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pulibrary / ExcelAlmaLookup

An Excel VBA macro for performing Alma catalog lookups
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Digitally sign installer #6

Closed tventimi closed 6 months ago

tventimi commented 9 months ago

Some users receive the warning "Windows protected your PC" upon running the installer. Look into digitally signing the installer EXE to prevent this warning from appearing.

tventimi commented 9 months ago

This issue was mentioned in a thread on the Alma mailing list. One of the users also had an issue in which their antivirus program (Sophos) blocked the installation without providing a workaround.

The message is "Generic ML PUA detected" and I just learned that a "Potentially Unwanted Application (PUA) is a term used to describe applications that, while not malicious, are generally considered unsuitable for business networks."

tventimi commented 7 months ago

Reported by a user today:

We're attempting to download the installer at https://github.com/pulibrary/ExcelAlmaLookup?tab=readme-ov-file#readme but our anti-virus packages are giving us warnings and errors that this package "is not normally downloaded" and "do we trust it."

dlingley commented 7 months ago

Also encountered this issue at Purdue. The Cisco antivirus is blocking the download. Perhaps digitally signing will allow it to download?

tventimi commented 6 months ago

Thank you for letting me know that your antivirus program is also blocking the "Excel Alma Lookup" plugin. I actually just obtained a code-signing certificate for this tool, which I hope will solve this problem. However, since we are not experiencing this issue at Princeton, I will need to ask users from other institutions to confirm whether the certificate works. I have attached a signed version of the installer to the latest release. Could you please download it using the link below and see if you are able to install it?

https://github.com/pulibrary/ExcelAlmaLookup/releases/download/v1.1.2/CatalogLookupInstallerSigned.exe

This is not a new release, just a signed version of v1.1.2. It is otherwise identical to that version.

Also, I found out that the certificate will not necessarily prevent the Windows SmartScreen (aka "Windows Protected your PC") alert. Fortunately, such an alert can be bypassed by the user. But please let me know if your antivirus program is still blocking this signed version of the plugin. Thanks for your help and patience.

tventimi commented 6 months ago

I confirmed with other users who experienced this issue that they were able to download and run the signed installer. I have made the signed version of the installer the "official" version now, so the link mentioned earlier in this ticket will no longer work. Please use this one instead:

https://github.com/pulibrary/ExcelAlmaLookup/releases/latest/download/CatalogLookupInstaller.exe

I am closing this ticket, but please feel free to reply if you encounter any other issues downloading or running the installer. Thanks!