://www.shadowdefender.com/history.html

 

I tend to think that unless one has clear problems with the latest update/upgrade, it is always better to go for the latest as it tends to have less bugs overall than the previous ones. I would have some second thoughts if I had to pay for the upgrade...

 

I sometimes worry that the challenges presented to software developers by the 'state of the art' operating sytems that drive and change the focus of the development to the degree, that, although the software might be glitch free on latest OS it might bring in problems for people using that software who are not using that latest operating system.
There are many reasons why a person might not want to adopt the latest operating sytem 'upgrade'. An early adoption usually brings a whole heap of problems and challenges to users until these glitches and bugs have been ironed out.
Early adopters usually find themselves as sort of unknowing beta testers.
We all seem to be bullied along and so it seems are the developers.
Look at a lot of the current security softwares, many are now struggling as the 'ground' that they previously worked on is cut out from under them and the whole platform needs re-assessment to catch up with the latest policies and technological changes imposed by the operating sytem developers.
Will there ever be stable ground for third party software developers to stand on?
It seems to me like most of the problems that people come to security forums with, are to to do with teams of third party developers trying to catch up and fit in with what are often, market driven, rushed, badly thought out and implemented operating system upgrades which are more to the benefit of those developers (and that isn't even always the case) rather than the customers or developers of other software that rely on a sound base to work from.
Yes I know I may be accused of being a Luddite and to be honest there might be some truth in that.
I think the reason that some of the 'classic' softwares (eg Shadow Defender, Sandboxie) are so popular is that they have an ability to ride the storm of non reasonable development and still maintain their own integrity against the odds. Both of these apps cater for multi operating system versions and at least to a meaningful degree are backwards compatible and have developers with almost gymnastic qualities.
What we want is a secure, stable backwards and forwards compatible operating system that provide an ongoing broad, stable platform for third part development and expression.
I'm not asking a lot, I know

Patrick

 

I experienced a case of corruption today, after executing a "Commit all changes" operation. SD 608, Windows 10.

After the reboot, the changes I had made in Shadow Mode were correctly applied, but the customizations I had previously made to the Start menu were lost. For example, I had added some tiles that didn´t appear, only a blank area was shown. Not very important, but shouldn´t happen. I restored an image of the OS partition to correct this.

 

Yes Robin, that's the sort of thing that I've seen ocassionally. One problem that I had with the more recent versions was I occasionally noticed that if I had something in a Sandboxie folder and I'd forgotten to delete it, then it would be still there after reboot from Shadow Mode to normal mode. That's why I went back to 1.4.0.519. Which suits my sytem XP sp3 ntfs ide drives
At times I've found with Shadow Defender that it seemed to undermine user settings in Windows and third party software and revert to default settings. This is not consistant and quite rare but noted nevertheless. I've been posting about these sorts of glitches for years but I think that maybe the majority of people don't ever experience them.
Just incidentally One more thing that I noticed was that in versions prior to and including 1.4.0.519 I used to get a virus warning in Avast Pro when I installed Shadow Defender clean and in the later versions there was no warning. I always took the virus warning as a false positive but just made a mental note of that change.

Patrick

 

The Shadow Defender is not supposed to be compatible with Rollback RX or with Flashback Time Machine.
But what about "Imaging" programs such as Macruim, R-Drive Image and Easeus Backup. Are they OK?
Thanks for reply if anyone knows.

 

not supposed but it always works fine with RX.

SD has no problem with imaging softs; just be out of shadow mode when imaging lol

 

Hello everyone,

I have just purchased and downloaded version 1.4.0.608 from the official website.
My os is windows 10 pro 64-bit. I am currently using Shadow Defender and it seems to be working allright.
I've seen no errors or strange behaviours or anything out of the ordinary (at least as far as I know and can see of course).

