Computing desk
< June 8	<< May \| June \| Jul >>	June 10 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

June 9

Windows RT not come with 128 GB of SSD and 4 GB of RAM

Because Windows RT are low end tablet are only came out 32 and 64 gigs the Windows RT tablet system 32 or 64 gigs data storage removable storage only comes with full Microsoft Office 2013 for RT because Microsoft Surface tablet running Windows 8 RT (not NT) Windows 8 tablets do not have 128 gigs after a Surface Pro 1 released more storage than Windows RT . 2001:44C8:4225:785C:85A3:DE11:52D5:1869 (talk) 00:37, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a question? Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:41, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Windows Security warning about pure text file

I just wanted to unzip a simple text file from the zip file created by WhatsApp pure text export. Then the following message popped up:

(big "❢" in a shield) These files might be harmful to your computer
Windows Security
Your Internet security settings suggest that one or more files may be harmful. Do you want to use it anyway?
Show details OK Cancel
How do I decide whether to unblock these files?

Notes:

Despite the plural in the fat text, there is only one file.
There is no link behind "Your Internet security settings", so the dialog does not offer me a way to check these. (I certainly have not changed any security setting to consider pure text files as potentially harmful.)
The text "Show details" is underlined; clicking on it displays no other "details" than my target folder name.
"How do I decide ..." is underlined; but clicking on it doesn't even try answering the question, but only calls the very general page ‘https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows’, which contains no informative text (only advertisements for MS's latest products).

So, is Windows Security just crying wolf or is there a real danger from a simple .txt file? ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 17:16, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How are you unzipping it? Just double clicking on it? Have you unzipped zip files on this computer previously without this error popping up? I would create a small text file, manually zip it (right click -> Send to -> Compressed (zipped) folder) and then try to unzip it and see if you get the error. If you do, the error message is spurious. If not, then there's something specific to the WhatsApp file that is triggering the error, which is more concerning, but still could be a false positive. CodeTalker (talk) 18:06, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's not the .txt file, it's the containing .zip file which raises Windows security concerns. If you're only using Windows security, I'm fairly it sure won't be able to make a scan of a specific file. A dedicated AV/Malware app would. From a paranoid point of view, theoretically just opening a .zip file without even viewing/extracting the contents can cause malicious code to be executed. Do you know/trust the person it came from? Did you create it yourself? If so, there should be no problem. Simple .txt files do not contain code, and it's highly unlikely that they would cause a problem. If you want to be ultra-security conscious, if someone has sent you the .zip, ask them to extract it themselves and send it to you as a plain .txt file via email etc. There are online scanners, which may or not work, eg https://www.fortiguard.com/faq/onlinescanner , but I haven't tested it with a file containing known malware. MinorProphet (talk) 21:55, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to both of you for your replies. I created the file through WhatsApp's export feature, as I've done previously without this error popping up. (The only difference is that this time I exported text only.) So I now tried to reproduce it in other ways, up to zipping the same file on my cell phone directly, and it never reproduces. MinorProphet: It's an interesting idea that it could be the zip file, but then I'd expect the error to occur when I open the zip file. Still, software doesn't always behave logical. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 06:13, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Windows Security includes Microsoft Defender Antivirus, which scans whole files proactively ("real-time protection"). Any binary pattern can show up in the zip of a plain ASCII text file, also patterns that happen to be on an antivirus blacklist. --Lambiam 07:51, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, learn something every day. So, a false positive, it would seem. Re binary patterns: back in the day, I installed Skype when it was all the rage: and whenever I was attempting to recover a customer's precious data after a disk crash using Norton Utilities when it actually did something useful, Skype would highlight what it assumed were UK telephone numbers (01234 567890) and invite me to ring them, although it was more likely to have been just a corrupt Word file. MinorProphet (talk) 12:59, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Lambiam. Yes, “Any binary pattern can show up in the zip”. But then I would expect the OS warning to come up when downloading the zip file. On unpacking, it should check the result of unpacking, i.e., the text file, shouldn't it? ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 16:03, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My guess is that the creators of Microsoft Defender Antivirus, originally a free anti-spyware program developed by another company, did not make special provisions for special file types. I don't know how this program works, but in general antivirus software scans files that are about to be opened.^[1][2][3] After unzipping, you still need to open the unzipped file, and then that file is also checked. --Lambiam 16:33, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that explanation makes sense: It's probably not necessary to check a file as soon as possible; it's probably good enough to check a zip file on unpacking, rather than on downloading - although that's less "proactive". ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 21:03, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]