Disable Blocked File Protection Control in Windows Vista
In my neverending quest to make Vista more usable, I finally caved and took the time to figure out how to disable Blocked File Protection Control. This “feature” requires you to unblock files you download before they are usable (for the most part). This is a bad decision in my opinion – I decided to download a file and of course I’m going to want to work with it. I don’t want to figure how how to unblock before I can use it. What a pain – anyway enough with the rant.
If you want to be able to use your files after you download them, you’ll need to either use the Group Policy Editor described here in as Method #3 or edit the registry.
Unfortunately I happen to be running Windows Vista Home Premium on one of my systems – this means no gpedit. The entry we need to set is:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Attachments\SaveZoneInformationThis value needs to be a DWORD set to 1. You can enter this manually or download the reg file and “Unblock” your last file! Be sure to close all instances of Internet Explorer or reboot your computer after making the change to your registry.
August 15th, 2008 at 8:18 am
in the regedit entry you mention, I do not have any “attachemnts” under “policies”
MS tells me to go to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Security\FileOpenBlock.
my regedit has no “office” under microsoft. What do i do?
August 15th, 2008 at 9:18 am
The easiest way is to use the group policy editor if you have that option.
Otherwise you can create the key – or feel free to download the reg file and double click it. This file will create the key for you.
May 29th, 2010 at 2:58 am
Hi, I can’t download the file.
June 9th, 2010 at 11:06 am
The file is there, perhaps it’s being blocked by some software on your computer.
December 8th, 2010 at 6:54 am
The Blocked File Protection Control is very similar to Internet Explorer’s “check digital signature on dowloaded programs” security feature. To permanently disable these security features, follow the instructions below:
Internet Explorer
Open the Internet Properties control applet and open the advanced options tab. Uncheck the “Check Digital Signatures on Downloaded Programs” box. Close and restart Internet Explorer. Reboot Windows if necessary.
Windows Explorer
Use the Group Policy Object editor or modify the SaveZoneInformation registry key with the registry editor by setting the DWORD value to 1.