The unofficial Shadow Defender Support Thread.

I sometime read Toolwiz forum and today I found very interesting thread also about SD...the thread is already closed. The information was surprising so I quote most of thread (underlined text from me)

Is it true??...more than 100 times?? OK...next news

http://forums.toolwiz.com/topic/virtual-system-still-is-useful
What it means?...Tony "play stupid game" with all friends, all SD users?...or it's only "black PR"?

 

Hi Ichito, I have heard before about the MBR copy thing (in a chinese forum more than 2 years go), the dog trojans is also old news. It seems like a conspiracy theory to me, I can't imagine Tony writing a trojan; but then again I never knew the guy, so I suppose one can never know...

In any case, LV was never meant to replace real-time AV protection, it is supposed to work in conjuction with it and provides a safety net in case something nasty manages to bypass all the other layers of protection. I can't see AV companies fighting tooth 'n nail against such tech, as it is supposed to supplement their products, not replace them. If anything I would have thought that the likes of Symantec, McAfee etc. would have bought LV code from smaller companies, and then develop their own LV solutions, possibly integrating them into existing AV/Internet Security solutions. I find it really strange that the big AV players haven't jumped on the LV bandwagon yet.

 

Maybe that's why he "disappeared".

 

Now the fun things started to happen with SD, first it was only changed Panda Cloud AV settings. Now SD corrupted Chrome's profile Il remove couple security software's and try again.

 

If you go back to some of my earlier posts you will see that Shadow Defender had glitches like this.
At times after being in Shadow Mode it would sometimes set softwares to default settings or in one example Nero you would lose your registration and the software would ask you to re-register on or for another example, say you had blocked update connect on an antivirus the configuration would be changed so that it also went to default settings and connected. These were known glitches that happened in earlier versions of Shadow Defender and that Tony was aware of and addressed as conflicts or bugs. For me 1.1.0.325 in xp does not seem to cause these problems.

Patrick (ex Shadow Defender mod)

 

I am running Shadow Defender 24/7 now on the family shared computer windows 7 32 bit. I come out for patch tuesday or software updates only.It has been working perfectly and keeping all the nasties off. I have it teamed up with AppGuard and so far nothing has passed either one.

 

Dear Patrick,

Thanks for the above information, I was not aware of it prior to this.

So, it could crate more problems, if one has:

1. Windows 7
2. x64
3. On SSD

Best regards,

KOR!

 

Yanick,

I'm very surprised to learn of the problems you are having with SD. Which versions of Windows, SD and PCAV are you running?

SD.331 has been running every day for the past 7 months on my W7-HP (64b) laptop and SD.325 has been running every day for the past two months on my wife's XP-Pro (32b) laptop. Both of our PCs are also running Panda Cloud AV 1.5.2 (Free) with SD and neither PC has experienced any issues whatsoever. Re your belief that SD changed your Panda Cloud AV settings, I'm curious as to which specific PCAV settings were changed?

TS

 

Unfortunately I don't know about Windows 7, x64, or ssd as I don't run any of them but I think members who visit this forum are using it with Windows 7 and there has been the recent debate about ssd. From what I can gather, 1.1.0.325 is pretty stable ( I use it myself) and can fend off the dog viruss etc. It was tested at the time when these things first came about and Shadow Defender was the only software of it's type to keep them at bay.
Regarding the changing of settings etc...that problem didn't happen everytime you came from shadow mode, it just seemed to happen occasionally and randomly and that was in earlier versions of Shadow Defender...as I've described previously and missing icons and things like that.
By 1.1.0.325 most of the glitches were ironed out but as I remember there was some acknowledged minor problem with 1.1.0.326 and that's why most people use 1.1.0.325 as the last good, stable, bugs removed version.
I had a major problem when using Windows 2000 and trying to upgrade one of the earlier versions in that the program seemed to install and all the icons were there etc but you could not make it work, it was like a program with no "engine" and after uninstall none of the previous versions that I had used would not install (in the same way) except version 1.1.0.278 (an earlier stable version). I used that for a while then upgraded to xp with 1.1.0.325.

 

Hi KOR,

As noted in post #1033, SD has been running perfectly on my W7 x64 laptop, but that's on an HDD. You might just try SD for yourself - after making an image backup of course!

TS

 

Aye, ive been reading those posts. Hm, so Tony addressed those bugs, might be ssd x64 specific issue then? Im using same .325 as you are. Win7 Home Premium.

 

Heh, yea so was i. Some run SD with other soft/hardware just wonderfully. Sometimes there are glitches it seems
Windows 7 x64 Home Premium SP1 and all windows updates. I do use CFW Def+ too. And Sandboxie. PCAV Free 1.5.2, SD .325 i have the .326 beta version too, havent tried that nor the .331 version, i suppose .331 dosent have SSD support?

Do you use SSD in your or your wife's laptop? I dont have eny trouble with same config on my laptop has same windows as my trouble desktop except it has HDD, no problems in laptop.

It's goof that your Pc's have been fine too.

I am pretty sure SD changed those settings when i came out from Shadow Mode. I did test it many times. When i opened settings in Pcav, AV exclusion list was empty again (i always set exclusions comodo, sd, etc.) Behaviour ''component'' was disabled, every settings was disabled except logging

After some 6 times i tested my chrome profile became corrupted and had to set settings in chrome again.

Surprising tho, i was using VirtualBox inside Sandboxie and Shadow Mode, when i left SD mode i still had the saved snapshots etc that ive taken in SD mode, is this normal?

