Windows SmartScreen Prevented An Unrecognized App From Running. Running This App Might Put Your PC At Risk

A couple of days ago, we wrote a post talking about customizing the default drive icons of Windows 8 with the help of Eight Drive Icon Changer. A few users who tried to download and run the drive icon changer left a comment asking how to run the program as Windows 8 shows “Windows SmartScreen prevented an unrecognized app from starting. Running this app might put your PC at risk message” while launching the application.

As some of you know, the SmartScreen protection feature in Windows 8 is responsible for the above message. Microsoft has extended the SmartScreen feature of Internet Explorer to Windows as well to protect users from malware. In general, SmartScreen Protection shows the above message when you try to run a newly released program or an application that has not yet established a reputation.

Even though one can easily disable the SmartScreen Protection feature in Windows 8, we don’t advise you to turn off the protection.

If you have downloaded a program from a well-known developer or website, you can easily run the program by following the given below instructions:

Step 1: Double-click on the program that you want to run or install. When you receive the message mentioned above from SmartScreen, click on More info link to see the publisher’s name and app file name.

Step 2: Now click on Run anyway button to run the application. That’s it!

Users who would like to disable SmartScreen feature can follow our how to disable Windows 8 SmartScreen protection guide