The unofficial Shadow Defender Support Thread.

It works with Windows 11. Officially, the website does not even list support for Windows 10.

 

Try to disable Quick Start Windows, it can be the cause of many troubles. Uninstall SD, clean up traces in the registry, do a clean install. I disable the tray icon and enable the floating panel, through which I get out of shadow mode. No problems on Windows 10.

 

@WiSe
re #6425
See Shadow Defender faq


'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.'
................
Have you turned off Fast startup (aka: hiberboot, hybrid boot, or hybrid shutdown)?
Tony (Shadow Defender developer) recommends that you do.

 

@WiSe:
And as the option is quite hidden within Windows, here an instruction how to do it:
https://help.uaudio.com/hc/en-us/articles/213195423-How-To-Disable-Fast-Startup-in-Windows-10

 

There is at least one incompatibility of SD with Windows 10 and 11.

It is Virtualization-Based Security. If an attempt is made to enable Core Isolation Memory Integrity, Windows reports incompatibility with the SD driver (diskpt.sys).

How to Turn On or Off Core Isolation Virtualization-based Security for Memory Integrity in Windows 10

 

is it a known issue that.. during shadow mode.. when you copy a file let say and .iso with the size of 4gb.. when copying it to protected C drive, the transferring speed is fast for the first few seconds.. and then the speed started dropping it went from 7 seconds to 7mins and increasing. I remembered having this issue too when I was using shadow defender on windows 7.. just wanna to know if it happens to everyone or just me? If so.. do you guys know if the same thing occur in other virturalization software like
Toolwiz Time Freeze or deepfreeze?

 

I haven't noticed any significant slowdown copying large files to a Shadow Mode volume, but then again I seldom have a need to copy files much larger than 1GB and never as large as 4GB.

 

I guess you mean when one commits a file using the right click menu, your transfer speed decreases with big files... It never happened to me (I have committed at times files of 8 GB without any problem in less than 30 seconds).

What does happen to me, sporadically, when I click 'Commit by Shadow Defender' with the right click menu, normally an alert window comes up by SD warning that the operation cannot be undone, after confirming to go ahead and completing the copying operation, SD will notify of the completion of the operation which I have to confirm as well to end it.

Now this last stage of the operation of completion of the operation occasionally does not appear at all. When that happens, no commit operation takes place. I've notice it because some important files were not retained exiting shadow mode. I thought at the time SD had some corrupted files, uninstalled and reinstalled it but the problem comes up occasionally.

I've decided to live with it (most of the times it does not do it), but as a precaution I copy important files to commit to an unshadowed flash drive just in case, although when it asks to confirm the end of the operation it means the file has been committed successfully.

I forgot to ask, suta if you use a resident antivirus (or similar), have you tried to disable it before copying any file?

 

@Osaban
I mentioned the large number files 'Commit by Shadow Defender' problem #6183 here and #6199 here
I emailed Tony about it but never got a reply.

Patrick

 

Hello SD Experts,
I purchased Shadow Defender and sent an email to support with a question.
So far I have not received a response. In my opinion, this is unserious behavior and one cannot recommend Shadow Defender with a clear conscience.

Can anyone here answer my questions?

I have 3 hard drives in my PC.
If I enable Shadow Defender on C: drive and I catch for example ransomware, malware or a virus, can drive 2 and 3 get infected?
or,
if there are 6 PCs in the network and on one PC the C: drive is protected with shadow Defender, can the entire network be infected by a virus from this PC?

In another forum, a user has had the following problem:

I have installed the trial version of Shadow Defender.
For some time I can not open the interface of SD.
It always comes the message - Demo expires in 21 days, please buy/register.
To uninstall SD the shadow mode must be deactivated - to deactivate the shadow mode I need the interface - and I can't open it.

Has anyone of you had this problem, does anyone know a solution to be able to uninstall SD anyway?

 

I agree with all answers given to you by pvsurfer. About the lack of support by the SD developer, it has always been a problem since the beginning many years ago , he will never engage in direct emails by users, partly because of his limitations with the English language, but there is probably more to it. The only person who managed to contact him at times is member sdmod (shadow defender expert, who used to run a dedicated forum in the past). Despite this clear nonchalance about support, (Tony, the developer's forum name) has always upgraded SD when necessary. Luckily the program is very stable and doesn't seem affected by Windows very frequent upgrades. I would definitely recommend this program notwithstanding its precarious support, and many members here would probably feel the same...

