The unofficial Shadow Defender Support Thread.

I think that Tony would include any new important changes in Change History on the Shadow Defender site.

 

Hi,

the newest version doesnt work for me fine

if i go in hibernate status and then i wake up my pc, windows starts like crashed and not in the old state

i use win 7 64-bit, also a clean installation form SD doesn work

anybody an idea ?

 

Hi ,

This version has no Track0 and MBR virtualization.
Track0 and MBR virtualization will be included in the next version.

Best regards,
Tony
I got this reply from Tony about Track0 and MBR virtualization.

 

I have mentioned this earlier but it's one Thing that's still annoying when using shadow Defender. The GUI Needs admin privileges. At the same time the program offers Password protection which is redundant when you have to type in your admin Password first and then type in the shadow Defender Password again...

Imo the gui shouldn't ask for admin privileges but offer it's own Password protection just like deepfreeze does.

 

is this the answer about my question for hibernate-problem ?

so i will wait

 

This is an answer from a question that I sent to SD support.

 

Hi BruzZzler,
I suggest that you contact Technical Support

To ask questions, please send email to support@shadowdefender.com

To report bugs, please send email to bugs@shadowdefender.com

I'd be interested to know if anyone else is having problems with this version.

Patrick (sdmod)

 

In addition to Patrick's advice, you might find someone else with an idea, or with the same problem, by reporting it here.

TS

 

@Patrick

How do you upgrade to the newest version? Is a clean install required or can you go over the top of the previous version?

 

an answer from tony about hibernate problem


Hi,

There is a setup problem in the 454 version, I will repackage it later.
Thanks for your feedback.

Best regards,
Tony

 

Hi TomaZ
I refer you to post #2745 of this thread

Personally I prefer to install clean

Patrick

 

BruzZzler
Thanks for your input

I've emailed Tony asking when this will happen and notified members on The Official Shadow Defender Forum here.

Patrick

 

Message from Tony:

Hi,

The repackaged version is uploaded.

Best regards,
Tony

 

Hi Bruzzler, I received an email from Tony this morning as follows

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

Re: Re update to setup‏

support@sh​adowdefende​r.com
6:01 AM

To: Patrick

Hi Patrick,

The repackaged version was updated yesterday evening.
There is a setup problem will lead to hibernation issue.
The information on the forum is so quick.
The information was post before i uploaded the repackaged version.

Best regards,
Tony
..............................................
When Tony talks about the "hibernation issue" I think he is referring to the Shadow Defender 1.3.0.454 before the update but I'm not sure so I sent an email just to confirm.

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

Hi Tony,
Thanks
Does this mean that the new upoaded version is now OK to use?

best wishes

Patrick
..............................................

Patrick

 

I'm surprised that Tony didn't change the build number in some way to identify the repackaged version.

Wendi

 

Wendi
Tony tends to not change the build number when he is making quick changes to a version after a bug is found almost immediately after the release and that is why there was a lot of confusion over the updated/repackaged 1.1.0.325 which occurred in similar circumstances.

Patrick

 

Hi Patrick,

I completely agree with Wendi - imho that is bad practice (witness the .325 confusion). Even just appending the number with an 'a' (i.e., .454a) would preclude that confusion. But then again, I suppose he has 'bigger fish to fry'.

TS

 

support@sh​adowdefende​r.com
1:18 AM

To: Patrick

Hi Patrick,

Yes, It is OK to use.

Best regards,
Tony

 

Is there a way to restart the system without exiting shadow mode, something requires a restart to work after I have installed it in shadow mode, but if I do a restart, then it will be deleted.

More explicit, I have installed a program while in shadow mode, and it requires a reboot, I want to reboot without exiting shadow mode, so after I finish using the program to get rid of it without affecting my real system.

Is there a way to do this?

 

I've been requesting an option to carry over changes after rebooting while remaining in Shadow Mode for years. Tony said recently he did not want to do it because it could possibly create a way to exploit SD. I wish he would reconsider.

The only way you could do it now is if you knew exactly where the application saves each file on the disk, and also in the registry. You would have to use the commit now option. I would not recommend it though unless you was absolutely sure where every file, and registry entry is saved to.

 

This feature has been the "Holy Grail" for Shadow Defender users and probably the most asked for by users and forum members. A few years ago Tony had said that he was going to implement it within a particular timescale (months if I remember correctly) but it didn't happen and I have not heard him mention it since. I haven't managed to find out what it was that prevented Tony from achieving it.
I imagine though, that this might be like opening a large can of worms for a developer with all the numerous, various, software and registry needs etc.
This feature existed (pre Shadow Defender) in a software called ShadowUser Pro by ShadowStor Inc but the software stopped being a viable option for many because of security shortcomings.

See some 2007 debate here https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=196103


Patrick

 

Hibernate works again fine
thx Tony for repacking and all here in Forum for help

 

Patrick,

Tony told me that in order to accomplish this feature SD would have to modify the MBR to retain the registry as it existed immediately before system restart, instead of it being discarded upon restart (as SD now works). While doing that would allow testing an app which requires a restart, it could also allow malware (normally contained in Shadow Mode) to be permanently written to the hard drive!

TS

 

I may be tempted to try Shadow Defender for the 'first time ever' sometime in the future.

In the past, I have been 'Paranoid' about a few 'positives' showing up when VirusTotal scans the Shadow Defender Installer exe's. I just uploaded both of the installer exe's to VirusTotal and no Malware was being detected. It has been at least a few months since I have uploaded the Shadow Defender exe's to VirusTotal.

 

just tried Shadow Defender on an encrypted 32-bit mini Win 7 virtual machine to see if there would be any issues given the encryption. encryption makes backups a little trickier since you have to create an emergency disk with the ability to mount the encrypted system partition and then restore to it correctly. Shadow Defender can partially alleviate the need for frequent backups since you can shadow mode the system before testing new software or before making big changes to the system instead of making, for example, a differential backup.

in my fairly brief tests SD worked flawlessly. I basically deleted everything on C (system drive) while in Shadow Mode, although of course files that were locked because they were in use or because they were marked read-only or otherwise undeletable were spared. (I didn't want to get into changing permissions, taking ownership, etc.) In any case, the system booted fine, although I did get the Windows screen where it offers to boot to safe mode (I guess it didn't shutdown correctly given the deletes).

I use DiskCryptor for encryption and didn't have any files on SD's exclusion list (although on my actual system I'd put all the DiskCryptor and other important files into exclusions). I don't have the hidden 100 MB boot partition encrypted, nor did SD see it either when choosing which partitions to shadow mode, but I have that partition set to boot to a separate linux OS anyway, and the Windows part of the VM actually boots off an iso image with DiskCryptor's loader and password check on it.

I'm sure this has been covered before but it's a long thread, so maybe the test is of help to some SD users considering encrypting their system or encryption users considering SD.