💡 Tip If your browser warns you about the file, choose Keep or Keep anyway to allow the download to complete.

🔓 Unblock the file before installing Windows marks files downloaded from the internet as blocked. Before running the installer, right-click the downloaded file, choose Properties, and at the bottom of the General tab tick Unblock, then click OK.

🛡️ Antivirus false positive (Norton, Avast, AVG and others) Some antivirus programs may flag ParishRecordKeeper.exe with a warning such as IDP.Generic or Suspicious file. This is a false positive.

Why does this happen?
Parish Record Keeper is built with Microsoft Access and compiled into a runtime executable (.accde / .exe). Because it is not a commercially signed application from a large publisher, heuristic scanners sometimes flag it simply because the file is uncommon — not because it contains anything harmful. The detection name IDP.Generic literally means "Identity Protection, Generic", i.e. the scanner does not recognise the file and applies a precautionary label.

What you should do
1. Confirm the digital signature: right-click the installer file, choose Properties, open the Digital Signatures tab, and verify that the signer is Bernhard Udelhoven. If the name matches and the signature status shows This digital signature is OK, the file is genuine.
2. In your antivirus software, choose Restore or Allow / Trust this file if the file was quarantined.
3. Add an exception (also called an exclusion or whitelist entry) for the Parish Record Keeper installation folder so the antivirus does not interfere with normal operation.

If you are unsure how to add an exception, search your antivirus help for "add exclusion" or "whitelist a program".

🔒 Verify download (optional) Verify the SHA-256 hash (see below) — if it matches, the file is exactly as published and has not been tampered with.
1. Open File Explorer and navigate to the folder where you saved the installer
2. Click the address bar at the top of the window (the path will be highlighted), type powershell and press Enter — this opens PowerShell directly in that folder
3. Run (copy one of these lines into PowerShell):
Get-FileHash ".\Setup_PRK_64bit.exe" -Algorithm SHA256
Get-FileHash ".\Setup_PRK_32bit.exe" -Algorithm SHA256
4. Compare the result with the hash above
→ If they match exactly, the file is authentic and not corrupted