After all of those my windows started to lag badly when i was logging in to windows.. Seems the problem was that Windows Service Control service failed to start, windows started like with computer 20 years ago very slow.
After that i had no choice but to restore an image ive taken before installing panda, now im testing/using Returnil's virtual mode. So far it goes into Virtual Mode much faster than SD did on this comp. Except i havent figure out how to change the location of the virtual drive as my SSd isnt too big, have size issues heh.

 

Yes that's the sort of thing that happened to me in earlier versions of Shadow Defender (when I used Windows 2000) and that Tony was aware of. The slowdown you experience sounds like it might be a conflict with some other deep rooted program fighting over the same territory, locking or blocking each other...I remember there were problems/conflicts in earlier versions of Shadow Defender with Daemon Tools, Alcohol 120% and other programs that "mount" virtual disks of their own

Patrick (ex Shadow Defender mod)

 

I don't want to give people the wrong impression and that Shadow Defender does this all the time, I use 1.1.0325 with no problem with XP but certainly older versions had a tendency to do this and I am not surprised when I hear of the occasional glitch or conflict.
Yes, I think it's a good solution to have a backup/snapshot of the version of your configured system that you like.

 

I was trying to edit this message and I ended up deleting it lol... Here it is again:

I've found that the great thing about using Rollback RX in conjunction with SD is that any such SD problems (like AV losing its settings etc.) can be fully reversed just by restoring a snapshot that has the AV rules exactly as you want them. I just make sure that when I save a snapshot things are exactly right, then it doesn't matter about SD resetting certain settings because I don't give it the chance to reset anything.

This is how it works: I usually enter Shadow Mode manually before enabling my network adapter and going online. When I'm done I disconnect and reboot, hit HOME before Windows loads, and restore the older snapshot which has everything configured as I want it. This way SD doesn't get the chance to reset anything, and Windows is back to its previous state exactly as it was when the snapshot was taken.

I agree with you sdmod, this has never happened to me with v325 on Win7 x64. I just do it this way just in case.

I firmly believe that LV/snapshot tech should have been part of Windows by now. I'm really surprised that MS hasn't bothered to develop their own proprietary LV/Snapshot solutions by now, as it would have made Windows much more robust and would allow users to easily switch between different customized Windows setups in mere seconds. The restore feature of Win8 is more like a repair feature after all.

 

We did a little expirement in shadow mode but I have done this before in the past but not this intense.We loaded up all kinds of downloads from game sites,screensavers,rogues etc and then installed them.We then deleted desktop shotcuts and some we moved around.We changed some windows settings and disabled some things all in shadow mode.

We then ran some scans hitman pro and Malwarebytes and it was loaded up pretty good with Addware,toolbars,malware and viruses etc.Browser changes of search provider and home page.We ran with it for a little bit but the system came to a crawl lot of tool bars and add ons.We rebooted the system and rechecked with scans and it came back with nothing found and everything was right back in place as if nothing happened.

 

Probably the latest known test of SD - many different infection including TDSS rootkit...the result - clean system after reeboting. Need anybody some other recommendation?
-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFYHDMiot6U&feature=youtu.be-

I have done many privat experiments when I tested during two years "few tons" of different kind of software including of course security apps...never was surprised...SD always gave me clean system, exactly the same as before test.

 

Thanks ichito, I remember Shadow Defender was tested against dog trojans and other cutting edge malware that were causing concern at the time (and bypassing many other well known programs) and it passed with flying colours.

 

Unfortunately, you seems to be marketing manager for Rollback Rx. Are you saying that for Shadow Defender for work properly on each computer, one should buy Rollback Rx for each computer for $70 and also to pay per year around 20-30% of $70 for yearly maintenance of Rollback Rx on each computer.

LMAO!

Best regards,

KOR!

 

Thanks ichito.

 

No, he's saying that because SD occasionally has problems with losing settings in some applications (i.e a bug in SD), one solution is to use a snapshot program such as Rollback RX to recover the settings. Your endless bashing of Rollback RX is becoming tiring KOR.

 

There is no bug in SD. However, SD is not made for SSDs and since he is using SD on SSD, so he is sometimes having problems. But the solution using SD on SSD, he is giving is very, very expensive.

SD has nothing to do with Rollback Rx, unless one is pushing Rollback Rx.

P.S. Be a good reader!

 

No, I have nothing to do with RX, I have said before that I was using Comodo Time Machine on all of my systems until I upgraded to SSDs, so I had to switch. I've also said many times that I'm eagerly awaiting for the new CTM v3.0 to be released!

Scoobs72 got it right regarding my previous post. For the ones who may face problems with SD reseting their AV settings or interfering with programs, then restoring a snapshot saved when those settings were valid will bring them back regardless of what SD does. That's all I said.

I used to own a small computer servicing company that has now gone bust. I'm currently a translator working from home. I don't make so much money, so occasionally I still fix computers too. I've got nothing to do with any company or any software, and I am very surprised at your remarks King. I thought we had established a certain rapport despite our differences of opinion. Using sarcasm in this manner is inappropriate, and can only serve to derail the thread.

 

As I use both Rollback Rx and Shadow Defender, I'd like to add that imho they work very well with one another. With the qualification that I do not use either program with an SSD, in over two years that I've been using them together I've never had any conflict between the two programs, nor have I had SD change any other program's settings!

As for KOR's commentary on Rollback Rx being expensive, I guess it would be if you don't take advantage of the times that it goes on sale at a 60% discount. Re RB's annual maintenance, it's optional and for most people, unnecessary.

Getting back to evaluating SD on an SSD, there's no need for RB. It's much safer to make an image-backup of the drive before installing SD and then give SD a go for a day or two. If it doesn't go well, just restore the backup image prior to installing SD. That's not rocket-science.

Scott

 

hi
Is shadow defender still worth a look even though it is not supported anymore?