Is there another way to update the FSDT software?
Most users fixed any issues they had with the updater by installing the new FSDT Universal Installer. Links are all over this site, the post suggesting this as a solution is the first sticky post of this section of the forum:
Is it necessary for "coatl_updater.exe" to download a *new* executable file
Obviously yes, it's necessary ( otherwise we wouldn't do it ), that's the way the updater can update itself. The couatl_updater doesn't do anything, other than to check if there's a new couatl_updater2.exe, which IS the updater that does the actual update job for all the others.
This way, the updater can update itself.
(obviously the antivirus is concerned with that type of behavior on the part of malicious programs) and instead find a way that works with the antivirus rather than making it so difficult?
"Instead find a way" ? Let's see all the many ways we worked to prevent defective antivirus from getting a false positive:
- First suggestion from Microsoft against false positive, is to digitally sign all executables with an Authenticode digital certification. All our executables are obviously signed with one, which costs an yearly fee to keep it current.
- In addition to that, we use a second digital signature, called "Software Taggant", which is an IEEE standard designed by antivirus companies to try to fix THEIR problem of getting false positives. An executable with this certificate is supposed to not trigger any false positives.
Unfortunately, it seems that antivirus companies, even if they SAY they respect these two standards, in fact they are not or, likely, they trust more their questionable heuristic, rather than the standard they tried to promote. So, for example, "something that downloads something else" and IS also protected from tampering ( which obviously must be, since it deals with licensing checks ) is considered dangerous, because *sometimes* antivirus do that so, regardless how many steps we take by digitally sign the executables, antivirus seems to ignore it.
However, that's just for pointing out we are already doing everything possible to prevent false positives, but the bugged product here's is the antivirus, which are so intrusive that, at some point, you won't be able to start anything. During a brief period of time, Flight Simulator ITSELF was BLOCKED by Windows Defender!! This is common knowledge and, even if it was fixed fairly quickly, it proves how unreliable antivirus are, and how not even Microsoft seems to trust their own security recommendations.
And some antivirus can still cause issues to MSFS 2020, see here a problem with Bitdefender:
https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/anti-virus-blocking-my-game/264067/6See here AVG blocking MSFS 2020 after an update:
https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?329664-AVG-blocked-threat-after-updateSo, now we cleared up antivirus are not reliable in general and can block anything, it's not certain your problem might be caused by the antivirus. Try the new Universal Installer, which re-register the .NET libraries required by the Updater to run, this seems to work for many.
