Digital Signatures tab in all file properties

Question

Greeting,

For all file have have sign or not, i can see a Digital Signatures tab.

For exe file, they all show Digital Signatures tab, and if they have sign, i can see the sign detail, if not signed, i see Digital Signatures tab but a blank page like below.

For all other file like txt, mp3, mp4, png, etc, it also show Digital Signatures tab, but with below blank page.

ran dism, sfc, not help

window 11 24h2, 26100.3476, please help, thank you.

Answer 1

Hi ygfkywugfkdry

Windows 11 displays a “Digital Signature” tab for all file types, regardless of file type or whether it's signed or not!

This is indeed a change in Windows 11 and can be seen as a tweak to the uniformity of the interface

The problem you mentioned with large MP4 files causing slow loading or restarting of Explorer

This may be a performance issue when Windows 11 tries to check whether large files are digitally signed or not

For large media files, the system may need to scan the entire file for possible signature data, causing delays or crashes

If you found my response helpful, please vote “Yes” or “No” at the bottom of this post to help others with similar issues.

Best wishes

Merek.Z - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Answer 2

Hi ygfkywugfkdry

Welcome to the Microsoft Community

Understanding your problem

This is normal and nothing to worry about. Let me explain how the “Digital Signature” tab works in Windows:

All files show the “Digital Signature” tab: It's part of the Windows design that the Properties dialog box contains this tab regardless of the file type or whether it's signed or not.

Representation of different file types:

Executable files (.exe, .dll, etc.): if signed, the signature details are displayed; if unsigned, the tab is blank.

Non-executable files (.txt, .mp3, .mp4, etc.): they are usually not digitally signed, so the tab will be blank.

This is not a system error: you ran dism and sfc to no avail because this is not a problem that needs to be fixed!

What digital signatures do

Digital signatures are primarily used to verify the identity of the software publisher and to ensure that the file has not been tampered with. Most common documents and media files do not require digital signatures, so it is perfectly normal for their “Digital Signatures” tab to be empty.

Contact me if you need anything else.

Best wishes

Merek.Z - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Answer 3

thank you for prompt reply,

as i remember in window 10, this tab should be hidden for Non-executable files (.txt, .mp3, .mp4, etc.), and only visable for signed Executable files (.exe, .dll, etc.)?

cause sometime i check a mp4 file(about 4gb size) and click the “Digital Signature” tab, it seem take few minutes to load a blank page, or sometime the explorer restarted itself.

so this is new to window 11? thank you.

Answer 4

More importantly: Is there a way to disable it?

I'm used to keyboard shortcuts such as Alt+Enter to open properties then Ctrl+PageDown to navigate to Details; this first moves to Digital Signatures which I 1) don't care about and 2) freezes whenever I try to get to the Details of a large file (e.g. videos).