I just got off line with BitDefender Chat. They wanted to send me some tools to run and I explained this situation to them and they said I would have to contact Microsoft because there is nothing special about these files; they send them to customers all the time.
They have sent me tools to run on a few occasions in the past 6 months and they have sent them in a zip attachment. I save to desktop, right click, Extract All and I get a window that tells me Windows has determined these files could be harmful to my computer and has blocked them. What is causing this?
It sounds like your antivirus or some security program may be blocking them. If you are 100% sure that they are safe, then temporarily disable your antivirus and security programs to see if you are able to open the ZIP file then.
The ZIP download will restore the default associations and settings for ZIP file in the link below. You might try it and see if it may be able to help after a restart.
I have downloaded the ZIP file recommended to restore file associations, however, I do want to inform you that I can open other zip files. So I'm wondering if I need to or even if I should run this file. I guess if BitDefender sends me another zip attachment I could try disabling my antivirus but it seems odd to me that they would block their own file.
I guess you could upload that same ZIP file here and try downloading it again, or email it to yourself, to see if you have the same thing happen again.
I checked and find I have deleted the emails from BitDefender with that zip attachment. But it almost seems to me that I saved it to my desktop and then did try emailing it to myself with the same results.
Any other zip file I've ever received I can save to my desktop, right click, extract all and don't have any problem. It was just with these zip files from BitDefender.
I had another strange thing happen today which I will start a new post for titled "Desktop icons disappeared."
I've done that, several times. The first few times they totally ignored me. The last time the guy assured me there would be no reason that I can not extract their zip files. He said these are files they send to people all the time. The fact remains that I have had no trouble with any other zip files. On these that I get from them when I try to extract I get a window telling me that Windows has blocked access to these files as they may harm my computer.
Could you post a screenshot of this warning message when this happens again to help ID what program or feature may be responsible for blocking the ZIP files? It sounds like possibly either Windows Defender, Internet Explorer, or DEP may be blocking it for some reason.
If I get any more of them I will surely do that. I don't have Windows Defender running. The only thing I have running for security is the BitDefender security suite.
To be completely honest, I am very close right now to doing away with BitDefender. I installed their 2010 version on Oct. 5th and it's been nothing but a nightmare ever since. I uninstalled and reinstalled that program 4 times, then uninstalled it the 5th time and went back to v. 2009. Now that version isn't working right either and I've about had it with this program.
I'm seriously considering going with Spyware Doctor, Avast and my Windows Firewall.
If you don't know vista very much so I think you should very careful on whatever you try to fix by yourself but this may be help download IZArc to unzip most extension and it is good on vista too:D
I googled and have bookmarked this IZArc that you recommended. If I run into another problem with a zip file I will try it.
As I've said, I've never had a problem with a zip file until BitDefender started sending me these zip files that contained tools they wanted me to run. When I tried to extract them Windows told me they had been blocked because of files that may be harmful to my computer. I replied to BitDefender each time and told them what had happened and never received any response from them whatsoever. Then just recently I went to BD's chat and they were going to send me a tool to run. I told the person I spoke to the trouble I'd had with their zip files. He assured me there should be no problem with these. So he sends me this attachment labeled siw.xyz which was not within a zip file. I saved it to my desktop and couldn't open it, which didn't surprise me.
