How can you actually fix the 'The file you are attempting to preview could damage your computer' error for an entire folder AND it's subfolders when trying to preview ANY file downloaded in any of the folders and subfolders?

Question

According to the Microslop post HERE supposedly they decided to block previews for security reasons however considering the fact it destroyed the workflow of essentially everyone and hundreds if not thousands of posts/videos/tutorials/etc involving/showing dozens of 'solutions' have popped up everywhere telling people to edit their registry and many other OS documents by copying and pasting that poster's code etc all of which is obviously far more of a threat than previewing a file and without a doubt many actual attackers have utilized this to put out 'solutions' that create even more vulnerabilities and all that its safe to say there's a zero percent chance this has helped anyone other than threat actors and all of it could be solved by Windows allowing users to disable the 'feature' that was forced on them but seeing as they refuse to help their users that will never happen and their post also states: "If you are confident in the safety of both the file and its source, you may remove the internet security block.To remove the block for a downloaded file, right-click the file in File Explorer, select Properties, and then select Unblock.

Note: The change might not take effect immediately but will be effective after the next login.

To remove the block for files on an Internet Zone file share, use the Internet Options control panel’s Security tab to add the file share’s address to either the Local intranet or Trusted sites security zone."

-Yet adding the sites to my trusted sites and even lowering the security level for trusted sites to the minimum still does nothing and no one has time to go and unblock every file individually and the fact they even say that is insane and it takes less time to just open the file so they might as well disable file preview at this point but considering they haven't yet then how can I unblock all the files in a folder AND ALL SUBFOLDERS? I've used the -Unblock Path user/xyzabc etc command but it only unblocks files in that folder and not any of it's subfolders so its useless for anyone working in 3d design or who designs and 3d prints stuff because every file you download is a Zip folder and once unzipped you still keep files in there and again no one has time to go do this for every single folder and all their subfolders since again every file downloaded ends up in a zip file which then becomes a subfolder in the folder in which they were downloaded to which would take a considerable amount of time to do for all subfolders let alone every single file so there has to be a better solution

Answer 1

Hi Stayproteus,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A!

I totally understand how disruptive this can be to your workflow. Besides the manual steps to unblock (multiple) files at once using PowerShell, there is another option. Here's the steps to allow trusted sources saving:

1. Press Win + R > type regedit > press Enter to open Registry Editor
2. Navigate through this path: HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Policies
3. Right-click on the Attachments key (or create it if the key doesn't exist)
4. Add a new DWORD (32-bit) value:
   1. Name SaveZoneInformation
   2. Set it value to 1

Disclaimer: Generally, modifying registry subkeys or workgroups is for power users, administrators, and IT professionals. While it can help with some troubleshooting, incorrect modifications to the registry can lead to serious problems. Therefore, you should follow these steps carefully. For additional protection, check out how to backup and restore registry in Windows first - Microsoft Support.

Hopefully, with the suggestions above, you will be able to recover the preview panel to your system and get rid of the block permanently.

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Answer 2

I've used the -Unblock Path user/xyzabc etc command but it only unblocks files in that folder and not any of it's subfolders

If you're referring to Powershell's unblock-file cmdlet, you can use it like this.

get-childitem c:\temp\xxxx\* -recurse | unblock-file

There's also the Stream utility. Use both -s and -d switches.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/streams