The unofficial Shadow Defender Support Thread.

judging by your avatar, i'd say deep freeze but not so convenient as sd.

 

In the winter in my place, I don’t need Deep Freeze that is sure.

 

being a canadian corp with a polar bear in its logo, faronics would like to change your mind i'm sure.

 

Okay. I'm build 18362.239.
Hoping, my SD 1.4.0.680 will be okay on build 18362.267.
Thanks

Edit: now, I'm build 18362.267.

 

Well I understand your feelings, I had to uninstall it too after so many years of reliable usage. I also had too many disruptions (not the same as yours though) which makes it more of a liability than a protecting tool. Windows is changing quickly nowadays and security programs have to be monitored for updates at least after every major upgrade...

 

Yeah exactly, it is getting hard for security companies these days.

 

Not saying SD and other sandboxes or light virtualization softs are niche consumer market with low incomes so dont expect constant and linear development.

 

Thanks stapp, then the problem is probably somewhere else... this is strange because this computer is the same as last year, no new softwares added and updates are made on a regular base.

 

Although just a layman, if I was looking for something that was locking up my system, I wouldn't immediately think that Shadow Defender was the cause. In the past there have been conflicts with things like System Safety Monitor and other kernel level programs like Zemana, even (at an early stage of development) Sandboxie. By 'kernel level, (in my laymans language) I mean software that is running deeply and is embedded almost at operating system level for it's control or monitoring or 'hold' over an active system.
I don't use Windows 8 or later versions of Windows but I hear that they want to make system changes without asking you. I'm guessing also, that anti virus software updates, firewall type apps changes updates to a living and changing system would be on my lists of possible culprits.
Anything that is running at a deep level, that gives itself certain 'ownership' rights and making changes and locking files under it's 'watch' could potentially cause a problem.
A lot of these softwares and system guards seem to want to be 'top dog'.
Shadow Defender over the years has proved to be largely and generally a very good dog and plays with other dogs very well. System monitors that are constantly on the move, softwares that update themselves and are 'sticky' are on my list.
The destruction of third party security and privacy software has always been on the agenda of a certain operating system manufacturer and as far as dogs go, it seems not just to want to be the top dog but the only dog.
I know that this is probably not much help to anyone but I have been with Shadow Defender from the beginning. It is still a software that I couldn't (and don't want to) be without.
I have had my own various problems with glitches or conflicts alongside Shadow Defender at times but I have settled on a version that suits my needs and my operating system very well and have used it for years.
I think the last big problems that I remember for forum members were caused by an Operating sytem 'fast restart'. Fast Startup was also causing problems for people in lots of other situations and was heavily debated at the time.

I don't know if this is relevant but

I remember this but I can't give a citation of where I found it.

'Warning to Windows 8 Users
You must disable the Windows 8 Fast startup option or you risk corruption of your partitions and data when the partitions are used outside of Windows 8 (e.g. you boot into Image for Linux after shutdown and save an image to a data drive).
To disable using Windows 8: Open the Control Panel and select Power Options. Click the Choose what the Power buttons do from the links on the left. Click the Change settings that are currently unavailable link and then remove the checkmark from the Turn on fast startup (recommended) option under Shutdown settings.
To disable using Boolt BM: Boot into Bootlt BM, click Partition Work on the desktop, then select the Windows 8 partition and click Properties. Click the Disable Fast Start button.'

Another thing that I always disable is CHKDSK (or chkdsk.exe).

Patrick

 

@sdmod,
Thanks for your detail explanation.

The only thing I am using on this computer is Voodooshield. Window Defender is deactivated as well as fast startup and chkdsk.exe and I haven’t installed any other Software over a year, so I have no idea what’s happened right now...

Anyway I may try to reinstall SD when I have some free time, I always have Macrium ready anyway.

 

Remember that on Win10, you have Exploit Guard (and for some, Memory Integrity) activated by default.

