Disable "These files might be harmful to your computer" warning?

Question

I keep getting this irritating warning when copying files over the network:

These files might be harmful to your computer

Your internet security settings suggest that one or more files may be harmful. Do you want to use it anyway?

I am copying a file from \\192.168.0.197\c$ (home server) to my local machine which is at \\192.168.0.4.

How do I turn off this meaningless "warning"?

Answer 1

I found a fix by changing "internet options" -- so I guess Windows is detecting the "internet" as my own network.. sigh.

• Click Start / Control Panel / Internet Options
• Click Security tab.
• Click Local Intranet
• Click Sites button.
• Click Advanced button.
• Enter the IP Address of the other machine or server (wildcards are allowed) and click Add
• Click Close, then OK, then OK again.
• Disconnect, and reconnect the network drive

This worked for me, but it's a bummer I have to manually enter IPs here.. it would be nice if Windows could detect this is a local network file copy and skip the irritating (and pointless) warning about "dangerous" files.

Sidenotes:

• If you are using a DNS name to map the network drive, adding the IP address of the server to the zone will not work. You will need to add the DNS name, and vica-versa.
• When adding an IP address, you can use wildcards like so: 192.168.1.*
• Whan adding a DNS name, you can use wildcards like so: *.example.com

Answer 2

Using Windows 7, I added my IP address with a wildcard:

10.55.25.*

Now all the ip's in this range are part of the "Local Intranet".

Answer 3

If you want to do this in Group Policy, this quote may be helpful to you.

You can control this with Group Policy, as well. Use gpedit.msc and drill down to

User Configuration → Policies → Administrative Templates → Windows Components → Internet Explorer → Internet Control Panel → Security Page

Enable "Intranet Zone Template" with the Low option.

Then enable "Site to Zone Assignment List" and use the Show button to add your "sites" (servername, servername.domain, ipaddress - the values you enter depend on what name or IP you use to access the share) with a value of 1.

Lastly - and this is the most important step - drill down one folder in gpedit to "Intranet Zone" and enable for "Show security warning for potentially unsafe files", choosing Enable from the drop-down.

Close gpedit, reboot or run gpupdate /force and enjoy no more annoying Windows Security dialogues!

From the bottom of http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/fi-FI/w7itprosecurity/thread/35ca8f9c-5e69-4b7f-a002-0d72fa0dc14b

Answer 4

We recently put in a new server using DFS and I was having this same error. I ended up putting in:

" \\\servername.local.?"

After clicking add, it then showed:

file://*.servername.local.

I tried the * verses the ?, but that was not allowed.

Answer 5

I did a procmon and found where the settings are stored in the registry - this is for my 192.168.1.* network:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Ranges\Range1]
"*"=dword:00000001
":Range"="192.168.1.*"

This is for my \\NAS server:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains\nas]
"file"=dword:00000001

This is how it looks in the internet settings control panel:

Answer 6

I have been getting the same error recently, and found a way to disable this warning forever (I know what files I want to open, so yes, I am sure I want to disable this warning...):

• go to Internet Settings (in Internet Explorer)
• go to the "Security" tab
• click on "Custom level" (with "Internet" selected = first icon)
• in the "Miscellaneous" part, select "Enable (not secure)" for the option "Launching applications and unsafe files (not secure)"
• click "OK" and then apply the changes; you'll have a warning asking if you're sure you want to do this (you'll have to say yes)

And that's it. :) Have fun.

Answer 7

I believe you wouldn't get the warning if you used the netbios name of your home server instead of the ip address. If you use the ip address or say the fully qualified dns name of the remote computer it doesn't recognize it as being in the intranet zone. the other option as mentioned earlier is to manually add it to the intranet zone list.

Answer 8

Adding these two lines (without changing the default Local Intranet settings) is a quick fix:

file://10.*.*.*
10.*.*.*

You need to disconnect and reconnect shares for this to work.

Answer 9

The other solutions here didn't work for me on Windows 7, but I found one that worked: remove Internet Explorer through Add/Remove Programs and then Adjust Windows Features. Unclick Internet Explorer 8. No more nag dialog!

Answer 10

Here's how I fixed the issue. First here's my setup. I have Windows 10 on my C:\ drive partitioned with a D:\ letter drive on which I keep my personnal files. The "Windows Security-These files can be harmful to bla bla" pop-up bug came in I don't know how why or when. But it happened with only two folders on my D:\ partition drive. How why and when I still have no clues.... or maybe. But hey let's fix the matter. What I did is copy\pasted all I needed most on my D:\ drive onto an external HD. Then I formatted the D:\ drive and copy\pasted back in, bit by bit (verifying in between) the folders I had saved on my external device. Bingo problem solved. Of course this sounds curious. Technology is curious from time to time.

I think permissions, authorizations, ownerships, rights etc. may have something to do. Why I don't know but these settings came back to a default position" And I had often modified them before. Then again I can be wrong. I'm just noticing things here. Or maybe the letters on some external drives had changed because USB keys or external Disk constant ins and outs. Anyway I hope this tweak will be helpful for those who did not find a fix yet, and feel someone is watching them. I have to say this issue was one of the hardest I've ever dealt with. Jeeeez Cheeez Wizzzz dudes !

august 31 2018