Inaccurate "These files might be harmful to your computer" message

miloshapiro · 28 Apr 2019

From time to time, Win 7 will give me an error message that "These files might be harmful to your computer" and that "Your internet security settings suggest that one or more files may be harmful. Do you want to use it anyway?" when I try to move files. I know quite well there's nothing wrong with these files. Today's problem in moving a folder was just a folder with three pictures of a dog and a photoshop file I created from one of them. It's complaining about moving several folders like this.
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But here's the real oddity:

All of the help I've found this morning by Googling talks about this error message coming up when moving files across internet, LAN, etc. This is from one folder on my computer to another just down one level! There's no internet movement happening here!
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As per the attached image, I'm attempting to drag the folder with Julia's name in it at:
C:\Users\milo\Documents\aaa-milo\Photoshop\aa-freshen-your-photo\clients-friends-a4a\general
into another one at the same level folder one level lower:
C:\Users\milo\Documents\aaa-milo\Photoshop\aa-freshen-your-photo\clients-friends-a4a\general\2019
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So all of it is right on my C drive. Any suggestions? This pops up intermittently and is quite frustrating.

Barman58 · 28 Apr 2019

All files that you download from the internet May be harmful, Windows is just reminding you of this. If you check the properties of the files concerned you should see a button stating "Unlock" or similar, simply click on this button and you should not see the warning for that file again. Of course that you should scan the file to check it's safe before this but it's probably not needed.

I am assuming that you still use IE to download files - this is the main reason for this marker being set, you could edit the internal "zones" that IE used to decide which are unsafe areas, but the properties change is a lot less hassle.

miloshapiro · 28 Apr 2019

Hi Barman. The photos were not from the internet. They were images that a client scanned of a photo and emailed to me. I then took them from my own email and put them in the first folder. They were never "from the internet" unless you count emailing as being such. Internet Explorer certainly had nothing to do with my processing of these files. I was using the basic "Windows Explorer" to try to move the files from one spot on my C: drive to another on my C: drive, but that's not Internet Explorer.
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Tried looking at the properties of one of the photos and see nothing about locking on any of the four tabs: General, Security, Details, or PreviousVersions.
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So I'm still at a loss.

miloshapiro · 29 Apr 2019

Addendum: Discovered something odd this morning. If I cut and paste those files, there's no warning. I only get the warning if I drag the folder to where I want it. Seems strange that Windows Exploring would differentiate between those to things in any way!