We Keep Coding

Running application on a locked down Win10 machine

I've got a small program I made to improve on simple work efficiencies. In effect it's just an application that has direct links to applications and websites, allows text input and formats it appropriately so this information to be stored and recalled quickly.
This has been running for years on our corporate machines (running Windows 7 and 8) just by emailing the .exe to myself with a password protected zip and starting it on the machine, but we're now upgrading to Windows 10 machines and these are locked down to the point where no foreign software can be ran. I know the reasons for this are security, but I am looking for a way around it or alternative way of deploying the software.
I am looking into getting the software authorised for use, but in effect this will be unlikely given how often I update and change things on it (or business changes frequently in terms of process and operation) - it would just be inconvenient.
It's a C# program. NET 4.5.
I can't get admin permission on these machines. Is there anything I can do?
Thanks!

If you cannot run untrusted applications, then instead build your solution within another product that you can use.
For example-- you can probably do all of your direct links to websites and any text input / reformatting you might need with javascript entirely within an html page. Open the .html file with your browser and there you have it.
You can also do many things with VBA scripts in Excel or Word documents.
You may also be able to use powershell to do your automation.

Outlook Addin Installation and Deployment(userwise and machinewise)

We have developed a Outlook Add In. I wish to deploy this add in in both Single User / Multi user environment
I have managed to deploy this Add In for single user environment. I am adding a Registry Entry (HKCU) for single user and the add in gets installed under "APPDATA\ROAMING\CompanyName\AddInName." I am using standard MSI for installation
But the issue I face is even if i ran the Installer, I don't see Add In appearing under Outlook, unless, I browse to the installation path (as above) and double click on VSTO file and deploy it again.
For Terminal Server / Citrix based implementation, I am trying to change the Registry to HKLM but not 100% sure how this will work.
My question is that
1. How I can have deploy this Outlook Add in only in one attempt. I don't want to install and then deploy (double click VSTO) file?
2. How I can deploy this add in for Terminal Server / Citrix based implementation?
I have gone through various blogs but they are not very clear and cause more confusion.
Would appreciate your expert suggestions
Thanks

Unfortunately I can only answer the first part of your question - You will have to create registry entries so that when Outlook is started it automatically applies your installed add in. See the link below for a detailed explanation of the registry keys that are required. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb386106.aspx
In short, You need to add a registry entry for your add in that contains a FriendlyName, Description, LoadBehavior and Manifest input. Directing to the following link will tell you exactly how to do this and exactly where to put the keys. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc442767.aspx#To-create-registry-keys
Best of luck and If you have any issues with that, comment below and I will help you as soon as I can.
**As an added note, I once had problems similar to the one you are having, and in my case it was due to the LoadBehavior setting. I was using the "UK Spelling" of the word instead of the US spelling. LoadBehavior must be specified exactly as I have written it here.

Driver Installed - Still cannot use OleDB reader

I have code in a Provider-Hosted App for SharePoint which calls the OleDBDataReader class in order to parse a .xslx file. In my development environment, the following exception appeared until I installed this driver.
The 'Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0' provider is not registered on the local machine. I have moved to pre-production, and the error has popped up again even though the admins of the IIS box are swearing back and forth that the driver is installed. They've sent me a screenshot of the install, and it looks like it's the same version I have. They refuse to uninstall and reinstall it since another application is apparently relying on it at the moment. Is there anything else that I can do on my end other than rewrite the code to look at some way of parsing the .xslx file using its stream instead?
I have read through many of the other topics about this, and I can't seem to find anyone doing something differently.

This thread seems to be about a similar error(granted it's for Access database), but the solution may be able to help with your problem:
In that thread the OP also installed the drivers you've linked ,that also failed so s/he installed these drivers:
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/confirmation.aspx?id=23734
which worked apparently , try that.

I did a quick search on MSDN and the alternative download for your issue is the Office System Driver: Data Connectivity Components

The solution was for the engineering team to complete "repair" on the installation from add/remove programs.. This took forever to have them try, but it worked!

Monitor file open c# .Net

I want to build an app that needs to monitor the opening of the files but I don't find any way to can do it.
With FileSystemWatcher there is no option to can monitor the opening of the files. Just the created, removed and modified ones.
So I wonder if there is any functionality implemented in the advanced searches that could give me the infomration of the files opened after a concrete date. (At least in Mac it's possible but I am not sure if Windows has implemented this)
Other solution would be to develop a File System Filter Driver, but I find this way too hard

I cant give you a direct answer (because I dont know) but since Microsoft publish the FileMon tool which does exactly what you are after, it seems that Windows does have a way of notifying file open, close and access. This is discussed here Getting a notification when a local file is accessed in windows but this only covers the change of files, not opening and closing. There is a way of getting all the files opened by a process discussed here Delphi - get what files are opened by an application which is possibly what FileMon is using, but there are caveats (i.e. its an internal OS API).
Hope this helps, sorry cannot give a direct answer.

C# application detected as a virus

Regarding the same program as my question a few minutes ago... I added a setup project and built an MSI for the program (just to see if I could figure it out) and it works great except for one thing. When I tried to install it on my parent's laptop, their antivirus (the free Avast Home Edition) set off an alarm and accused my setup.exe of being a Trojan.
Does anyone have any idea why this would be happening and how I can fix it?

Indeed, boot from a clean CD (use a known good machine to build BartPE or something similar) and scan your machine thoroughly. Another good thing to check, though, would be exactly which virus Avast! thinks your program is. Once you know that, you should be able to look it up in one of the virus databases and insure that your software can't contain it.
The odds are that Avast! is just getting a false positive for some reason, and I don't know that there's much you can do about that other than contacting Avast! and hoping for a reply.

I would do what jsight suggested and make sure that your machine did not have a virus. I would also submit the .msi file to Avast's online scanner and see what they identified as being in your package. If that reports your file as containing a trojan, contact Avast and ask them to verify that your .msi package does contain a trojan.
If it doesn't contain a trojan, find out from Avast what triggered their scanner. There may be something in your code that matches a pattern that Avast looks for, They may be able to adjust their pattern to ignore your file or you could tweak your code so that it doesn't trigger their scanner.

I don’t know “Avast”, but in Kaspersky if the configuration is set to high almost every installer fires an alarm (iTunes, Windows Update, everything) especially if the installer modify some registry key or open a port.
If avast checks for behavior and your program open a port probably that’s be the cause.

Rebuild the setup file, check the exact file size.
Check the exact file size of the "suspected" setup file.
If the source code hasn't changed and the two file sizes are different, there's a pretty good chance it got contaminated in transit.
I'd do that as a bit of a sanity check first.

The very first thing to do would be to scan your build PC for viruses.