Sometimes when you try to launch a program that you downloaded from the internet, the Windows Defender SmartScreen blocks the program with a message that “An administrator has blocked you from running this app”. This is because the Windows Defender on Windows 10 or 11 has determined that the app in focus is not safe to be run on your system, it is malicious or it could manage to make undesired changes in your system.
But what if you are fully sure of the safety of the program being blocked by Windows, then you can use a workaround to manually run that application. There is a workaround to address this problem but you should be more than 100% sure that the program is safe. One way to ensure is to check that program file using the online VirusTotal scanner at https://www.virustotal.com/. In addition, you should always keep a regular antivirus product such as K7 Antivirus installed on your PC that scans for malware.
To use the workaround, you have use the elevated command prompt on Windows. Here is how it is done on a Windows 11 PC:
- Click on the Start and then type cmd.exe in the search box. When the search results appear, select Command Prompt and then click on Run as administrator.
- In the command prompt, type the full path and name of the program that you want to run. For example, if you want to run Notepad.exe and you should type C:\Windows\Notepad.exe and press Enter. This will launch the program bypassing any blocks.
The reason why this workaround works is because the administrator has blocked the app and now you are running the program as an administrator. But this also puts your system at serious risk if the program is malicious. This is why you should always be fully sure that the program is safe and you have a good reputed antivirus product installed. If you have any doubts, then you can consult the experts about the safety of that program on forums such as BleepingComputer or Malwarebytes.