Solved – This File Came From Another Computer And Might Be Blocked

 

It has been observed that whenever users try to download something from web browsers or emailing applications and click on the properties, they get to see an Unblock button with a security warning notifying that “The file has come from another system and might be blocked by some application running on the current system“. This type of problem is apparent with the Windows Vista and Windows XP SP2 running with IE 7 where the zone related data is maintained in the system with NTFS partition.

Some of the common problems experienced while users while downloading files from web have been well illustrated through the screenshot given below.

Case:1 Downloading an installer from the web

Case:2 While downloading applications from website

Case:3 In case of downloading chm file

What could be the reason for such kind of inconvenience while downloading files from web? Let us discuss out the causes and possible solutions to fix such type of errors.

Reasons for Notification of Blocked files

Windows Operating System has an inbuilt-feature which can hide data without even leaving a remnant about the fact that the drive has been formatted with New Technology File System. This is possible due to a mechanism supported by Windows and is known as Alternate Data Streams which allows to hide data within the files without binging out any changes on the behavior or appearance of the file. It is for this very reason that NTFS permits users to have security feature enabled on the files.

The ADS is often referred by users as $Data Stream sand is considered as a documented feature and when a particular file say a document is transmitted over internet then it losses all its data security features i.e. the stream related data. So for this very reason when a user tries to download something from the internet, the content is associated with data stream that is considered to be unsafe as per NTFS system and the NTFS formatted drive blocks the content from getting downloaded.

Manually Unblocking the Files

Method1: Moving Out the Files to FAT Formatted Drive

Move the file to a drive which does not support the security mechanism enabled by ADS such as the FAT formatted drive. A more friendly option of moving the data would be with USB pen drive which are FAT formatted. Then move it back to NTFS drive.

Note: This approach is not applicable if the file are copied and not actually moved to FAT formatted drives.

Method2: Unblocking By Enabling the Key Value

After moving to the above location enable the attribute SaveZoneInformation to 1

Taking Help of an Efficacious Solution

While it becomes really difficult for a user to go to every file individually and unblock it one by one and most importantly it become more hectic when users have to unblock several files concurrently. In such cases users look up for a complete feasible solution which would carry out the task of mass unblocking the files and thus save both time and effort of users. One such smart proficient tool is the freeware Unblocker tool which claims of providing an efficient solution to unblock files may be in the form of ZIP, images, RAR or in document form in a batch process.