This file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer

This file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer

Released Date: 10/23/2019
Version: N/A

Sometimes we may place a ZIP file on our website for you to download and give you instructions on how to update your Elliott folder. Depending on multiple factors, after you download the ZIP file, unzip the content and copy to Elliott Programs or Bin folders, the file may be flagged as "unsafe" because it was downloaded from a website. If you right click on the file and choose "Properties," you may see the following message:
    This file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer


You can click unblock to make it "safe."  If you do not "unblock" the file, you may receive a message indicating that a particular EXE or DLL file is not found, or simply does not work in certain areas without any message. So this is a necessary extra step for you to ensure the proper functioning of Elliott Business Software.

This document intends to give you the procedure to unblock the downloaded file so you can run Elliott without a problem.

Factors That May Cause The "Blocked" Flag

There are several factors that may cause the "blocked" flag after you download a ZIP file:
  1. Operating Systems: The older operating systems, like Windows 2008, may not set the "blocked" flag after downloading a file.
  2. Logon Users: It seems if you login as "Administrator" and download, you'll be less likely to get this "blocked" flag.
  3. Intranet Zone: if you define www.elliott.com as part of your intranet zone, then files downloaded from that website will not be blocked.
  4. Other Security Settings: There are other security settings that may affect this, which we are not totally sure about.

Solution 1 - Unblock the Downloaded ZIP File
Generally speaking, after you download the ZIP file, you can just right click on the file in Windows Explorer and choose "unblock."  After this, if you unzip the ZIP files, all unzipped files will not be blocked.  This method usually works, except we have found that it does not work for Windows 2019.

Solution 2 - Define www.elliott.com as Your "Intranet" Zone
You can do so, for example, by bringing up Internet Explorer, and going to Setup and choosing "Internet Options." Go to the "Security" tab, choose "Local intranet" and click on the "Sites" button:


Add www.elliott.com to your local intranet zone:


Then the ZIP file you download from www.elliott.com will be considered safe and not blocked.

Solution 3 - Use PowerShell to Unblock Extracted Files
In some situations, such as when a Windows 2019 server is being used, neither solution 1 nor 2 will not work. Even after you flag the file as safe, the system will still remember that the ZIP file was downloaded from an unsafe zone. So after you unzip the "unblocked" file, all the extracted files will still be "blocked." If there are not too many files, you can unblock them one by one.  But if there are a lot files extracted from the ZIP file, this can be tiring.  In that case, you can use PowerShell as follows:
    dir c:\mydir -Recurse | Unblock-File
where c:\mydir is the unzipped folder that contains the extracted files and sub-folders.  The purpose of "-Recurse" is to include files in the sub-folder, sub-sub-folder....etc. in a recursive fashion. The "|" is the symbol for "pipe." Unblock-File will receive the files from the "dir" command and flag them as "unblocked."

If there is no sub-folder(s) in the ZIP file, and you are already in the extracted file folder, then you can simplify the PowerShell command as:
    dir | Unblock-File
See example below:


Caution
We can't guarantee that any one of the above methods can successfully unblock the extracted files. Therefore, it is your responsibility to check a sample extracted file to make sure it is indeed unblocked before you copy the file to Elliott Programs or Bin folders.


EMK


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