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If Windows shows “Windows protected your PC” when you try to open hoard-desktop.exe, that’s SmartScreen reacting to an unsigned app — it’s expected, and it’s safe to run.

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Why this happens

Hoard Desktop isn’t code-signed with a Windows certificate yet. Windows SmartScreen flags any unsigned executable the first time it’s run, regardless of whether the app itself is safe. This is purely about signing, not a detection of anything wrong with the download.

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How to run it anyway

  1. When the warning appears, click More info.
  2. A Run anyway button appears — click it.
  3. The app opens normally from there.
This only happens on the very first launch. Once you’ve run it once, Windows won’t show the warning again for that file. If you don’t see a More info link right away, look for a small text link below the main warning message — SmartScreen sometimes shows the blocked-file summary first and requires a click to expand the details.

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After you’re past the warning

A setup wizard appears. Click Log in with Hoard, authorize in your browser, and the agent downloads and starts automatically. A Chrome window then opens to TCGplayer’s login page — log in and complete any CAPTCHA, and your first sync begins. From that point on you can find the app in your system tray, where it shows a green icon whenever it’s running. If you’re running the standalone CLI agent instead of the desktop app, you’ll see the same SmartScreen warning on hoard-agent.exe’s first run — the fix is identical (More info → Run anyway). That only happens once too, on the first time you run the executable from that location.

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Is it actually safe to run?

Yes. The warning is purely a function of code signing, which costs money and Hoard hasn’t purchased a certificate for yet — it isn’t a judgment about the app’s behavior. If you want extra reassurance beyond clicking through the warning, the agent verifies its own updates with a SHA-256 checksum and an ed25519 signature before applying them, so even after install, the binary that ends up running has been checked, not just downloaded and trusted blindly.