 

I do not remember that I ever had such a problem.

I am no quite sure if you write about the problem only of another user or if it is also yours. Anyway, from your description I have the impression that this user (or you) are currently in shadow mode (because you write: "... the shadow mode must be deactivated - to deactivate the shadow mode I need ...").
Did you choose the option to start in shadow mode again after the next start of your computer? If you did not: Simply reboot your computer and you will be out of shadow mode, being able to uninstall the program. (But don't forget to commit first those files you would like to keep because otherwise they are lost after the reboot!)

 

@Coba,

SD can only protect disk volumes that are in Shadow Mode. It seems that you don't understand how SD accomplishes that protection, so I would suggest reading 'Shadow Defender Review' by @ichito (several threads below this one) and if you still have questions ask them here.

You should not be concerned by the remarks of a trial user. SD has stood the test of time and truly is the 'best of breed'.

 

@Coba
re uninstalling Shadow Defender

If you cannot access the Shadow Defender uninstall from start menu or from C:\Program Files\Shadow Defender\Uninstall.exe, you could try safe mode
(used to be F8 key on boot I think) and uninstall from there.

I found this saved note on my pc
It is not by me.
It was from someone's posts years ago.
I don't remember who, to give credit.

verbatim

'1. Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete ( Windows Task Manager ) click "PROCESS"
2. Find "Defender Daemon" or defender (which is the shadow defender program) under Image Name.
3. Select then right click and end its process.Right after reboot your computer and enter SAFE MODE while pressing F8 during start up.
4. On Safe Mode, Go to Control Panel and find the Shadow Defender program and uninstalled it.
5. Then do some cleaning on the registry and delete/remove any links particular to shadow defender. (Search "keyword" shadow defender and delete any results that has to do with shadow defender.
6. On the start up program disable any programs that calls shadow defender ON.
7. Reboot and Congratulation!'

Note from Patrick
I might follow the above apart from deleting stuff from the registry.





Tony, Shadow Defender developer has not been consistently available. Nobody is sure why. There has been plenty of conjecture over the years.
It may be something beyond his control but he has never explained about his periods (sometimes very long) of absence.
The software (Shadow Defender) has been developed to a high degree (in terms of functionality and stability) and is outstanding and I believe that most users are very happy with it. There are a couple of minor things that need ironing out.

I'll try to answer your other questions later.

Patrick






........................

 

I would like to apologize for the late feedback and thank you for the responses.
I have read this thread completely and the many information was very helpful for me, it was exciting and mysterious at the same time, concerning the developer.
Tony should be proud and grateful that despite his behavior, this community is behind him and has contributed so much to the development of SD.

@sdmod
My respect that after so many years you never gave up hope for a continuous exchange of information with Tony.

 

The most enduing and fascinatingly stable project of its sort ever. Just works and is light as a feather. No pressure

 

Agree 100%, this is the best investment I ever made for my PC 12 years ago

 

Is there a way to safely use SD to test a newly installed program if the installation requires a reboot?

 

No, it can't be done. It is rare though to find a program requiring a reboot nowadays apart from the ubiquitous monthly Windows update. I use my backup program (Macrium Reflect) with Windows updates, not as fast as SD but fast enough (less than 5 minutes to restore).

 

Thank you. I also use Macrium Reflect before specific tasks, for example critical Windows updates.

 

I'm getting a BSOD every time I exit shadow mode. I have disabled Fast startup, but it didn't solve the problem. I searched for the BSOD and I found this information about it: "This BSOD means that a thread tried to release a resource it did not own. BSOD error code 0x000000E3 may also show "RESOURCE_NOT_OWNED" on the same blue screen."
I'm running Windows 11 Pro.

 

Maybe the TPM module in Win 11 doesn't play well with SD. Have you got an Macrium image with Win 10 to restore and compare?

 

Unfortunately I no longer have any Windows 10 image with Macrium since I installed Windows 11 in December 2021 and therefore I cannot test it. This is actually the first time that I tried SD with Windows 11.

EDIT: Maybe we need someone with a Windows 10 image to test SD on a new installation of Windows 11.