Many software programs today create temporary executable files (which ask to connect to Internet) in random folders. An example is Visual Studio's BackgroundDownload.exe file, which is continually created in folders like
C:\temp\RANDOM_CHARACTERS\resources\app\ServiceHub\Services\Microsoft.VisualStudio.Setup.Service\BackgroundDownload.exe.
Other programs, such as Sharepoint, also update themselves and continually change the executable folder, for example:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft OneDrive\VERSION_NUMBER\Microsoft.SharePoint.exe.
For users such me (who want to manually control all software access requests), this results in constant frustrating requests for permission from the firewall; I've now got hundreds of them where the executable name is the same, but only the name of one of the folders changes. My suggestion is to use custom rules by introducing regular expressions. If this is not performant, it would be sufficient to extend the control to all executables of a given name in a specific folder and its subfolders, perhaps through a checkbox for "custom rule".
For example, in the case of C:\Program Files\Microsoft OneDrive\VERSION_NUMBER\Microsoft.SharePoint.exe, the rule could be something like this:
- definition of file name: Microsoft.SharePoint.exe
- definition of main folder: C:\Program Files\Microsoft OneDrive
such as just a single rule can be applied to all the files "Microsoft.SharePoint.exe" in "C:\Program Files\Microsoft OneDrive" and its subfolders, without any other prompt permission request.
