Sandboxie version 3.442
MS Windows 7 Ultimate x86

The target application seems to "see" the actual (sandboxie) path instead of the virtual path. (fosWiki "PATH" variable shows paths starting with C:\SandBoxie\...")

Replication:
1. Download fosWiki (foswiki.org version 1.1.2.0, Windows installer)
2. Create a new sandbox (default settings)
3. Run the downloaded installer inside the sandbox. Accept default settings. Choose any admin pwd on install.
4. From Sandboxie run sandbox start menu >> Programs >> foswiki >> Configure
5. A sandboxed web browser opens.
6. On the left panel in the browser select "Web Server Environment"
7. A list of Web Server Environment settings appears
8. Look at the setting "PATH". It contains a mix of paths that start with "C:\SandBoxie\..." and "C:\Program Files\...". Snippet:
C:\Sandbox\Thomas\FoswikiSandbox\drive\C\Program Files\Foswiki\Foswiki\bin;C:\Program Files\Foswiki\Foswiki\bin;C:\Sandbox\Thomas\FoswikiSandbox\drive\C\strawberry\perl\bin;
9. Possible defect (?): I would have through that the target application does not ever see the Sandboxie path.

You have a point there. This behavior was quite necessary in old versions (like 3.442 that you still use), so it certainly was no defect there. But in recent versions of Sandboxie it may no longer be necessary at all. I will look into this soon and see if I can/should change this.

Windows Developer's curiosity: Why would the sandboxie path ever get exposed to the target application? I thought that file mapping was invisible to the target?




If you ever do, here are a couple of related thoughts:

1. It would be good to be able to copy sandboxes (on the same PC). If absolute paths are stored in the sandbox (eg, mapped registry), then moving the sandbox will not work. An example why I may want to move or copy a sandbox is Quality Assurance work. I get the sandbox in a particular state, and then want to branch from it to test various scenarios.

2. Ideally (one day) sandboxie could be run in a stealth mode like a rootkit so it is truly (within reason) invisible to target applications, so, revealing the mapped path might give away sandboxies existence. With growing sandboxie popularity, target application developers might check for Sandboxie's existence to modify their behaviour, for example, a virus might say "I can't run" tempting a user to run it without sandboxie. That's similar to some of these CD-ROM emulators that are being blocked by some applications, in this case due to copyright fears.

Programs running under Sandboxie are still actually executed by Windows, and Windows is not running in the sandbox. This means that sometimes, some accomodations are necessary.

In version 3.81.01, I rewrote the code to support programs starting other programs in Sandboxie, but took the opportunity to get rid of the code that modifies the path.

Related topic:
http://www.sandboxie.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=13079