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Brisbane + Queensland/Australia
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader, Sierra Chart
Broker: CQG, IQFeed
Trading: S&P Emini Futures
Posts: 54 since Mar 2015
Thanks Given: 38
Thanks Received: 89
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Just a update for anyone else who might need to do the same thing in future.
I was able to get 4 instances of NT8 running at the same time using Sandboxie. Had to create 3 separate sandboxes and then run the NT8 installer in each sandbox. This only worked as long as NT8 was not already installed on the desktop. If it was already on the desktop, it would find that NT8 was already present on the computer and go to the repair/delete NT8 screen instead of starting the installer.
INSTALLATION
To install separate copies, create a separate folder for each instance in C: drive outside of the sandbox environment. EG - C:\ NinjaTrader 1, C:\ NinjaTrader 2, C:\ NinjaTrader 3.
Create 3 sandboxes. EG - NinjaTrader 1, NinjaTrader 2, NinjaTrader 3.
Right click on the NT installer - Run Sandboxed
Then during the installation process, navigate using browse when prompted to the same named folder already created on C: drive and install in this location.
When Sandboxie prompts to recover files/folders, make sure NOT to recover. They need to stay within the Sandboxie environment.
Once the installation is finished, shut down that sandbox and then repeat the process in the other sandboxes.
Once all sandboxed installations are completed, you can then run the NT8 installer to do a normal installation on the desktop.
DATA CONNECTION
I use IQfeed that allows multiple connections to the same data as long as its from the same computer. If NT8 is connected from the sandbox, it will create a connection but then when each following sandboxed NT8 tries to connect, they all try to form a new connection to IQfeed and IQfeed sees that as not all coming from the same computer so will drop the lot. After talking with IQfeed support, a working solution was to create the 1st connection from the desktop itself (Have tried Sierra Charts and NT8 for this and both work) and once this is connected, then connect each sandboxed NT8 and they all piggy back on the desktop connection and IQfeed will accept all the connections.
I have a NT license so 1 x NT8 has the license key entered, the others are SIM.
PROBLEMS
I have run into a issue with Sandboxie launch window seeming to disappear at random times after all instances of NT8 have been running. It might happen 10mins after everything is launched or other times it can be 3hrs. When this happens, all instances of NT8 continue running and tracking market data but I'm unable to make changes to the charts or setup or save anything when NT8 is shut down if the sandboxie window has already disappeared.
After talking with Sandboxie support, they came back that for some reason "sbieCtrl.exe" is failing/crashing and this makes the sandboxie window disappear. This can be manually relaunched but so far the limited times I have done it, it throws some new error codes. At this time, it seems the only reliable way to relaunch it is to shut everything down and reboot the OS and then its all there again without errors.
This isn't a major issue and to work around it, I try to open each instance of sandboxed NT8 individually, set it up as required for the day, save it so any changes made for the day are saved, log out. Whenever Sandboxie prompts and asks if you want to recover, always make sure NOT to recover anything outside the sandboxed environment.
Do the same for each sandboxed NT8 instance, then open all of them that are needed for the day. If Sandboxie disappears, all instances of NT8 continue on and I don't have to worry about lost pre-market set ups when they are shut down later.
Then use the normal installation of NT8 on the desktop to work from and modify through the day as needed. Any significant levels that have been noted on this NT8, can be transferred over to the sandboxed instances pre-market the next day.
Its a bit of a run around process to have to modify more then one NT8 each time a change is made but it has got things up and working again so far after 12mths of running in circles. I think I have narrowed things down even further over the last few days and I should hopefully only need 1 sandboxed NT8 and 1 desktop NT8 to solve the conflicts I have previously been running into.
While I have been testing this, I used VMware to create Virtual machines to work from and kept them relatively clean of other programs. This has also been good because there seems to be some security programs (anti-virus/malware) that cause conflicts with Sandboxie. Once I narrow down what works well in this virtual machine, I will then try migrating back to the normal desktop to check if there are further things causing conflicts with NT or if its just in the 3rd party indicators.
PROGRAM VERSION DETAILS
Sandboxie v5.12
NT8.0.0.11
Windows 8.1 retail with full updates.
VMware Workstation 12.1.1 Pro
Thanks for all the help and suggestions from everyone. Its been very much appreciated.
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