This has happened again: Microsoft's in-house antivirus software flags Winaero Tweaker as "Trojan:Win32/Yomal!rfn". The issue originates from security intelligence update version 1.443.933.0. Although this constitutes a false positive, it has understandably raised a flood of concerns.
First, I would like to thank everyone who notified me about the issue. Personally, I keep Defender disabled because I have always questioned its protection capabilities, and its negative performance impact has consistently been readily apparent.
Secondly, here are the sha256 checksums for all files included in the latest release. If your checksums match these values, the application is safe.
857db02a1488c13b0031ff97554255268c2376900fb4d6d729483914758b1993 *WinaeroTweaker-1.64.2.0-setup.exe 4bbd5d1ee4974a5f2999cb27936d871076e873d697dd6954bad83225323946ad *WinaeroTweaker.exe ab059d5106573fb4cb5f13aeaf6fe3935dc2e8313efc7a81e3afb9e2ac7d6d0b *Elevator.exe ae276309edad5406d96260af8b96046f0a8e18e58bfb8611cfa5cdcb3ce7b65c *WinaeroControls.dll 331914e51016c11a980f0b4684854605c89c594f28cbcbc24305b2a428428b00 *Third-party licenses.txt 100ac04e146983684553d9fedc8442e7b0c619a832a1cf414f2482334ed472c9 *no_tab_explorer.exe a921dd143b295dff3f4c1343a085980a50006a55797e239ab8ac1c0da64e1bbe *WinaeroTweaker_i386.dll d882aedeeab31c830fdf10201bf708b3ff9717c24ce6dba317d142b7833e370a *WinaeroTweaker_x86_64.dll eee884d0a7f9119d2874d7b7d2c5ac65c633571ba01af39e174a81bc93ae852c *Winaero.ico c6483fd5cd0cf1c0bca9ffcca2641e5c9d79340be462db3e8ba0ac416bc94bf7 *Winaero.url c789872a6141e19f9cb71abb8260c8303a2ac48dfd86f36912a4649800a78d39 *WinaeroTweakerHelper.exe 315148cf0b3bc8a60e8bb826a5cfc9a83e5b9829cc094faae525e727eb0b74f4 *Winaero EULA.txt
What can you do about this Defender issue?
If you need to install Winaero Tweaker, you can add it to Defender exclusions. Eventually, Microsoft will update its definitions and resolve the issue, assuming this flagging was not intentional.
Finally, you can customize Windows manually. The majority of tweaks my app performs are documented in this blog and elsewhere online. Achieving the desired appearance and behavior requires only modest additional effort.
This is not the first occasion on which Microsoft's antivirus software has flagged my application. In 2020, it flagged the software as potentially unwanted, labeling it "HackTool:Win32/WinTweak".
Now you know what is happening.
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