I know my fisrt post about this product didn't generate much interest but honestly this is something special.
Link

In a way Humpty it seems a bit like a Chinese version of First Defence -ISR which I use and would NOT be without.
I can understand your interest in it.

The concept of First defence was hard to grasp at first, the fact that I can do what I like in a snapshot, test things, mess them up, and then boot to my other snapshot, update the one I played in, and all is as if it never happened.

Are you running Power Shadow2 yourself?

Yep, both here on this old P3 500 Machine and my main P4.

Just try it Hazelnut.If you can fault it I would love to know?

I would take you up on that Humpty but for the fact that I use First Defence. I feel I have everything I need in that, I also have an archive snapshot for being in serious trouble kept on an external.

Can you boot into PowerShadow if windows won't boot?

I have done a little bit of reading on PowerShadow and it claims it doesn't alter the MBR which is good. I will do a bit more reading on it to keep up with developments, hopefully more translations will come along (although google is good at Chinese!), it's all interesting stuff.

Haven't tried FDSIR but going on Wilders security forum I know it is an excellent product.

But I have been pushing these type of virtual apps for quite a while now and only try out what's available as freebies.

Hence my pushing of Sandboxie but this free whole of system freebie,PowerShadow, is too easy to use.

decided to give this a proper look since i kinda ignored it last time.it sounds pretty amazing,i was actually checking out something similar called Returnil Virtual System or whatever its name was ages ago.surely programs like these are the way of the future?wud mean that anti-spyware and anti-virus programs arent really required anymore.

gonna download it after i watch friday night lights.btw forgive the newb Q,but say ur running ur cloned system,if u delete video/audio files will they remain there once u turn off PowerShadow?or if i start downloading something while running the cloned system,will it dissapear when i turn the cloned system off?

also any link to that First Defence so i can check it out also?google wasnt being helpful.are there better similar programs out there like PowerShadow that wud be worth investing in?

Just followed your link Humpty, and if it does what it says on the box, it seems pretty good.

I`ve downloaded it, and will give it a try. What harm can it do ?

(Didn`t the captain of the Titanic say something like that about a bit of ice?)

Regards.

According to the website it isn't free the price is USD $99, moreover Hazelnut's FirstDefense-ISR is a tidbit less expensive at USD $69.95.

I didn`t know the price, but when I installed it I was told it was for 30 days, and then you have to register.

At that price I would have to think very hard about it, and look out for the comments of you techy guys.

I`m in stealth mode now, and I tell you what, the strange rippling effect that went across my screen when I activated it was really spooky. When I uncloak I`m half expecting to see Jean-Luc Picard waiting for me with the Enterprise.

Picard's Enterprise didn't have cloaking technology because it's banned by Star Fleet/The Federation. However a Klingon bird of prey is a different matter - kaplah, and no weak Federation rules, and all the Blood Wine a humanoid can drink.

Went light years off topic with this.

It's highly doubtable that a freeware product of similar capabilities would even ever be made available, for me the price itself is more than I'm willing to spend on software no matter how great it is.

It's free. Here's the serial as posted on their website for version 2.6.

User: PowerShadow s/n: VVR29E-R4WCK2-K4T111-V1YHTP-4JYJDD

If you can get hold of version 2.82 by following the Wilder's link all you need to do is enter a first name and email address and it's registered.

Need to follow the instructions to overwrite to English though.

This link may work for version 2.82

Humpty, I take my hat off to you.

Followed your link and downloaded the zipped version of Powershadow 2.8.2. The first version I downloaded was 2.6, was not in zip format, and was 30 day trial.

Unzipped V2.8.2, installed, and then followed brief text guide found in unzipped folder.

Replaced Shadow folder in System 32 with Powershadow English folder, ran Shadowsetting.exe, showed 30 day trial message, registered with own name an email address, 30 days disappeared and now have official registered version.

The only difference was

a: You have to make your own shortcut.

b: A couple of things still in Chinese, but 99.9% English.

Thanks for your persistence,

Regards

Edit: Important Note: I found there was a file called "pDesktop.dll" missing from the English Folder.

Copy this from the original folder in System 32 to the English folder or Powershadow will not run.

