Why is Windows warning me?
Short answer: Windows doesn’t know us yet. It isn’t telling you the file is dangerous. It’s telling you it hasn’t seen it many times before.
What the warning actually means
Windows keeps a running count of how often it has seen a program before. A program millions of people have downloaded is familiar. A newer one isn’t. When something is unfamiliar, Windows says so — even when the file is signed, and even when nothing is wrong with it.
Reveal Scan is signed every time we release it. The name on that signature is Watchful Solutions, Inc., the company behind Forward to Safety. What Windows is reacting to is newness, not danger.
Before you continue, check this
Don’t take our word for it. Check the name.
Windows shows one of two messages, depending on your computer. The check is the same in both: find the Publisher line.
“Do you want to run this file?”
The Publisher line is already on screen. Read it, then click Run.
“Windows protected your PC”
Click More info first — that is what reveals the Publisher line. Read it, then click Run anyway.
Either way, that line should contain:
Watchful Solutions, Inc.
Windows prints the whole entry from our certificate, so you may also see our town — Merrimack, New Hampshire — and the name repeated. That is normal. What matters is that the name is there.
If it is, the file is ours and nothing has altered it — Windows verified that signature before it showed you the message. Go ahead.
If it says anything else, or says “Unknown publisher,” stop. Don’t run it. Delete it and email us at help@forwardtosafety.com. That would mean the file didn’t come from us, and we want to know.
That check is worth learning. It’s the same one that tells you whether any download is what it claims to be.
“Reveal Scan.exe isn’t commonly downloaded”
That one is Microsoft Edge, not Windows, and it appears before the file has finished downloading. It means the same thing: Edge hasn’t seen this file many times yet.
Use Google Chrome if you have it — the download goes straight through there. Microsoft Edge adds an extra stop, and the steps for it are below.
Using Microsoft Edge? Edge holds the file back and says “Reveal Scan.exe isn’t commonly downloaded.” It is not finished downloading until you keep it:
- In Edge’s Downloads panel, point at that message and click the … button beside it (or right-click the message), then choose Keep.
- Edge shows the Publisher. Check that Watchful Solutions, Inc. is in it — Edge prints our whole certificate entry, so the line also carries our town (Merrimack, New Hampshire) and repeats the name. If that name is not there, stop and choose Delete.
- Click the small arrow next to Delete, then choose Keep anyway. Then click Open file.
“Allow this app to make changes to your device?”
That is a different message, and it usually comes right after the first one. It is the question Windows asks about any program requesting administrator access, and it uses the same words no matter what the program actually does. It is not Windows telling you this one changes things.
Reveal Scan asks because some of what is worth checking — drive encryption, the accounts on the machine, which drivers are loaded — simply cannot be read by a standard account.
If you would rather not, choose No. The check-up still runs. It looks at everything it can reach without administrator rights, and it tells you plainly which checks it had to skip — you get a shorter answer, not a wrong one.
Here is exactly what needs administrator, and what is missed without it.
Why doesn’t it just go away?
It does, eventually. Windows builds familiarity as more people run a program. Two things slow that down for a tool like ours: we’re a smaller company than the names Windows sees constantly, and the authority that issues our signature changes from time to time for reasons outside our control. Each change starts the count over.
We could make the warning fade faster by releasing updates less often. We’d rather ship the check-up that finds the problem on your computer today.
“My antivirus removed it”
Some antivirus programs quarantine Reveal Scan when you download it. McAfee and Malwarebytes have both done this. It is the same reason Windows warns you: the file is new to them, not dangerous.
Quarantine means the file is no longer in your Downloads folder. Your antivirus has moved it somewhere it cannot run.
The order matters here, because you cannot check a file that is not there.
- Restore it from your antivirus’s quarantine list. In McAfee that is See quarantined files.
- Then check the signature. Right-click the file, choose Properties, then Digital Signatures. It should read Watchful Solutions, Inc.
- If it does, tell your antivirus to allow that one file — and only that file.
- If it does not, delete it and email help@forwardtosafety.com. That would mean the file did not come from us, and we want to know.
What we will never ask you to do
We will never ask you to turn off Windows Defender, SmartScreen, or your antivirus. Not to run Reveal Scan. Not for anything. If anyone tells you to — us included — that’s the moment to stop and ask questions.
Allowing one file you chose to download is a different thing, and it is a decision only you should make — after you have checked the signature. Turning protection off leaves everything that arrives afterwards unexamined. Allowing one file you have checked does not.
Reveal Scan only reads. It doesn’t change a setting, install anything, or leave anything running afterward.