Zip Files Right-Click Warning – This Page Has an Unspecified Potential Security Risk

© Ramesh Srinivasan | Windows Vista, Windows XP | 4th June 2008

Everytime I right-click on a .zip file in a network share, the following warning message appears, and the right-click menu appears normally after clicking Yes.

This page has an unspecified potential security risk.
Would you like to continue?

I’m not clear what the exact security risk is, as this message does not appear when right clicking on a zip file downloaded from the internet or for existing zip files in the hard drive. Interesting point is that in Windows Vista, the warning does not appear when opening .zip files from a network share by double-clicking the file.

I went ahead and added the name of the computer that is hosting the share in my home network, to the Local Intranet Zone. Here are the steps:

  1. Open Internet Explorer
  2. Click Tools, Internet Options
  3. Click the Security tab, and select Local Intranet
  4. Click Sites button
  5. Click Advanced
  6. Type the name of the network computer (which hosts the share)

  7. Click Add
  8. Click Close
  9. Click OK, OK.

The warning message does not appear now. The above works in Windows XP and Windows Vista.

SEE ALSO

Open file – Security Warning appears when you run a file from network share

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5 Comments

  1. R
    said this on Tuesday, April 6th 2010 12:38 am

    The solution of checking/unchecking the options in the Security–>Local Intranet–> Sites box or adding computer names in the Security–>Local Intranet–> Sites–>Advanced box does not work in the following cases:
    (1) when using an IP address to map drives (for example \\192.168.1.2)
    (2) when using a mapped computer name that has periods (for example \\xyz.domain.com).
    The pop-up will occur as long as there is a period or a dot in the name that comes after the double-backslash.

    Here is how to solve this. This method can also be used if you do not want to add computer names individually but would rather use computer name or IP ranges.

    1. In Internet Explorer, click Tools, and then click Internet Options.
    2. On the Security tab, click Local intranet, and then click Sites.
    3. Click Advanced, and then type: *://192.168.1.1-255.* in the Add this Web site to the zone box
    4. Click Add, click OK, click OK, and then click OK again to close the Internet Options dialog box.

    Note the format for IP-based name ranges
    *://192.168.1.1-255.*
    There is a star then a colon and then two forward slashes.
    1 is the last octect of the starting IP adrdress in the range
    255 is the last octet of the ending address.
    So, in my example above, I have added computers mapped from 192.168.1.1 through 192.168.1.255

    For domain name ranges that contain a period, use something like: *://*.domain.com

    Reference: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/303650

  2. Dave
    said this on Saturday, October 3rd 2009 1:54 pm

    Did not work on my XP system.

  3. Joe
    said this on Monday, April 27th 2009 2:54 pm

    Cheers, that’s been bugging me as well for near on a year…

  4. Brett
    said this on Tuesday, April 7th 2009 9:30 am

    Thanks for the tip. This has been bugging me for ages. I had it added as a Trusted Site, but not a Local Intranet site, so was getting the message.
    All fixed now

  5. jjs
    said this on Tuesday, March 24th 2009 7:37 pm

    Thanks, that was a real time saver.

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