Chunk on Windows 7 Home Premium

[reverett]

Hello,

While trying to execute InstantSupport on W7 Home Premium 64bit a window pops up stating Windows won't allow it to run. It refers to security settings in IE? I tried changing these with no luck. I also tried Run as Administrator. No luck.

Anyone know what I need to do to run InstantSupport.exe on W7 Home Premium?

Thanks!!!

Randall

[reverett]

Sorry, the actual message is: "These files cannot be opened. Your internet settings prevent one or more files from being opened".

Odd to me but hey...

Thanks!

[B]

I don't know if RunAs will work -- try logging in as a full administrative user first. (Or wait for a better answer from supercoe.)

[supercoe]

After a bit of searching it seems that it's either Windows Defender being aggressive (possible but I've never seen this happen yet) or you have had virus issues in the past that screwed up some registry entries.

Check out the fixes here:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... e6abb9d566
http://www.ilertech.com/2010/05/these-f ... be-opened/

Give those a try and report back. Good luck!

[reverett]

Too funny... I saw both of those pages but thought they were out of context. I was leaning more toward the registry hack as it seemed to help more people. I'll give it a shot and let you know.

Thanks!

[supercoe]

Let me know if this issue happens on more than that one machine. I haven't heard anyone reporting this being a problem yet so my only guess is problems with that particular machine.

[reverett]

Okay... I had the user bring the laptop into the office (I was trying to support a remote user).

Turns out W7 Home Premium was blocking the file automatically. I sent it via a zip file and it would block and delete the file. I sent it again renamed as InstantSupport.old and she could save it and rename it to InstantSupport.exe.

This allowed us to get in on the desktop but not run it.

Turns out if you right click on the .exe and choose Properties the General tab displays and "Unblock" button in the lower right (I couldn't see this until I had the laptop in front of me).

I don't know if this is unique to W7 Home/Home Premium. I don't remember having any issues with W7 Professional.

Gotta love Uncle Bill. You'd think you would be prompted and given the option to decide for yourself whether you want the app to be blocked? I dread the day XP goes away...

Thanks!

Randall

[B]

You and me both, brudda. Out of OSX, XP, Vista, Windows 7, and Linux, it's XP that most often "just works".

[supercoe]

Sorry, this doesn't make sense the way you've explained it...
Unless you are running some sort of AV program Windows does not just delete files automatically.

Now, if you're user downloaded the file with Internet Explorer 9 this situation would make more sense as the smartscreen filter would possibly block the download if it hasn't seen it before.

Let me give you an example.
1) I compile InstantSupport.exe and upload it to my website.
2) I send a link to the customer, they click it and it asks them to run or save the file.
3) The customer chooses run, IE9 smartscreen filter deletes the file because it hasn't seen it before.

You can get around the smart screen filter by hosting InstantSupport.exe on a webserver. After about 10-20 customers clicking More Options->Run Anyways on the smartscreen filter box Microsoft will no longer recognize the file as a potential threat.

Here is more info about the smartscreen filter: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/wind ... stions-IE9

Here is an example of what I'm talking about: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/0 ... ernet.html

Correct me if I'm wrong, unless I'm missing something I've just never seen Windows just plain delete a file...

[supercoe]

You and me both, brudda. Out of OSX, XP, Vista, Windows 7, and Linux, it's XP that most often "just works".

Which is also why it's so good at "just working" when it comes to running viruses unintentionally!
Every OS has it's good and bad points, I like them all in different ways.

[B]

If they're using web mail (as you may have heard, GMail and Hotmail are... quite popular) then that would run any e-mailed attachments through the same IE9 StupidityScreen gauntlet, which would explain the discrepancy, no?

(So you are honestly seeing measurably fewer machines screwed up by malware simply because they're not running XP any more? I haven't seen data on the phenomenon, but knowing Joe Average, I doubt it.)

[supercoe]

If they're using web mail (as you may have heard, GMail and Hotmail are... quite popular) then that would run any e-mailed attachments through the same IE9 StupidityScreen gauntlet, which would explain the discrepancy, no?

Gmail doesn't allow .exe attachments and will even scan for .exe's inside of a plain .zip (one more reason to love 7zip!). I believe Hotmail is the same way.
I get your point though, if the file was emailed successfully and the default browser was IE9 it would still be going through the smartscreen filter...
Not sure what to think here, it would be nice if reverett could explain in more detail the exact steps.


So you are honestly seeing measurably fewer machines screwed up by malware simply because they're not running XP any more? I haven't seen data on the phenomenon, but knowing Joe Average, I doubt it

It would be hard to measure the volume of incidents per OS but I'd have to say it's become much easier to remove viruses now because of how Windows now tries to protect itself. UAC has a purpose and does help in many cases but I agree with where you are going here, you'll never stop a click happy user YES YES YES ALLOW OK CONTINUE! "I don't understand what happend???"

Then again, it could just be that virus writers are getting lazy because of how profitable creating a Fake AV can be...