Autoruns
If an Unknown program tries to set itself to automatically run when Windows starts, Online Armor will alert you to this behavior, giving you a chance to Allow or Block it.
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| Since Trusted programs are not monitored for malicious behavior, you should only see Autorun pop-ups for Unknown programs. The Autorun pop-up is fairly simple. The popup will show you what program is being set to automatically start when Windows starts, including the full entry being made, and the program that is creating the Autorun entry. If you know and trust the program that is creating the Autorun then you should Allow it. You can put a check in the box to “Remember my decision” to prevent this popup for this program in the future. You can also click the More button to be taken to the Online Armor website to see any information that has been collected about this program. |
Once a program has been allowed to create an Autorun entry, it will be added to the Autoruns list. You can access this list by opening the Online Armor Control Panel and selecting Autoruns from the main menu.
Above the table, on the right-hand side opposite of the tabs, is a drop down menu. This menu will allow you to filter the list to show only Programs, Components, Drivers, programs set to RunSafer, Installers, and Other. Selecting one of these options will hide all entries in the Programs list that do not match the specified criteria.
The Autoruns list is organized using a table with the following columns:
- Status – Shows whether the Autorun entry was Allowed or Blocked.
- Program Name – Shows the file name of the program on your hard drive that is set to automatically run with Windows.
- Name – Shows the name of the program that is set to automatically run with Windows.
Each row is color coded to indicate whether the program is Trusted (green), Untrusted (red), Unknown (salmon), or is no longer present (gray).
A legend showing the colors and their corresponding status can be found in the Options tab of the Autoruns list.
Underneath the list are the following buttons:
- Allow All – Sets all Autoruns in the list to Allowed.
- Allow – If an Autorun has been Blocked then this button will be enabled and will Allow the selected program.
- Block – Blocks the selected program from automatically running when Windows starts and configures Online Armor to automatically Block any attempts to create the Autorun entry again in the future.
- Delete – Removes the Autorun from the list. Deleting the item will cause Online Armor to pop up again if the program attempts to create the selected Autorun again in the future.
Online Armor does not show Trusted programs by default to keep the Autoruns list more manageable. Remove the check next to the “Hide Trusted” box to the left of the buttons at the bottom to see the Trusted Autorun programs in the list.
You can right-click any item in the Autoruns list to access the following additional options.
- Show file information – Shows any information about the file that Online Armor can see, including the full path to the file on your hard drive, the name of the program, the program version, the company that made it, the date it was created, the description, and any copyright information. Most programmers include all of this information with their files, but some may omit some of this information. You can also click More to be taken to the Online Armor website for any information Online Armor has collected about this particular program. Clicking the arrow buttons will show the file information for the previous or next file in the Autoruns list.
- Jump to – Opens the Windows Registry editor to the location of the highlighted Autorun entry for direct access. Please note that any incorrect changes to the Windows Registry can cause serious system errors. You should not edit the Registry unless you are experienced in doing so. Online Armor is designed to make the changes that most users might need easily and safely.
- Find – Allows you to perform a search in the Autoruns list to find a particular program.
- Autosize columns – Sets the Autoruns list to automatically resize all columns in the table to accommodate the longest string of text in each column. This makes it so that you can see all the text in the table without any information being truncated by the width of the columns and without having to resize the columns manually. This setting is enabled by default.