Interesting that it's actually freeware after all, but having to go through all that s**t to get it to work seems like some legwork and perhaps someone should make a proper installer for it.

Been running in "Single Shadow" mode most of today. No difference in speed etc.

Little bit concerned about an explanation in help file as to how this program handles a partitioned drive.

I have two partitions on my hard drive, one of them being my recovery partition.

The paragraph above is quite clear in explaining that anything you save while in shadow mode will not remain after dropping out of it.

Thats fine, but that your non shadowed drive could be used to save stuff while in this mode, is the bit I want to be clear about.

My question is, is my recovery partition, my D drive, protected against software writing something there without my direct instruction to do so ?

My D drive is a Fat32 file system, as opposed to my C drive NTFS system.

I cut, pasted and saved a couple of paragraphs into wordpad earlier today to subsequently post into a thread, which I did. And true to its claim, after closing down and then rebooting 30 mins ago, the wordpad notes were gone.

Just need to make sure that my D drive is secure.

For information, this program can shadow all your drives.



In this mode I would assume that my D drive is again safe against being written to.

If my Recovery Partition is safe, then this piece of software seems to be quite amazing. I thought there may be a conflict with my Norton security software, but as soon as I activated Powershadow, Norton made rules for it, and Powershadow does what it does in the background as if it wasn`t there.

It`s early days, but if I experience any problems I`ll post them.

Would appreciate any input.

Regards

After I installed version 2.82 I opened the English folder within winrar and dragged and dropped the contents to C:\WINDOWS\system32\shadow with Windows asking "do you want to overwrite this file with this one" which I said yes to all and it worked first up.

There is a shortcut in the start menu that can be deleted and yep Dennis, I did have to send a shortcut from C:\WINDOWS\system32\shadow to desktop which I should have given more info about.

Andavari for the bit of mucking around that is required it is well worth the effort as this program IMHO is quite darn good.

Now I can install and test any app that doesn't require a reboot of the system and any malware is simply gone at reboot.

I usually leave FF's cache and cookies intact with my trusted sites within the real system as this helps to speed up browsing when booting into shadow mode.

That`s strange Humpty, I`ve just had a look in the Zipped file again and that pDesktop.dll is not in there, and my copy wouldn`t run without it, but yours obviously was OK. Cyber Gremlin ?



I hope my comment didn`t sound like a criticism Humpty, wouldn`t dream of doing that. Just an observation.

Like this program, thanks again for pushing it.

Regards

I didn't realise that Humpty, that would seem to be one of the main differnces between PowerShadow and First Defence. I can keep any app, reboot or not for as long as I want, which can be handy to see how it performs over a few days against other apps, windows updates etc.

Then I just switch to my other snapshot and wipe out the one I have been testing on.


Also with First Defence, if windows won't boot I can still boot to a First Defence snapshot.

I think it's great you are testing PowerShadow out, that's how things get around!

Humpty, and anyone else.

Realised my mistake, should have merged the folders instead of replacing one with the other. It`s quite surprising that mine ran with so few files. I think I may have mentioned this before, but: My education continues.

I`m still a bit concerned about my Recovery Partition. With this being a new program, it might not be possible to give a definitive answer.

Is a Recovery Partition write protected ? If not, can I make it write protected ? Can`t find any way to do this from Properties.

If you are trying this, have a look in "MY Computer" at your C drive icon. The Powershadow icon is floating protectively over it. A real neat touch.

Can save stuff while in this mode by using a USB flash drive.

Thanks in advance for any input.

Regards

Well, Humpty, I installed Sandboxie and Powershadow. Both slipped in past every free security application in the known universe except little old Tea Timer. . . . . .It stopped'em cold till I gave permission.

Sandboxie working great so far.

Powershadow 2.6 another matter, single shadow made that ripple effect, scared the dickens out of me, then full shadow shut the whole system down and rebooted, 'nuther scare, then an error message. . .don't think it worked cause the test files I made weren't deleted. More reports later as I have time to experiment some.

Thanks for the information. When PS gets up and going it will be really great.

edit 06 may 07: started again in full shadow, logged in here, no problems whatever. Now to experiment with the test files.

