Windows SmartScreen and antivirus warnings

When you open the AigoPilot installer for the first time, Windows may stop you with a blue window titled "Windows protected your PC". Your browser may have already said that the file is not commonly downloaded. Both come from one fact: the installer is not signed with a code-signing certificate yet, so Windows has no publisher name to show and no history to judge it by.

In development. We have not bought a signing certificate yet. Until the installer is signed, every new copy shows these warnings. Nothing in the warning means the file is damaged, and nothing in it says it is safe either, so check where it came from.

Check that the file is ours

1. Use only the download link we email to the address of your account after you buy (see installing AigoPilot). It points to aigopilot.com.
2. Look at the file name. It is AigoPilot-, then the version, then -windows-x64.exe.
3. Right-click the file and choose Properties. There is no Digital Signatures tab, because the file is unsigned. A file that claims to be ours and has a signature from someone else is not ours.

If you doubt a copy, delete it and download again from the email, or write to us (reporting a problem).

What to click in SmartScreen

Microsoft Defender SmartScreen judges a file by how many people have downloaded and run it before. A new file has no record, and an unsigned file has no publisher to vouch for it, so the window names the publisher as "Unknown publisher".

1. In the blue window, click More info. The file name and "Unknown publisher" appear.
2. Click Run anyway.

When the installer is signed, the company's name will stand where "Unknown publisher" stands, but the warning does not vanish on the first day: SmartScreen trusts each new file as people download it.

Windows 11 with Smart App Control

Smart App Control is a stricter setting on some Windows 11 computers. When it is on, Windows can block an unsigned installer outright, with no Run anyway button. This is what Windows does with unsigned programs. We have not yet watched it happen on a clean computer. If you meet it, write to us with the exact message instead of turning protection off on your own.

Antivirus programs

An antivirus may hold an unsigned program that can start with Windows and starts other programs. AigoPilot is that kind of program: it starts the tools that run your sessions. Which antivirus products react to it, we have not measured.

• Do not turn the antivirus off. Open its quarantine or protection history and see whether it removed a file of AigoPilot.
• If it did, and the installer came from our email link, restore the file from quarantine.
• Send us the name of the antivirus and its message, and we will look at it.

The installer needs no administrator rights. The one exception is Microsoft's WebView2 runtime, which the installer downloads if your computer lacks it. A request for administrator rights at any other moment is worth a message to us.

Questions