Question Safe ways to run an exe with potential trojan.

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tryxed

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Aug 27, 2025
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Hi, I want to play one private server of a dead MMO and I don't trust some randoms from the internet, especially when said server is free-to-play and not pay-to-win, which is suspicious (how the hell they're maintaining it?). Unfortunately virustotal believes the game launcher may contain a trojan, which may be a false positive or not. I already played it in the past, but then decided to format all my drives and reinstall Windows from scratch and then changed any passwords I used after I installed the game, just to be safe.

So before that, before Windows reinstall, at first I tried to launch in under Sandboxie Plus for safety reasons, but it failed - the game launcher ran successfuly, but the game itself simply silently crashed without any errors. Launching it normally, however, resulted in launcher asking for permission to perform changes to the device, and if clicked no - nothing happened, while clicking yes resulted in successful game launch, so I played it, until I decided that it's too risky, since I also use this PC for other things, where I need to input e-mails, logins and passwords.

In other words: the game refuses to launch under Sandboxie and changes something every time it's launched.

Virustotal link:

VirusTotal

VirusTotal
www.virustotal.com www.virustotal.com

Cuckoo Sandbox link:

Cuckoo Sandbox

Cuckoo Sandbox
cuckoo.cert.ee

So I have a few questions:
1) Is there a way to trick the game into thinking that it's not inside a sandbox or is there a way to somehow make copies of "Windows", "Program Files", "Program Files (x86)" and "Users" folders, as well as make a snapshot of processes, before launching the game, and after I played it - just revert everything? Or may be there are better ways of doing it? Basically create an alternative to a sandboxed environment without actually being a sandboxed environment by cancelling any changes to the system once I'm done playing?
2) How the process even detects the sandbox?
3) How to know what exactly changes the .exe wants to do to the system? How to know what files it writes into, what processes it starts, and detect any registry changes?
4) If I install 2 Windowses, 1 for the game and 2 for everything else, and one may be gets infected with a trojan, will 2nd Windows be safe? Can these 2 Windowses share the same drive or they must be in separate ones?
 
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The detections at VirusTotal appear to be false positives. I visited the VirusTotal link and clicked on Reanalyze to scan it again, as it had been seventeen days since it was scanned. It's still only detected by three scanners, all of which often have issues with false positives. Considering that VirusTotal shares uploaded files with antivirus vendors, if it was actually malicious, it's highly likely other vendors would be detecting it by now. While this does not guarantee that the file is safe, it's not likely to be malicious.
 
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The most valuable part of a VirusTotal report is often not the raw detection score, but the "Behavioral Analysis" section. This shows what the file does when it's executed in a sandboxed environment. The low detection count on a given day could simply be a sign that it is a new or recently re-packaged variant that hasn't been added to all antivirus signature databases yet. The behavioral analysis and broader threat intelligence are what confirm its malicious nature.

Even if only a few engines flag the file, the behavioral analysis might reveal malicious activities such as connecting to command-and-control (C2) servers, dropping new files onto the system, modifying system registries or services, attempting to exfiltrate data. Full reports are available via Zenbox, Virustotal jujubox, Cape Sandbox in Active Summary under the Behavior tab.
 
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Cant comment about the safety of the game client, but i would avoid it. I have been tempted to try out private servers because of nostalgia they bring but even there is private server with the ''known'' staff and like 20000 people on their discord server i still refuse to download/play it because even its safe now, they can turn it to something malicious i guess

So i just only play games/ install sofware that are very known or there is company behind the project or are funded somehow

Ive asked this same question here too, not specific game or client but about private server that is open source , i dont have knowledge to find out if they push malicious code into it, so i avoid it
 
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Some ways to achieve what you want by either:
1. Create a seperate Windows thru partition or different disk slot
2. Use deepfreeze or other rollback solutions to revert any changes after a restart
 
You can always use a virtual machine like Oracle's Virtual Box or VMWare's Workstation.. That would allow you to install a separate copy of Windows inside the vm. Then install that game into the vm and play it there. What happens inside the vm cannot affect the host machine.
 
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