I have read some pages of the unofficial thread pages here on Wilders, and I've read the posts by sdmod and the streak of bad luck with the official SD forum.
As far as I have read about you, sdmod, you are very dedicated towards Shadow Defender. I'd like to mention I hope you will continue to support or help with SD on Wilders.
Although I have never used your services and/or help and to be honest I don't know you but it is great to see such dedication/devotion to do the best you can to support and help us users of SD.
Thank you very much for the things you have done ! You are very considerate and thoughtful and informative. A big thanks !

One of the reasons for me to use Shadow Defender is that I like to be administrator all the time and don't want to use a standard user account (I know its not the best practice)
Hence my SD usage.
Does anyone at the moment know of any incompatibilities or hiccups with Windows 10 ?
I'm also using Sandboxie inside shadow mode, maybe anyone have any tips about using Sandboxie together with SD ?

Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope that SD will be around for a long time!

 

Hi Jan,. you shouldn't experience any conflict issues between Shadow defender and Sandboxie The only suggestion I have is try to allow as little as possible out of Shadow mode and Sandboxies sandbox. I suggest, allow for convenience things like bookmarks, but that's about it. And then when you download something in Shadow mode that you want to save, right click the file and Commit. The lesser you allow to bypass Shadow mode and the sandboxing effect of Sandboxie, the safer you are and the lesser the chances of creating issues.

Bo

 

bo elam ,

Thanks for the suggestion ! I will try to allow as little as possible out of sandboxie and commit in shadow mode only really important things or things I am certain about to commit to the 'real' hdd.
Also one thing that isn't entirely clear to me is the memory you can assign to Shadow Defender.
In the SD gui you can set the amount of cache memory to use, but how much memory should I use for average usage ?
And does it matter if I watch a lot of youtube clips in the highest resolution ? I mean, does it fill up the memory very quickly or doesn't it work that way ?
I have 12gb of total ram to use. (I couldnt get two identical memory bars, so I ended up with 8gb + 4gb on the motherboard).

In addition to Sandboxie I also use (Blue Ridge Network) Appguard and Emsisoft Internet Security and NoVirusThanks ERP. All very carefully setup to allow all the programs to work without blocking eachother.
Appguard for memory access and block documents to be read/altered. (well, i globally use it for this purpose), emsisoft for behaviour blocker and block/allow firewall rules, nvt erp for anti-executable and SD to put the computer back in original state if something still goes wrong.

I just realised that I may be overdoing it. But the fun is that you can use these programs all at once and they compliment eachother.
Also the fun part, for me personally, is to see how far you can go with security and using different programs to achieve this.
Ow, I just realised that I can install EMET for additional ASLR/DEP/SEHOP for various internet facing programs.

 

To figure out how much RAM you should assign to write cache, that depends on what you do in Shadow mode. I suggest you test the feature, set the amount at 2000 MB and see how far you go. Since you watch a lot of YouTube and will spend most of the time in Shadow mode, I wouldn't be surprised if the 2000 MB are gone in a few hours. But no need to worry, when that happens, writes are redirected to the disk. And deleted when you reboot.

I dont use Shadow defender every day, and when I use it is usually for a couple hours or less. So, I have the number at 600 MB. Usually, that covers what I do. If I test installing a program, sometimes the 600 MB are gone pretty quickly.

Bo

 

Can someone tell me which folders (except those below) of Windows Defender I need to add to the exclude list if I want to keep definitions?
I know of:
C: \ Program Files \ Windows Defender
C: \ Program Files (x86) \ Windows Defender

Do I need Registry Exclusion also?

BTW: do I need to enable "Encrypt Write Cache"?

 

Same applies here. I set 1024 on SD which usually lasts as long as in Shadow Mode but there have been times I run over the limit and disk access writes started. No biggie though.

On another note, herein is a Macrium Reflect total N00b now (proud to admit) and with SD there are no issues at all on Windows 8.1 x64 that I seen after a new restore.

 

Excuse me, a question:
currently the developer is still Tony or SD was "sold" to other?
....another question please:
The latest version of SD (1.4.608 if I remember correctly) is fully compatible with win10 or not? .... someone has encountered a few problem?

thanks and sorry for my intrusion!