CODEWITHSUNDEEP
windowswinapiwindows-defender
Greg
Greg

Reputation: 434

Documents and Music folder -> Windows Defender Ransomware protection breaking my app

So it looks like Windows 10 Ransomware has broken my app (StationRipper). It's a C++/MFC app, but it looks like it would break any app that is doing what StationRipper is doing.

My high-level question:

My app needs to write files (e.g., mp3's) as it records them. Is there actually a sensible place do this to (like, say, the Music folder) if Ransomware protection is on, or am I stuck just creating an arbitrary folder someplace? My app is doing the recording behind the scenes, so the user can't choose the dir for each file.

Details:

My app records music files. A very long time ago (like, in 2002) it wrote it to the users "Music" directory. That worked fine, but now I'm seeing a problem - I'm getting the error code for "The system cannot find the file specified." on CreatedDirectory for my app (which was really fun to track down, as that error code isn't listed as an error that CreateDirectory to return), and when I try to write any file to that directory if I manually create it via file explorer.

I finally tried running mkdir, and to create a file in that dir, outside of my app... the same thing happens.

I turned off Ransomware protection in Windows Defender... and it now works from my app.

It looks like I have to use something like the file picker to save to that dir? Which, as I said, won't work as the user isn't involved after they start recording.

I can't just tell my users to turn Ransomware protection off to use my app, but I would prefer to put the music files in their Music folder...

Any suggestions?

Additional info requested in comments:

        TCHAR szDocPath[MAX_PATH];
        szDocPath[0] = 0;
        if (::SHGetSpecialFolderPath(NULL, szDocPath, CSIDL_PERSONAL, FALSE))
        {
            _tcscat(szDocPath, "\\StationRipper");
            DWORD m_dwLastError = ::GetLastError();
            BOOL bResult = CreateDirectory(szDocPath, NULL);

            m_dwLastError = ::GetLastError();
        }

Running the above with Ransomware protection on results in a zero. With it off returns a 1 (and the directory is created).

Upvotes: 1

Views: 153

Answers (1)

Kim
Kim

Reputation: 758

(note: SHGetSpecialFolderPath is not supported, but its modern equivalent, SHGetKnownFolderPath has the same issue)

Rather than asking users to disable Ransomware Protection entirely, you can ask them to whitelist your application. See the Whitelist apps with Controlled folder access section of this article (the official documentation is somewhat lacking).

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions