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<blockquote data-quote="Nebz" data-source="post: 907532" data-attributes="member: 89186">I&#039;ve just started to trial Shadow Defender and have some questions.I&#039;m a 50 year old musician who is just getting into home recording. I want to protect myself when installing VST instruments. A lot of these free/cheap instruments and effects are created by lone programmers, often from countries like South America, Eastern Europe, China, Japan and Russia. They mostly come with installers or self-extracting archives. The VST themselves are often an .exe (standalone) &amp; .dll (plugin) pair. Apart from worrying about what the installer drops, I&#039;m also worried about using the actual instruments too. I guess over the next year I&#039;ll be testing dozens of these things.My plan is to activate shadow mode, and run the installers/extractors in Sandboxie to see if they&#039;re dropping any malware. Then &#039;recover&#039; the VST exe/dll from the sandbox and &#039;commit&#039; that folder before rebooting. So that should protect me if anything from the installer managed to leak from the Sandbox, right?Then I&#039;d start shadow mode again, and test the VST over a period of time, to try to determine if it tries to do anything that it shouldn&#039;t.1) I&#039;ve got BitDefender Free, Malwarebytes Free, TinyWall and WiseVector to try to prevent the VST exe/dll doing anything nefarious in real time, and will try RegShot to see if I can spot changes to the system before and after I test the VST. I also take images every week with Macrium Reflect, and I might be able to upload some of the smaller VSTs to Virus Total.Is there anything else that could help for this particular scenario? Or am I doing more-or-less the right thing?2) In the event that I think the VST is safe after testing it, is it possible to &#039;cancel&#039; shadow mode by exiting it without a reboot?3) Where&#039;s the best place to get notified of a Shadow Defender discount or coupon?4) Has there ever been an instance where a Windows update breaks Shadow Defender, and it isn&#039;t fixed for a time? I see a lot of threads about it being abandoned for long periods?Bonus question for users of Wilders Security Forums: Why would my posts, which are the same as this one, be deleted by a moderator every time? I joined two weeks ago, and have had all six attempts at posting these questions deleted by a mod, with no communication whatsoever about what the problem is. It&#039;s been pretty frustrating, because it seems like a good forum.Thanks.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Nebz, post: 907532, member: 89186"] I've just started to trial Shadow Defender and have some questions. I'm a 50 year old musician who is just getting into home recording. I want to protect myself when installing VST instruments. A lot of these free/cheap instruments and effects are created by lone programmers, often from countries like South America, Eastern Europe, China, Japan and Russia. They mostly come with installers or self-extracting archives. The VST themselves are often an .exe (standalone) & .dll (plugin) pair. Apart from worrying about what the installer drops, I'm also worried about using the actual instruments too. I guess over the next year I'll be testing dozens of these things. My plan is to activate shadow mode, and run the installers/extractors in Sandboxie to see if they're dropping any malware. Then 'recover' the VST exe/dll from the sandbox and 'commit' that folder before rebooting. So that should protect me if anything from the installer managed to leak from the Sandbox, right? Then I'd start shadow mode again, and test the VST over a period of time, to try to determine if it tries to do anything that it shouldn't. 1) I've got BitDefender Free, Malwarebytes Free, TinyWall and WiseVector to try to prevent the VST exe/dll doing anything nefarious in real time, and will try RegShot to see if I can spot changes to the system before and after I test the VST. I also take images every week with Macrium Reflect, and I might be able to upload some of the smaller VSTs to Virus Total. [I]Is there anything else that could help for this particular scenario? Or am I doing more-or-less the right thing?[/I] 2) In the event that I think the VST is safe after testing it, is it possible to 'cancel' shadow mode by exiting it without a reboot? 3) Where's the best place to get notified of a Shadow Defender discount or coupon? 4) Has there ever been an instance where a Windows update breaks Shadow Defender, and it isn't fixed for a time? I see a lot of threads about it being abandoned for long periods? Bonus question for users of Wilders Security Forums: Why would my posts, which are the same as this one, be deleted by a moderator every time? I joined two weeks ago, and have had all six attempts at posting these questions deleted by a mod, with no communication whatsoever about what the problem is. It's been pretty frustrating, because it seems like a good forum. Thanks. [/QUOTE]

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