The unofficial Shadow Defender Support Thread.

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

  1. Athas

    Athas Registered Member

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    Well, it's pretty safe to assume it's another bug in Shadow Defender. I wonder if other users can confirm this one, I don't have the setup to test it myself.

    The fact that it happens without being in Shadow Mode is not as surprising as it first seemed. After all, the driver is running after installation, it just doesn't redirect write operations to the hard disk to temporary space...

    Looks that for now we both can't use Shadow Defender :((and I really would like it to work the way it's supposed to, it would be such a great tool). I just hope the developer is active, reading through this thread, I see there was a stall in development somewhere around 2011 with over a year without new versions released. The last version was released in August of 2016, not that long ago, but right now the developers seems not to be responding to mails.
     
  2. Pliskin

    Pliskin Registered Member

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    @brighton

    This is also interesting:
    Btw, why is SD messing with network at all? It's not a firewall, so?
     
  3. CloneRanger

    CloneRanger Registered Member

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    Spools.exe

    SD, or Any other program, should NOT be using that to try & gain access to the www ! Why it is ? The sooner someone can get to the bottom of this the better.

    Any decent FW should have no problem alerting/blocking spools.exe, and/or any other program ! Also if you have a AntiExe etc App, that should do the same.
     
  4. CloneRanger

    CloneRanger Registered Member

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    PageFile

    If you have enough spare RAM, you can Safely disable it. I have Always done so since 98SE days with NO issues, EVER !
     
  5. brighton

    brighton Registered Member

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    Exactly my thoughts, it shouldn't be messing with anything to my mind. It should be invited in, sit down benignly and wait to be asked to create what it was designed to do.

    Data corruption is one thing, but actually altering the environment it's installed onto without even being touched by the user?


    Thanks for that extra info. So it's been reported to access the net, corrupt data, block my network.... what else?.... and the author has gone dark? lol

    yikes.... I'm off to find my tinfoil hat, hehe


    But seriously, this looks to be a seriously excellent tool and so a few comforting words from the Developer would certainly be appreciated here :)
     
  6. Athas

    Athas Registered Member

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    I believe that by using the printer spooler service "spoolsv.exe", there is not necessarily actual transmission of data to the internet. For this, using Shadow Defender's own processes would be easier.
    But it does access the spooler for some reason, and as far I can see spoolsv.exe is also responsible for sharing printers over a network. It seems plausible that there's some connection with shared folders/drives as well.
     
  7. ichito

    ichito Registered Member

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    Yes...it can be possible that SD using spoolsv.exe wants to find an external disk(?). SD can virtualise removable disks but I don't know is it able to do so with e.g. cloud disk or something like that.
     
  8. sdmod

    sdmod Shadow Defender Expert

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    If I remember correctly the more recent versions of Shadow Defender have an automatic updates option which is on by default but can be turned off by a tickbox in 'Administration'. This might be the reason for those attempted Internet connections. I run an older version so it doesn't apply on mine but please correct me if I'm wrong.

    Patrick
     
  9. CloneRanger

    CloneRanger Registered Member

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    Hi, yes i meant spoolsv.exe !
     
  10. CloneRanger

    CloneRanger Registered Member

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    Hi, well it shouldn't use spoolsv.exe to do that, so somethings not right !
     
  11. digmor crusher

    digmor crusher Registered Member

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    I am using Version: 1.4.0.648, there is a box to check for updates automatically.
     
  12. brighton

    brighton Registered Member

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    Just a thought... would you by any chance know where I might find an older version of Shadow Defender, certainly one that predates any fairly recent changes?

    I'd like to try to find out if the network issue I'm experiencing is new or has been present throughout SD's history.

    Many thanks
     
  13. Pliskin

    Pliskin Registered Member

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    Read more carefully people, because ichito said that SD tries to access the internet (using spoolsv.exe) after he disabled option for automatic update.
     
  14. Pliskin

    Pliskin Registered Member

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    @brighton
    Here you go, this version doesn't have "Check updates automatically".
    Code:
    http://www.shadowdefender.com/download/SD1.4.0.519_Setup.exe
    But it doesn't support Windows 10.
     
  15. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Also be sure the version you go back to protects the mbr. I've not seen anything like this but I am on win 7. Wonder if that has anything to do with it.
     
  16. brighton

    brighton Registered Member

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    Thank you, and thanks also to @Peter2150 for your MBR advice.

    Despite not supporting Win10 the version you pointed me to did let me install it, and doing that and restarting my computer prevented access to my hard drive again. Interestingly I was also able to find v1.4.0.591 (the first Windows 10-friendly version with optimized MBR) and that too caused the exact same problem. So the problem doesn't appear to be being caused by any recent software change.

    My next 'process-of-elimination' test needs to be to see if the problem persists if I integrate my old Windows 7 machine into my current setup. That's going to involve a fair bit of faffing about and I'm not sure when I'll have time to do it.

    This is bugging me now and morphing into a bleeping challenge lol :thumbd:
     
  17. stapp

    stapp Global Moderator

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    Just mentioning your set up again brighton in case it triggers anymore ideas from members...

     
  18. Azure Phoenix

    Azure Phoenix Registered Member

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    Anyone on Windows 10 using this software without any problem?
     
  19. stapp

    stapp Global Moderator

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    No problems here when I've used it on Win 10.


    EDIT... I have fast startup disabled.
     
    Last edited: Feb 18, 2017
  20. EASTER

    EASTER Registered Member

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    Version: 1.4.0.578 here. It's been flawless
     
  21. Tonto

    Tonto Registered Member

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    Yes thank you very much for that. I would set Shadow Defender on shutdown to go out of shadow mode, never would had to do a restart to get out. The culprit fastboot on win 10 unchecked all is fine now. Thanks this was driving me batty and i am new to Win 10 thumbs up man!
     
  22. stapp

    stapp Global Moderator

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    Glad to hear it's all working well for you now Tonto :)
     
  23. stapp

    stapp Global Moderator

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  24. Osaban

    Osaban Registered Member

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    Thanks,this is what I suspected, any major upgrade should be done with no security and even then it might break some programs...I'm going to try as I'm confident Macrium won't let me down...
     
  25. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Hi Osaban

    I've imaged my win 7 setup and installed the CU over it. Had no trouble at all restoring my win 7 image
     
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