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Another workaround for downloading agent.exe in Firefox which results in: blocked: may contain a virus or spyware

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john kumpf, User (Posts: 85)
Dec 16, 2014 9:25:03 pm EST
Support level: Free or trial
In another post here in the "Windows version" forum there's a post about Downloading agent.exe in Firefox results in: blocked may contain a virus or spyware

Here's another workaround for downloading agent.exe in Firefox and avoiding malware detection.

This one you can do on your side, not the side of the person you're helping.

Zip the agent.exe file before distributing it (eg, on your website).

You rut guys might want to consider this for this remoteutilities.com website.

I like 7-zip for making zip files.

After i've downloaded agent.exe to my PC, i used 7-zip to add it to a .zip file to make agent.zip

I upload the .zip file to my website, and point people to that.

Then when i download it in Firefox i did NOT get a warning.  I could double click on agent.zip; it opened; and double clicking on agent.exe inside the windows view of the .zip file ran the program.

Note, the same trick did NOT work in Chrome.  I still got the "dangerous" warning (because it detected as not commonly downloaded).  But, in Chrome i (and people i help) dont even have to go into "Show all downloads"; the icon at the bottom of the window has a drop-down arrow that has a keep button.
Conrad Sallian, Support (Posts: 3061)
Dec 17, 2014 8:10:46 am EST
Hello John,

Thanks for the info. We would do that but the idea behind Agent is to make it as simple to use as possible. You won't believe it but many people have really no idea what a zip file is and how to extract it.   It would be a support technician's nightmare to explain not just how to download and run the Agent, but also how to unpack it

By the way, after our second review request Google lifted the malware warning at least in Google Webmaster Tools. I'm not sure why Chrome still detects it - perhaps these two things are not directly related. We'll keep on eye on this situation anyway.
john kumpf, User (Posts: 85)
Jun 30, 2015 8:07:41 pm EDT
Support level: Free or trial
Hello again!

So, an upd ate. When zipping with 7-Zip it has the option of Encrypting with a password. If I do that, then none of the antivirus's on virustotal.com can see thru it. It's reported as safe. Presumably, then, it would be allowed to download.

I certainly hear your point about making it as easy for the end-user as possible. However, if the download fails, then that's not easy. I have tried this, and with default windows installation, you can just:

  • download the .zip file
  • double click on the downloaded file (or click 'Run') (which actually opens window's zip browser)
  • then double click on agent.exe that is displayed (which is actually "in" the .zip file)
  • type in the password
  • windows does the work of extracting to temp file and running

So, it is really just two more steps, just one more double-click, and typing a password, which is still pretty easy. You're probably on the phone with them walking them thru it.

Then, once you're in, you can extract agent.exe to desktop, or remote install host, or file transfer another agent.exe from your machine to remote.

And you can use the task scheduler to re-start agent outside of the .zip file extracted to the temp dir. Here's some .bat file code i use:


:: this editor is putting a space in all my 'set' commands making them 'se t'
se t future_time=19:05

:: rutserv or agent :
se t path_to_rutsrv=C:\some\path\to\rutserv.exe
se t path_to_rutsrv=C:\some\path\to\agent.exe


:: the /rl is priviledge level
:: the /f means overwrite task
:: the quotes are necessary
::   1. to handle the space in eg program files
::   2. to allow the /start to not be processed by schtasks itself but parsed and passed on
::      as part of the /tr
::   3. so that the first space does not delimited programs and parametrs in task scheduler
:: and you dont need /start at all for agent.exe

schtasks /create /sc once /tn rut_restart /tr "'%path_to_rutsrv%' /start" /st %future_time% /rl highest
schtasks /query /tn rut_restart /v /fo list

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