Just uninstalled PS 2.6, installed PS 2.82. Everything works well. PS 2.82 will register online still yet. Like others I don't see much difference except that 2.82 doesn't seem to phone home like 2.6 did, or if it is Zone isn't catching it.

All the test files are gone if they should be, still there if they should be. Does seem to have slowed the boot up process a little bit.

Heck of an app if there is no catch to it. Thanks, Humpty.

Yeh I like it as well Login123 but I have set it to boot straight into windows without the "what mode do you want to boot into" screen as I find it a bit annoying.

Do what I have to do in Windows then start Shadowmode before any browsing.

Here is a link on a newer thread over at Wilders where some users claim their pc runs better whilst in shadowmode but mine just seems to run the same.

Remember that apps that require a reboot can't be tested with PS.

Wilders

Sorry for the ignorance but why is that when I try to use singe shadow mode there's an error message (not found in power shadow's help section thing) and when I try to save a file for example, then revert back to normal boot the file is still there

Only a learner here myself but if a file is still showing then shadowmode mustn't be implementing properly.

Are the desktop hints, shadowmode in the four corners of the screen showing?Red in ver2.6 and white in ver2.8.2.Also an animated icon should show in the taskbar near the clock.

I have installed heaps of crappy apps and even any pics I take a screenie of and post in this forum are completely gone on reboot from within shadowmode.

There's no shadow mode showing in the four corners. When I restart... blah blah loading screen then a black screen thing will show whether I want to boot in single shadow mode or windows xp etc. and I chose single shadow. After windows load and now I'm in the desktop a window probably by powershadow will come up with an error thing. I checked the website of the manufacturer of my hard drive but it doesn't say my HD has RAID thing.

This program is my only hope for having a free deepfreeze-like program.

Choose to boot into windows open Powershadows GUI and untick the startup options menu to not show.

Reboot to make sure the options are disabled and then see if you can go into shadowmode from within windows.

Other than that you could try an uninstall - reinstall.

Or you could try the link below for version 2.8.2 but you need to follow the readme.txt within the zip to overwrite with the english version.

Really hope you can get it up and running as it is a fine app when running correctly.

PS 2.8.2 link?

Also have a look at some of the posts numbered 36 onwards from below where a poster sorted a similar prob.

Wilders link

After browsing in the forums, this is the message what the window ps is showing "error code : 82f37128". I can't access the GUI also because that error thing shows when I try to open the GUI. I used the error-checking, cleaning up of temp files and others (using CCleaner of course), defrag, disable Anti-virus (I also disconnected my pc to the internet for security reasons), reinstall and that error still shows up everytime I attempt to boot into single shadow.

Wilders again

I can't even open PS. Every time I try to access it will show the error code I posted a while ago. The ones in the wilders is a bit similar but mine is a bit worse. The person there can access ps while mine can't. The only thing that works is the uninstall shortcut


Sweet Mercy! 2.8.2 worked on me! I can actually feel my heart beating really hard because I though I had only 0.001% chance of working and of course 99.999% of an error showing. Now I can install any security software I want, without actually installing in the real system. Thanks a lot Humpty! Now I can ditch my AV and use PS+sandboxie+mvps host file+spyware blaster+avg as (on demand scanner, for tracking cookies )+comodo firewall+BOClean+SSM Free. Now I can rest safe and sound.

Same way I felt when it worked.

Not sure I would unload the security stuff just yet. . .
And also, if I understand correctly, you can't install anything which requires a reboot?

Good news Tunerz.

With Sandboxie and Powershadow just take a bit of time to get used to them.

I have still used some apps that required a reboot such as Driver Magician within shadowmode.

Said no to a reboot and was still able to make a backup of my drivers which I saved to another partition.

On reboot there is no sign of Driver Magician but I still have the drivers backup folder.

As I don't run any realtime or on demand virus scanners I do run a free online scan with Kasperky every now and then in shadowmode for a checkup.

Also one question, does power shadow write anything in the registry?

Just done a search for "Powershadow" with Regseeker and it found 5 reg entries.

So are those entries crucial for ps to run?

Don't know and I don't want to mess with those settings.

Well, a reinstall fixes most problems. I'll try experimenting in making ps portable

Ok I changed my mind. I'll just hide the Add/Remove entry then.