Remove Process Explorer's "Open File - Security Warning"

Question

I'm on XP Pro w/ IE8 installed. When I launch procexp.exe (Process Explorer 11.33), I see a dialog warning me about the program I'm about to launch (the title of the dialog reads "Open File - Security Warning").

I need to launch Process Explorer w/o this prompt. How can I do this?

Some options which are not available to me (per the workstation's keepers):

• Change my OS (I have to stay at XP Pro)
• Change my IE version (I have to stay w/ 8)
• Changing Attachment Manager Group Policy (i.e.: using gpedit.msc, go to User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Attachment Manager and Add "*.exe" to one of the "Inclusion List" settings.
• Manually adding .exe to the "LowRiskFileTypes" in the registry

EDIT: When I right-click the file and choose Properties, there is no "Unblock" button.

Answer 1

I believe right clicking the file, clicking Properties, and clicking Unblock will solve the problem. (unless it's a different dialog)

Answer 2

What happens if copy (in the normal explorer) the procexp to a new file and launch that one? That usually fixes the problem for me (unless the file is block, then you have to unblock it as well).

The block is merely some side data in the NTFS stream so you can use "streams" from sysinternals if you want to fix that, if the normal explorer is fighting with you.

Answer 3

When you downloaded the exe with IE8, it set an NTFS security flag on this file. There is nothing you can do to fix it from that point onward if your workstation is locked down.

You can simply re-download the file using a different method which does not set the security flag in the first place. Firefox has an about:config option to disable the security flag. Google Chrome does not have the option to disable it.

I recommend you use a command-line tool like 'wget' or 'curl' to download the file. Or an ftp program.. Or any one of a million other ways of putting this file on your computer which does NOT involve "downloading it with IE8"

Answer 4

If you want to remove the warning for a particular executable file, you can trick Windows into thinking that the file originated from a safe location. You can't accomplish this by a simple copy (in Windows 7 or later, at least), but I most frequently bypass the warning by archiving the file (e.g. in a ZIP file) and then extracting it to a new location, or to the same location after deleting the original file.