Last week I caught Windows 10 doing something on my network drive for hours.
When I pulled the network cable, Superfetcht was seen in my task manager.
I don't know what it did but it ate up more than a 1 TB of network space to a point that it started to delete all my snapshots. I never found out where the disk space went, so I reformatted the network drive and put back the backup. So this time I am very concerned that Windows 10 will start to eat up my disk space again when I logon to it.
Sometimes I will need to access the network drive (to take my backups), but at that moment Windows will know the login and password and I want to avoid that. One trick could be to change the password every time I logged on to it with Windows 10. But that is a lot of work.
So how would you protect your network drive? Have a safe space that Windows can't access?
I checked out Steganos Suite 17, that is protecting your files but it does not seem to protect you from Windows 10 spying eyes. I mean it can create a vault, but it gives Windows 10 access to that vault too. So there is no point to use Steganos Suit 17.
And no moving to Linux is not an option in this case.
Edit: Some screen-shots what happened and why I don't want Windows 10 near my network drives.
- I see my NAS blinking like mad. While it should not.
-
I check the task manager and notice System working like mad and the network working: https://slimgur.com/image/B6l
After hours of waiting, I finally pulled the NAS network cable, the NAS blinking stops and this pops up: https://slimgur.com/image/B6o
- Later I discover that my NAS drive is full: https://slimgur.com/image/B63
- Tried many days to find where the missing data went but never found it. The snapshots were empty.
- In the end reformatted the NAS drive, put back the data and now checking, the NAS drive works perfectly.
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[–] [deleted] 0 points 9 points 9 points (+9|-0) ago
[–] 2283940? 1 point 4 points 5 points (+5|-1) ago
You can, however, replace that operating system with one that gives you more control over how it operates. Unless you have updatedb in a cron job or mdstat is set to run, I don't think Linux will access your network drives without an explicit user action.
[–] ObeyTheFist 1 point 2 points 3 points (+3|-1) ago
OP said Linux is not an option in this case.
[–] ObeyTheFist 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
That's a bit disingenuous. OP already identified that superfetch was accessing network drives.
It's not hard to disable that service.
[–] captainVerde 0 points 5 points 5 points (+5|-0) ago (edited ago)
Try switching to Windows 95. It's 85 versions ahead of Windows 10.
[–] 2283775? 0 points 3 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago
Have you done extremely thorough scans for malware? I don't think everyone is seeing the level of activity in Windows 10 that you describe.
I have a Windows 10 test pc and I don't notice anything unusual happening with my network drive when I fire it up. When you say it's eating up space, have you found what it's filling your drive with? Is it the backup?
[–] ObeyTheFist 0 points 3 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago
This is insightful, it could be malware.
Or Windows Search doing indexing.
[–] 2288387? [S] ago
No malware in that case, it was clearly "System" that did it. Definitely not index sharing since I checked it and it said "indexing completed". Also that network drive was not in that list.
That network drive was NOT mapped to a drive letter.
[–] Chiefpacman ago
I would of guessed that, but deleting photo's? That's gotta be something bad.
[–] TimberWolfAlpha 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
I won't let windows 10 onto my network. Period.
If I ever am forced to a point where I am going to use Windows 10, I'll pick up a machine with VT-d and an IOMMU so that I can pass hardware directly to my Windows 10 virtual machine. I will give it it's own virtual interface driven by a NIC that won't be used for anything else, and firewall the devil out of that virtual interface. Like, a firewall on the host VM, and then an old DDWRT router on the other end of the cable. It will be fed an internet connection that has been completely segregated from my real network. I'll run that Spybot anti-beacon package on it, as well as manually block all the relevant domains for phoning home. I'll also lock down every port in use and only explicitly open the port(s) I need for whatever infuriating task has made Windows 10 necessary.(some game, I imagine, or piece of software I need for something)
I wouldn't let it anywhere near a network drive. if I'm doing something that needs backing up, Win10 can live with a flash drive or three... you can get 32gb for $10, so, yeah.
A little paranoid? maybe. Excessive? Sure. But I regard Win10 in the same manner I regard, say, the human immunodeficiency virus.
[–] ObeyTheFist ago
You know they're backporting all the spyware and malware into Windows 7 and 8 too, right?
[–] TimberWolfAlpha ago
Only if you've still got automatic updates still on. I always shot the Windows Update service in the head and only turned it on when I actually need it. Also, I'm transitioning some of my machines to Linux Mint on top of that. Third day of it on this laptop, and I'm loving it.
[–] PolishPandaBear 1 point 2 points 3 points (+3|-1) ago
How about formatting it to ext4? Maybe this will help.
[–] Kaizervonmaanen 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
If Linux is not a option then you just have to live with it. Encryption don't help because the search will be done after you have put in the encryption key. There is no known way to avoid windows searching and gathering information from your drives. You can cut it off from the Internet completely and use a Linux computer to move any files to and from the Internet. Windows searches your drives and send them to Microsoft, it is going to use memory and disk space for that no matter what.
[–] ObeyTheFist ago
No known way... Except for all the known ways. Like disabling the search and superfetch services.
Using the hosts file to block the telemetry targets.
Running one of the many batch files or PowerShell scripts to remove the CEIP malware patches from Windows Update.
Please try to be honest when offering technical advice (unless you genuinely didn't know about these options, in which case why are you offering technical advice?)
[–] Kaizervonmaanen ago
According to ars technica that does not stop the spyware or background communication with Microsoft. Using a host file to stop it would seem like a good idea, but that will also stop things like security updates and other important services. The script I have seen to stop it will only partially stopstop it.
[–] multidan 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
What do you mean by superfetch eating up 1tb? It indexed 1tb? It filled 1tb with a file?
If you don't want your OS to access your drive... Don't access that drive with that OS. You can't have your cake and eat it too. If you use an OS for a task it by definition has to have the ability to do that task.
If you want superfetch to stop indexing, Google it. Others have it explained a lot better than we can.
[–] 2291392? [S] ago
I don't know what happened, tried to analyze that drive where the disk space went but found nothing. But it went clearly down fast https://slimgur.com/image/B63 at the moment Windows 10 was doing something on it.
At that moment I did not know about superfetch. Also Windows 10 never did this before since I installed it.
[–] storytellermich ago
Well aren't I glad I am refusing the Windows 10 update offers that pop up. Sounds like a shit operating system.