Let's say I have a subst virtual drive, X. When X: becomes unavailable (after I dismount the corresponding hard drive), programs can no longer run in any sandbox with a ReadFilePath=X:\, OpenFilePath=X:\, or ClosedFilePath=X:\ setting.

Basically, the errors come in threes:

Can Sandboxie simply ignore unavailable drives, like Windows Explorer does? I'm using Sandboxie 3.51.11 on Windows 7 x64.

Interesting. Sandboxie already ignores settings with drive names that it can't find, but is only prepared to handle the case where the error is "object name not found". ("Object" being the "X:" in this case.) But here you got error "object path not found" and this is why the problem occurs. I will revise Sandboxie for this but I'd rather not mess around with version 3.51 anymore, if I can help it ... So this will have to wait for version 3.53.

Oh, I see, because we're mapping a subfolder.


Great, thanks. Not an urgent issue.

Should be fixed in version 3.53.01.

Hmm, I actually see no change in behavior with 3.53.01. The errors are triggered as soon as the "real" volume is dismounted.

So to test this, I am thinking --

1. SUBST X: C:\TEST

2. Add some Sandboxie setting that includes drive X.

3. Run something sandboxed, should work.

4. SUBST X: /D

5. Run something sandboxed, should fail.

Yes?

Ah, tzuk, I should have been more explicit. The case you presented above should work fine, I think. The problem occurs when dismounting the actual hard disk volume without first removing the subst virtual drive. For example:

1. subst X: D:\Test
2. XxxFilePath=X:\
3. Sandboxie works fine.
4. Dismount D: without removing X:.
5. Sandboxie gives errors.
6. subst X: /d
7. Sandboxie is happy, works fine.

In Step 5, the errors occur as soon as the drive letter is removed using Disk Management or a third-party util.

This should be fixed in version 3.53.04.

Things seem to be working, although there may be a minor niggle.

For the test below, D:\Test is mounted as subst drive X:\. I ran Notepad in two different sandboxes with a ReadFilePath=X:\.

1. Run Notepad in the first sandbox.
2. Dismount D:.
3. Run another instance of Notepad in the second sandbox.
4. Re-mount D:.
5. Issue: For me, X: is inaccessible to the second instance of Notepad, although it's accessible to the first instance. Error message: "X:\ is not accessible. The specified path is invalid."
6. If I exit the second instance of Notepad and run it again, then it can access X:.

In Step 2, if D: is actually powered off instead of simply dismounted in Disk Management, then in Step 5 neither instance of Notepad can access X:. The first instance gives a different error though, saying that "X:\ refers to a location that is unavailable. ..."

OK. I'm not sure this is easily fixable. I think I looked into a similar issue a few days ago with Explorer because I noticed it was not refreshing its list of available drives, as I was mounting/remounting some drives. It may have to do with Explorer relying on the Shell Hardware Notification service to refresh the list, and this service not notifying sandboxed programs. But I'm not sure. In any case it may be a more complicated issue that I might not be able to address immediately.

No worries, I'm pretty happy with the current behavior. Thanks for the fix!

Version 3.53.06 should fix the problem you reported Mike.

Also this version should fix the problem where Windows Explorer did not detect drives being added or removed.

Thanks for the improvement, tzuk, and sorry for the delayed reply. Everything works as expected, except when the drive is powered off in Step 2 of my Feb. 25 post. In that case, the first instance of Notepad can't access X: when D: is re-mounted, but the second instance can.

Again though, I'm pretty happy with the current behavior.

I'm not sure if I saw that -- I believe for me stuff worked as expected while testing numerous unmount/remounts without restarting programs in the sandbox. But I will take another look.

If I only removed the drive letter in Disk Management, everything was perfect. Perhaps the problem is with the way I powered off the drive using revoSleep 0.2.4: