Solved Security Prompts for Internet Shortcuts (in Favorites Folder)

[XLR8TX]

Hello. When I use IE 11 (I also use chrome) I like to open the favorites folder. I find it easier to search, modify titles and access web pages from there. Today, when I clicked on any of the shortcuts, I got this prompt:

File Download - Security Warning

Do you want to open this file?

Unkown File Type

"While files from the internet can be useful, this file type can potentially harm your computer. If you do not trust the source, do not open this software."

All of the files in the folder are internet shortcuts (.url) so why does the prompt say "Unkown File Type".

I changed the default program association for .url files from Internet Browser to IE and even then I still had to change the default program to IE in the folder menu for the shortcuts to open without a security prompt. However, now all of the original web page icons have been replaced with a generic IE icon.

I just want to know what caused this. I recently installed the windows updates for September. Could that be the cause?

Thanks in advance for any help or info.

 

[XLR8TX]

Anyone?

I understand that my issue is not as important compared to others but I would like to resolve this problem.

Thanks again.

 

[Pyprohly]

Moving the affected files off to a non-NTFS partition and back again tends to resolve this.

 

[XLR8TX]

Question

Moving the affected files off to a non-NTFS partition and back again tends to resolve this.

Thanks for your time.

If I moved the folder to a exFAT or FAT32 flash drive then back, would that maybe work?

Also, why do you think this happened?

 

[Pyprohly]

If I moved the folder to a exFAT or FAT32 flash drive then back, would that maybe work?

Yes, the whole folder if you must. Just move the data onto a file system that doesn’t support ADS or Integrity Labels.

Also, why do you think this happened?

I haven’t personally found this as a problematic issue and so I haven’t yet put myself through the trouble of figuring out exactly why and when this occurs. Just know that this behaviour is very common and it relatives to the fact that IE runs as an untrusted program and so the files it creates will be so too.

 

[XLR8TX]

Thanks again for your time.

I'll try that.

I've had this computer for over 5 years and have never encountered this problem before. It just struck me as odd.

 

[Anak]

That's a good suggestion there Pyprohly, I'm not sure I would of thought of that. Strange though that IE would throw a file download warning when opening URL shortcuts.

There are two at the top of this search that offer some insight. In the first Nocturnal YL's second answer about copying not moving the favorites folder is like Pyprohly's tip but nocturnal says its only temporary. You may have to try Will Bosacker's solution in the first because I'm not sure you would want to reduce your security level by making that one setting in advance options enabled, as shown in the second link: IE would throw a file download warning when opening a URL shortcuts.

I'm not having a problem with it either, XLR, have you been keeping up with the large (for me 52MB average) monthly IE updates, have you had any problems doing any updates? IE hasn't been the same ever since the SSL security mess a couple of years ago.

Related:
Mandatory Integrity Control

 

[XLR8TX]

Moving the affected files off to a non-NTFS partition and back again tends to resolve this.

Well I finally had some Some to tinker with my laptop. Unfortunately your suggestion did not work.

 

[XLR8TX]

That's a good suggestion there Pyprohly, I'm not sure I would of thought of that. Strange though that IE would throw a file download warning when opening URL shortcuts.

There are two at the top of this search that offer some insight. In the first Nocturnal YL's second answer about copying not moving the favorites folder is like Pyprohly's tip but nocturnal says its only temporary. You may have to try Will Bosacker's solution in the first because I'm not sure you would want to reduce your security level by making that one setting in advance options enabled, as shown in the second link: IE would throw a file download warning when opening a URL shortcuts.

I'm not having a problem with it either, XLR, have you been keeping up with the large (for me 52MB average) monthly IE updates, have you had any problems doing any updates? IE hasn't been the same ever since the SSL security mess a couple of years ago.

Related:
Mandatory Integrity Control

Anak, thanks for the info and links. It is much appreciated.

I'll have some time to try that stuff this weekend.

I have been keeping up with updates and have not had any problems with that.

 

[Pyprohly]

Moving the affected files off to a non-NTFS partition and back again tends to resolve this.

Well I finally had some Some to tinker with my laptop. Unfortunately your suggestion did not work.

I know why. I seem to have missed a small detail. Sorry for wasting your time. I should provide more insight into what’s going on here…

We are dealing with the Integrity Label-ed case of security prompts, clearly.

When a shortcut (.lnk) or .url file has a Low Mandatory Integrity Label, Windows will prompt consent from the user when the shortcut is invoked—as already observed.

Because only NTFS supports these Integrity Labels on files, naturally, moving those files off to a non-NTFS file system will strip the file’s Integrity Label and it will not return even if the file is moved back. This was the basis of logic behind my initial suggestion.

But as it turns out, none of the shortcuts in the Favorites folder themselves actually carry a Integrity Label. What’s happening is, they are inheriting a Low Mandatory Integrity Label from the Favorites folder. Because IE runs with low integrity, the files associated with it will also be of low integrity, and therefore if IE is to write these files to the Favorites folder the Favorites folder must also bear a Low Mandatory Integrity Label.

Running the command (which applies an explicit Medium Mandatory Integrity Label to an item)

icacls "C:\path\to\file.lnk" /setintegritylevel m

on a shortcut will override any inherited Integrity Level setting, effectively ridding any security prompt from that shortcut for good. However, I usually advise against this because explicitly set Integrity Levels are difficult to remove once they are applied.

Also, changing or removing the propagating Low Mandatory Integrity Label from the Favorites folder in order to rid all of the shortcuts’ security prompts is a bad idea. In doing so, IE may have trouble writing to this location.


XLR8TX, the security prompt you see is ordinary behaviour and I recommend you don’t try and change it.

 

[XLR8TX]

XLR8TX, the security prompt you see is ordinary behaviour and I recommend you don’t try and change it.

"Ordinary behaviour"? No sir.

Like I said before, I've had this PC for over 5 years (while using the favorites folder in the same manner) and have never had this issue.

Thanks again for your time.

 

[Anak]

I hope I don't muddy the water's here,

Pyprohly, your cmd is similar to poster Bosacker's answer here, except he wants to send it to the desktop and has a couple more switches the (OI) & (CI), and your path\to\file.lnk, is that where the favorites folder is located, like mine is located at C:\Users\my user name\Favorites?

Would I be correct in thinking your cmd would follow that path and set the integrity label for that path to .lnk's, while Bosacker's path is to the desktop where his links are and that causes the difference?

Yours:

icacls “C:\path\to\file.lnk” /setintegritylevel m

Bosacker's:

ICACLS "C:\Users\<username goes here>\Desktop" /Setintegritylevel (OI)(CI)M

XLR, stay with Pyprohly's guidance.

 

[Pyprohly]

XLR8TX, the security prompt you see is ordinary behaviour and I recommend you don’t try and change it.

"Ordinary behaviour"? No sir.

“Ordinary”, as in if every member on this forum browsed to their Favorites folder right now and tried to open a shortcut there they’d receive the same security prompt you and I see. It’s supposed to occur, it’s default behaviour, and therefore ordinary.

If you’ve never seen this prompt in 5 years I cannot explain why.

Would I be correct in thinking your cmd would follow that path and set the integrity label for that path to .lnk's, while Bosacker's path is to the desktop where his links are and that causes the difference?

These commands are not the same. The intention behind each is different. My command says to apply a Medium Mandatory Integrity Label to a single, specific file “file.lnk” located in “C:\path\to”, while Bosacker’s applies a Medium Mandatory Integrity Label to the folder “C:\Users\<username goes here>\Desktop” and the Integrity Label is set to propagate to all child files and folders within this folder.

