ShellExecute pops up warnings for unrelated programs

Comodo Internet Security - CIS Defense+ / Sandbox Help - CIS
#1

I’m writing a program in C++, and one of the things it does is start the default web browser to view a specific web page (URL). This is very easy to do via the ShellExecute call:

ShellExecute(NULL, "open", "http://www.mydomain.com/mypage.htm",
             NULL, NULL, SW_SHOWNORMAL);

As described by Microsoft on this page:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/224816

But when this is executed I get over a hundred Defense+ popups saying that my program is trying to execute a program in memory - the named program is completely unreleted to MY program, and seems to be any other program which is running (including programs running in the tray). It takes ages to click “allow” for all of these popups, and I’m not sure that I’m doing the right thing as my program has no interest in these other programs.

Comodo has only started doing this recently. A few days ago I loaded Vista SP1, so perhaps this has got something to do with it - or it could be a recent Comodo update which has started doing this.

I can’t see why calling ShellExecute to start the bowser should suddenly start giving alerts about trying to access completely unrelated programs.

Any ideas what is going on here?

#2

I have similar experience trying to use ShellExecuteEx. I got the following two alerts trying to call this. I was opening a program.

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#3

Can someone please move this to the feedback forum? I think it belongs there.

#4

I think this is something the developers need to see. Can someone who can please move this somewhere they are more likely to see it. It may be a bug.

#5

Couldn’t you just select Allow and Remember, as you were running the app on purpose?

#6
Couldn't you just select Allow and Remember, as you were running the app on purpose?

But that’s just a workaround, and we shouldn’t have to grant access to every running program. The problem is why ShellExecute should cause Comodo to think that my app is trying to access just about every other program that is also running on the PC.

Most users will take Comodo at its word and think that my program is trying to do something to all running processes - if I saw that I’d be suspicious.

Can Comodo developers please look into this - it doesn’t seem right at all.