Why does Windows 7 warn me before I run this EXE files I downloaded? I removed the zone identifier already
Why does Windows 7 warn me before I run these EXE files I downloaded? I removed the zone identifier already
Here is one of the EXE files.
Why does Windows 7 warn me before I run this EXE file I downloaded? I removed the zone identifier already
I went https://www.adaware.com/free-adaware-protect-download/ I clicked "download your free protection", and downloaded Adaware_protect_Installer.exe
When I try to run it, it says
From the command prompt I can do
streams.exe Adaware_protect_Installer.exe and it says :Zone.Identifier:$DATA 26
So there's a "zone identifier" there, I can delete that with streams -d Adaware_protect_Installer.exe
Then when I try to run Adaware_protect_Installer.exe it says
So the "file origin" has gone from "downloaded from the internet", to "hard drive on this computer".
But why is it warning me at all?
There are some EXE files i'm able to run with no warnings and not just MS ones e.g. C:\ffmpeg\bin>ffmpeg.exe
Solution 1:
This is not a warning at all. It’s the standard User Access Control (UAC) dialog. You are running a setup program. It requires admin rights, or Windows thinks it does.
On Windows 10, the same dialog looks like this:
You get a dialog like this every time you launch a program…
- with admin rights manually
- that Windows thinks is a setup program
- that declares in its manifest that it requires elevated rights
- that then relaunches itself with admin rights (same as bullet 1 really)
The only exception are certain trusted operating system programs like Device Manager or Disk Management. By default, they run as admin without any confirmation dialog.
added by barlop
Daniel mentions that you can view the "manifest", by searching for "<assembly" in a file, and that will indicate that it requires elevated rights.
Looking at the mentioned EXE in Hex Edit, a web browser based online hex editor, https://hexed.it/ and searching for "assembly" it does mention requesting privileges.