Bosacker’s issue involved shortcuts that strictly reside outside the Favorites folder. Consequently, my initial suggestion here of moving the shortcuts off to another file system and back again would have aided his problem and would have been the optimal thing to do, instead of running the Icacls command he did and set a quasi-permanent Integrity Label onto his Desktop folder.

 

[Anak]

Hmmm...May be I have a wrong security setting; If you're talking about the Favorites Folder in the Menu bar of IE, I can open any link in there and I do not receive that warning.


Thanks for the clarification Pyprohly!

 

[Pyprohly]

Hmmm...May be I have a wrong security setting; If you're talking about the Favorites Folder in the Menu bar of IE, I can open any link in there and I do not receive that warning.

We’re talking about shortcuts in the physical Favorites folder, “%userprofile%\Favorites”. Invoking any shortcut under this hierarchy through Explorer will yield a security prompt due to the folder emitting a Low Mandatory Integrity Label to all child files and folders.

 

[XLR8TX]

Culprit Identified

After conferring with a few folks on the Microsoft Community forums, we have determined that the culprit of this new prompt behavior is a recent Windows update as I had originally speculated in the first post.

It is this IE update in particular that precipitated these security prompts to be generated:

Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 7 for x64-based Systems (KB3185319)

 

[Anak]

Hmmm...May be I have a wrong security setting; If you're talking about the Favorites Folder in the Menu bar of IE, I can open any link in there and I do not receive that warning.

We’re talking about shortcuts in the physical Favorites folder, “%userprofile%\Favorites”. Invoking any shortcut under this hierarchy through Explorer will yield a security prompt due to the folder emitting a Low Mandatory Integrity Label to all child files and folders.

Okay, after going there and trying my shortcuts I too have the same behaviour.

After conferring with a few folks on the Microsoft Community forums, we have determined that the culprit of this new prompt behavior is a recent Windows update as I had originally speculated in the first post.

It is this IE update in particular that precipitated these security prompts to be generated:

Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 7 for x64-based Systems (KB3185319)

Any word if microsoft will change it or do they believe it is a security enhancement and will let it alone?

 

[XLR8TX]

After conferring with a few folks on the Microsoft Community forums, we have determined that the culprit of this new prompt behavior is a recent Windows update as I had originally speculated in the first post.

It is this IE update in particular that precipitated these security prompts to be generated:

Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 7 for x64-based Systems (KB3185319)

Any word if microsoft will change it or do they believe it is a security enhancement and will let it alone?

My guess is that MS is probably done fiddling with W7. Unless an update causes serious issues they will probably just leave it as is.

Too bad, since I'm accustomed to my old browsing habits.

KB3185319 :ar: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3185319

 

[UsernameIssues]

XLR8TX, the security prompt you see is ordinary behaviour and I recommend you don’t try and change it.

"Ordinary behaviour"? No sir.

“Ordinary”, as in if every member on this forum browsed to their Favorites folder right now and tried to open a shortcut there they’d receive the same security prompt you and I see. It’s supposed to occur, it’s default behaviour, and therefore ordinary.

If you’ve never seen this prompt in 5 years I cannot explain why...........

I've never seen that warning when opening a shortcut from the Favorites folder by double clicking on it from within the Windows (file) Explorer. I also don't see any warning when I drag/drop one of these shortcuts into a non-default browser like Chrome. I checks several W7 computers and no such warning appears.

I don't get the warning on a fresh install of W7 pro 64bit inside a VM:
(tested with the default IE8 and with IE11 - before and after installing KB3185319)

Before KB3185319


As an aside, if I get to the shortcut's Properties via Organize > Properties...
Before KB3185319


...I see this warning:
Before KB3185319



After KB3185319


Double clicking on the MSN shortcut from within the Windows (file) Explorer:
After KB3185319

 

[XLR8TX]

UsernameIssues, Excellent Info.

After conversing with other users on several forums, I knew those prompts were not there before for most if not all users.

Do you know of any workaround for this?