What should be done so that antiviruses do not block the launch of the program?

Question

Antivirus

Good afternoon, colleagues.
The question is the following. Previously, there was a program for Windows, which was used in a rather narrow circle and there were no problems with it. But the audience gradually grew and, every now and then, the distribution problem began to grow.
There is no installer for it - people just downloaded the zip archive and ran it, but the number of users is growing and every now and then there are problems with all kinds of "Defenders", antiviruses, Smart Screens, etc.
Windows actively prevents the program from starting. Never had to deal with something like this before. A dozen users can manually fix everything, but now we are talking about hundreds.
Attention, the question is: what needs to be done so that the software does not cause paranoia in security software? Will it be enough to wrap all this in a normal installer, or do I need to buy a certificate for digitally signing the software?
If a certificate is still needed, which one would you recommend cheaper?

Answer 1

1. Does she have no installer? :) Well then, of course, wrap it up, and if the program climbs to check the version on a non-standard port - this port must be forwarded through the Windows firewall in advance.
2. A developer certificate is required - otherwise Windows will constantly say at startup that the installer is not signed.
3. Perhaps the program has functionality that is recognized by antiviruses and other nonsense, like malicious code, advar, remote control tool or other canoe.

Answer 2

If the setting of the "exclusion" is no longer satisfactory, you need to find out the reason for the blocking and fix the program.

The program climbs to check its version on the Internet

For the firewall, you can make permission. Either during installation, or confirm when prompted.

Answer 3

Windows protection tools check the publisher of the program, so you need a developer / publisher certificate and a certain level of trust from Microsoft.
And then there is the application launch control, which prohibits the use of unknown applications, unknown publishers or from an unknown source, for example, only programs installed with administrator programs in ProgramFiles or another specified folder are allowed. But this is usually in the hands of the user or system administrator.