V 4.2.20 New CAT and DAX Drivers and all of windows 11 security core thingy doodles off

Erika - KØDD

I thought I should do a warning writeup on the new CAT and DAX drivers. Remember back in the olden days? You know the time after Windows 11 was invented and we all found out that Memory Isolation, Core Isolation and a few other things under the hood were all of a sudden broke? Everything was in major conflict with the Cat DAX Drivers. Guys were getting windows 11 computers and everyday somebody was saying what's going on here? The work around is/was core isolation and a few other features needed turned off in Windows Security.

Well The new drivers came along and those buggers just loaded right on to your computer and started playing really nice. Even I didn't think about looking any deeper as new versions of everything are coming out mid-year and I was going to do some deeper checks when I wasn't quite as busy. Time flies when you're working 6m DX and Grids.

I'm going to ask everybody on here who has previously turned off a lot of processor security stuff to get the old CAT and DAX to work… Did you guys go back in and after loading the new version 4.2.20 and turn all those features back on??? Ja Know, Don't Ya know, those features do not automatically turn themselves on and off. They just Lock out the offending drivers…

Well today I bumped into a computer that hadn't had security turned back on after getting the new version. When I looked under the hood and turned Memory Integrity on and hit the button it went POOF and turned itself right back off. I then looked further under the Hood, and found Quantity TWO nasty-not playing nice antique drivers on that machine and spent ALL DAY trying to get those things off the machine… Turns out this one had an old version Win 8 era Western Digital Driver for an external back up drive attempted to go on it, and a newer additional but still antique version of the same offending Piece of Junk Back up drivers. Turns out that backup unit had never worked on that machine, and was installed after version 3.1.x of SSDR and WIN 11 in 2022… That we all knew had memory integ issues… The Drive was tossed, the software was removed for the drive, but the drivers were floating around and one wasn't even registered so it didn't exist. When there's no hardware, you haven't a clue what some of these offending drivers are for and the company that made the things has moved on and no longer supports them. WD and Sandisk are two companies now.

OH I got this one running with all the Win 11 features working. But have YOU tried to turn those features back ON on your machine? Are there other offending drivers causing problems that you don't have a clue about…? Something you couldn't even remember from the last several years stopped working and hit the junk pile… Even google AI didn't have the answers until I went through every possible way of fixing this INCLUDING a Windown 11 Pro repair reload. (didn't remove them) I was even in the registry trying to find the drivers. You are going to want to turn the win 11 protections back on… and at minimum see what happens.. Might be a real eye opener. But lets hope not. I might be of help if something explodes. Erika DD

VE7ATJ_Don

Hi Erika… While I haven't tried EXACTLY what you described (i.e. installing 4.2.20, then turning back on the Security Core stuff), I did uninstall the 'old' SmartSDR + drivers, restart the computer, turn on the Core Isolation stuff, restarted the computer again, then installed 4.2.20.

I know, way too many steps and being ultra careful, cuz I'm no expert on this stuff. But it seemed to work just fine (at least, so far :-) )

Gord-VA7GP

I missed the excitement, it seems. With the arrival of the 4-series firmware, I wiped-and-reinstalled my Win11Pro computer, left Core/Memory Isolation ON, and reinstalled all my stuff. Very boring - it worked.

Erika - KØDD

Don and Gord, Hello and it's good to hear from you and "Doing it Right!" Yes by removing all of the old Cat and Dax drivers and THEN rebooting and turning on all of the Core protections WOULD be the easiest clean way to do it. Formatting and a fresh load is the best… Flex stated that the old stuff could be left on etc, but then you couldn't turn Core Integrity functions on. I have to assume there's a lot of people who went right for rolling on the new stuff or removed the old versions and then didn't think of turning core features back on. In the case of the computer I dealt with yesterday they would have instantly found the offending backup disk unit's antique drivers… At this point I COULD make an attempt at loading a current version of the company's backup management software and hook up this drive to the computer, But I told them, I'm not up for it and your wallet wouldn't want to take the risk, and money could be better spent on a 10 year newer hard disk and modern professional backup software.
Glad all is well, there's going to be some guys who didn't turn on the Memory Stuff and IT can be turned on is all I am saying, and should be. But any straggling drivers from various products could be floating around out there stirring up a **** of trouble. But I do have experience I'd have preferred to not have gained if JUST flipping the on slider doesn't fix somebodys attempt at reactivating Core memory protections. DD

VE7ATJ_Don

While I don't pretend to 'really' understand what Core Isolation is doing, I always felt kinda bad (because of my background in Computer Security) turning it 'off'. I was very glad when Flex said they'd rewritten the drivers to be compatible with the new layers of security in Win 11.

Erika - KØDD

Don, drivers, viruses, and really bad things that cause computers to fall out of the sky trailing fire and exploded parts all run in the part of the architecture that anti-virus apps cant operate in. So they need to create new ways to stop them. The first layer is to look for signed drivers.... im not a security IT person... i retired in 2008 the biggest issue i ever had was the Chinese server farms trying to **** our file servers looking for things they shouldn't know. I just found out the usa water systems were being hacked because the firewalls all left the passwords set at 1111 the factory default. Yeah a password of password is about as secure. DD

VE7ATJ_Don

LOL… sounds like you and I are of the same 'vintage' when it comes to IT security :-)