 

First-time poster here, my question is: when you use the GUI in Shadow Defender and you select a drive and choose to Exit Shadow Mode, you are presented with a choice to either 1. Discard all changes except exclusion list OR 2. Commit all changes. You're then presented with a second choice to either reboot now or later if the volume is in use. When using cmdtool.exe, I don't see a way to specify /exit on a partition with the choice to commit changes on shutdown. Cmdtool.exe always discards changes on reboot. Is there a way to make it work just like it does when you choose "commit all changes" when exiting an in-use volume via the GUI?

 

Well my mysterious problem is finally solved! I had problems with SD:

SD had nothing to do with it, the problem was only due to my Samsung internal hard disk slowly failing to work properly. Two days ago it completely died, I couldn't even boot into Windows. Now I have a new 500 GB Samsung SSD which is incredibly fast, and SD is back into operation... All is well. This is my first hard disk failure in 18 years, I guess disk health should be checked once a year. This is the first thing, the Samsung technician checked as soon as I told him I couldn't boot into Windows...

 

Yes indeed Stapp, the bottom line in this context is that if programs don't work properly, and nobody else is experiencing the same symptoms, one should check the hardware. I would have never thought for a moment the hard drive was the reason... I wonder why Windows, with all the sensors that it has, it doesn't check for imminent hard drive failure, although I know there are programs available for this purpose...

 

SD has a big problem with file corruption the longer it stays on, even on optane disk (which I bought recently), nothing to do with hardware
unless you do some low-profile stuff that doesn't affect disk IO too much
it is good for browsing or to test a program which will get corrupted if it wasn't already installed, in my exp the programs not installed but installed during SD session get corrupt faster, and what program is being installed is important too
the fact that your security solution/program might get corrupted during an shadow session is a security issue
since i tested this on 4 different system/hardware setups (plus some users saying the same here) I am pretty sure it has nothing to do with setups, though good hardware helps mitigate

u need to move large quantity of files/data to experience this, some files will get instawhacked, especially image files

 

sd's not the right tool to test out sw. vm's the right tool for that.

 

yep I need to move onto full VM , but SD made me lazy, I mean its magic, on-click virtualization on active session, you can't beat that

 

well, you got that right. it's the convenience sd gives to you.

 

I don't know whether you read my previous posts about SD not working properly on my system, especially the fact that the space usage counter was not measuring anything and reboots out of shadow mode would take from 3 to 5 minutes. Well at the time I thought wrongly, that SD had been affected by one of the Win 10 updates.

In reality my 1TB internal hard drive was having a slow death. As soon as I changed to a new 500 GB SSD, SD was working perfectly. Entering shadow mode would take 2 seconds, rebooting out of shadow mode would take 18 seconds to see the desktop!!! The space counter was obviously working again. Incrementals with Macrium average on 20 - 30 seconds, restores 40 - 50 seconds... In my case the hardware (HDD) was the sole reason for SD's debacle, Macrium too was often aborting backups with errors...

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying, I often test programs with SD (which don't require a reboot of course), by installing them in shadow mode and I have never experienced corruption. If I'm happy about the test, I reboot out of shadow mode and install the program for good. Lately I use Macrium to test programs because of the tremendous speed of its backups/restores, although an 18 seconds reboot out of shadow mode is hard to beat.

 

I'm using SD ca 9-10 years currently on XP, Vista and Win8.1 and previously on Win7 also...I don't remember any issue except one mentioned here
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/system-safety-monitor-and-shadow-defender.326415/
what was connected with apps that use not virtualised disk to save config files. I'm not using W10 but I suppose most of mentioned problems with SD is caused by still "beta" state of new builds of system.

 

I did , though I wasn' referencing your post at all (although it seams like I did), just posting a general warning on how SD behaves if you are a data scientist or a CGI/VFX artist, movie editor, software tester or a photographer (and so on, any stuff that can cause a high I/O drive), you're screwed with SD, any large moving of data from internet or between drives, if you use your pc in a certain way and don't pay attention to small scale file corruption u might never experience such issues. Unless I have a specific virus that affected all my devices, but there is a forum member who posted here and he experienced the same

 

So what's the consensus on SD for up to date Windows 10 users? Is it stable 100%, I'm seeing talk of possible "corruption" for people on 1903, etc. if that's true I won't even consider this.