Prevent AGS from triggering antiviruses: Difference between revisions

Prevent AGS from triggering antiviruses (view source)

Revision as of 06:30, 30 September 2015

5 bytes added , 30 September 2015

Changes to clarify purpose of fix: primarily for game devs, not players, to fix F1 Help

Snarky

Administrators

33

edits

@@ Line 5: / Line 5: @@
 <big>'''Introduction'''</big>
-AGS works very well but it's not a big, corporate software that uses all the latest security mechanisms (such as certificates, permissions and stuff) to make it immediately recognized by antiviruses as harmless. In particular, there's a thing called "alternate data streams" that sometimes makes your antivirus panic and tell you that the game you just downloaded is a virus, when it's not. We help you getting rid of that issue. This trick was originally found, once again, by the guys from Wadjet Eye.
+With the move to a more open source style of development for the AGS engine, game developers may use AGS builds that don't correspond to an official release. These are usually downloaded directly rather than installed with an installer, and this can cause some problems with Windows security settings or antivirus software. Specifically, attempts to access Help from the AGS editor may be blocked.
+This is caused by something called "alternate data streams". This article explains how to resolve the problem.
 == What are "alternate data streams" ? ==
@@ Line 19: / Line 21: @@
 So far so good. The trouble is that some smart arses started to use this to hide data, possibly fraudulent stuff. Alternate data streams started being used by viruses, for example. Don't get it wrong, it's very legit, but seeing alternate data streams in your files makes antiviruses suspicious of them, no matter what. And since AGS has started becoming cross-platform, there ''will be'' some alternate data streams in your files.
-== How do I clean my game files from "alternate data streams" ? ==
+== How do I clean my AGS editor files of "alternate data streams" ? ==
 There's a tool for Windows called "'''streams.exe'''", that you can download here : https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897440
@@ Line 29: / Line 31: @@
 # run the following command to remove the alternate data streams:
   streams.exe -s -d "<EXTRACTED FOLDER>"
-(you need to replace "<EXTRACTED FOLDER> with the path to the folder of the game. For example "c:\Users\MyAccount\My Documents\AGS Games\MyGame" (please note the double quotes)
+(you need to replace "<EXTRACTED FOLDER> with the path to the AGS folder. For example "c:\Users\MyAccount\My Documents\AGS Builds\ags_3.4.12" (please note the double quotes)
 == Read also ==