PhotoLab 9.11 and Windows 11 Smart App Control — unsigned DLL warnings

DxO PhotoLab Windows topics
1

I’m running PhotoLab 9.11.20670.758 on Windows 11 and recently started getting Windows security notifications while PhotoLab was starting.

I checked Event Viewer → Applications and Services Logs → Microsoft → Windows → CodeIntegrity → Operational and found Events 3033/3077 showing that PhotoLab attempted to load DLLs that did not meet the Windows signing requirements under the VerifiedAndReputableDesktop policy.

The affected files included:

C:\Program Files\DxO\DxO PhotoLab 9\raw_r.dll
C:\Program Files\DxO\DxO PhotoLab 9\heif.dll
C:\Users\AppData\Local\Temp\photolab9_splashscreen_1.dll

I checked raw_r.dll and heif.dll under Properties → Digital Signatures and neither has an embedded or catalog signature.

PhotoLab itself continued to load and operate normally. On a later startup there were no Windows notifications and no new CodeIntegrity events.

Has anyone else running Windows 11 with Smart App Control enabled seen this?

I’m also curious why these DLLs are distributed unsigned. Given Windows 11’s VerifiedAndReputableDesktop/Smart App Control behavior, wouldn’t signing these components avoid Windows having to make a reputation-based decision about them?

I have the complete CodeIntegrity events, hashes, policy information, etc. if they’re useful.

2

they should be, as an attachment to a new service request for DxO Support. DxO has to fix it, so let DxO know about it.

We are just more or less happy customers.

3

PhotoLab is running fine so I didn’t think this should be a help request. But I can post this info as one. I guess I will.

4

I don’t think Windows Smart App Control can be considered reliable without a lot of user intervention. While DxO could manage its own DLL dependencies in a more compliant way, DxO software has a lot of third-party dependencies that apparently also lack compliance. See Microsoft’s own FAQ here:

Smart App Control Frequently Asked Questions | Microsoft Support

5

Yes I didn’t want to make too big a deal of this. I use PhotoLab every day; it’s working well for me. However I think it shouldn’t be a big deal for DXO to distribute signed DLLs. Maybe they will. If they don’t, it’s not an issue, at least not right now.