Minim watch won’t install win 64bit

[simoncn]

I have done some experiments with this. At present, there are warnings from the download as well as the (elevated) installer. I could change the installer to not be elevated, which removes the installer warning but doesn't remove the download warning. For most users, this change would be transparent but I think there will be some users for whom it is not (various means of automatic startup, automatic rescan and/or running as a service).

The ideal solution would be to remove both the download warning and the installer warning. As a test, I downloaded and installed Wireshark. This downloaded without a warning and produced the "normal" elevation pop-up when installing. This pop-up allows the user to inspect the publisher's code-signing certificate, showing that WireShark is signed by Wireshark Foundation using a certificate issued by Sectigo.

I would like to replicate this download and install experience for MinimServer. I don't think the "normal" elevation prompt is an issue as almost all downloaded software produces this prompt. This will require the purchase of a code signing certificate and now that MinimServer 2 is a commercial product I am able to fund this cost of this.

There is the additional issue of gaining sufficient reputation with Microsoft to be allowed through the SmartScreen defences. I will need to find out how this works in practice after I have produced signed versions of MinimServer and MinimWatch. There is a way to submit signed executables for review as well as a way to submit a web page as being trusted for downloads. I am hoping that one or other of these will enable new versions of MinimServer and MinimWatch to be published with sufficient reputation to not be blocked by SmartScreen.

I will probably not use the new Java packager because it requires bundling Java as part of the MinimServer/MinimWatch packages. This would greatly increase the size of the MinimServer/MinimWatch packages and would also require me to update MinimServer/MinimWatch each time a Java update is issued.

I understand the issue with Java updates causing firewall issues. This is a very common user issue and my intention is to solve it by creating a native Windows launcher for MinimServer and MinimWatch that finds where Java is installed and starts the Java runtime within the MinimServer/MinimWatch process. With this approach, the user should be able to create firewall rules for MinimServer/MinimWatch rather than for Java. This is more intuitive and more secure and doesn't require the firewall rules to be updated when Java is updated.