>For example, if you accidentally download a malicious file, and it contains links, File Explorer would try to preview it, and it’ll also follow links inside the file as part of the process.

Huh, is this true? Seems like a major risk and entirely unexpected (OTOH it's Microsoft so doing insecure stuff is unsurprising)

Maybe this is about doing GET requests to render images in documents or something similar? Not just arbitrarily requesting every link in a file

This is in the most recent Windows 10 update, a lot of my PDF downloads have stopped previewing. It affects any PDF, not just PDFs downloaded since the update. It seems completely random, as some PDFs still preview.

Aren’t most files used on an operating system day to day downloaded from the Internet? This feels like it completely kills that feature’s utility.

So they keep extra file metadata god-knows-where to flag internet downloaded files, to disable their preview because their preview sucks and is insecure? How about they make their preview, I don't know, just render local documents without following URLs?

What a shit OS. I can't believe there are still so many tech oriented people willing to put up with this crap just to keep their habits.

Let me ground you a bit. This feature is 20 years old. The data is stored in NTFS alternate data streams.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_of_the_Web

Wow, it contains forensic info:

"As of Windows 10, the contents [...] include the keys HostIpAddress, HostUrl, and ReferrerUrl.[...] they typically contain the domain name and exact URL of the original online download location".

Interesting, thanks

Good thing I don't use Explorer to manage files :)

Seems they can't just sandbox it.

imho good riddance, but lots of people used it. it'd be all sorts of crazy to let local files just be local files though. new generation of devs are vaping kool aid.

Orrr run it in a sandbox?