Can’t seem to find a clear answer re: SIHClient.exe

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re: SIHClient.exe

Can anyone clear up the confusion about this file? Should I allow it to “phone home?” My AV(Bitdefender) is blocking it.

win 10 pro ver 20H2 build 19042.1052

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Let it through BitDefender’s firewall. The file is actually part of a “healing” service that’s built into Windows. Here’s a quote from someone’s system from 2017. It’s what’s listed in Task Manager for this executable when launched as part of a scheduled task:

<em class=”x-hidden-focus”>This daily task launches the SIH client (server-initiated healing) to detect and fix system components that are vital to automatic updating of Windows and Microsoft software installed on the machine. This task can go online, evaluate applicability of healing actions, download necessary payloads to execute the actions, and execute healing actions.

That is from a post by a person identified as “Bruno BBB”, and the post appears at the top of the page, marked in green as an answer on the “answers.microsoft.com” forums. Here’s the exact page: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/what-is-the-sihclientexe/bacac714-2b45-4864-912c-e241b29d8b07.

From the sounds of it, this may very well play a part in Microsoft’s “Known Issue Rollback” (KIR) process to fix problems with non-security patches by “silently” rolling them back out of existence. That process has been in use in the last few days with the Printer Nightmare fixes that broke some label printing machines. The fixes for Printer Nightmare were included in a larger patch package that also had other non security fixes that broke the label printers. Microsoft used KIR to fix the non security releases that broke the label printers.

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DriftyDonN

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Don’t allow it through until you have checked it properly.

Does it run from C:\Windows\System32?
If you right click on the file and select Properties > Digital Signatures, does it show a “Microsoft Windows Publisher” signature?

If yes to both of those you can allow it.

cheers, Paul

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DriftyDonN

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