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Antivirus & whitelisting

GlassOut is currently in beta and its executables are not yet digitally signed. To capture your panels, GlassOut connects directly to MSFS — and an unsigned app talking to the running simulator is a textbook pattern for antivirus heuristics, so some AV products flag the engine even though it's completely safe.

What you might see​

  • A SmartScreen or AV prompt the first time you run the installer.
  • The engine getting quarantined or deleted silently in the background, leaving GlassOut stuck on "Waiting for engine" with no obvious cause.
  • In the worst cases an aggressive AV can crash the desktop when it interrupts GlassOut mid-frame, or quarantine files while MSFS is reading them — which can corrupt or break the MSFS install itself.

None of this is GlassOut misbehaving; it's the antivirus reacting to an unsigned app connecting to the simulator. Code signing is on the roadmap and will remove most of these warnings.

Fix: whitelist GlassOut​

Add both of the following to your antivirus's exclusion / allow list. These cover the engine executable and the runtime it self-extracts on first launch.

The engine executable:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\glassoutpc\resources\extraResources\glassout-engine.exe

The self-extracted engine runtime folder:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\GlassOutEngine\runtime
Paste the path directly

Most AV exclusion dialogs accept the %LOCALAPPDATA% variable as-is. If yours doesn't, paste the path into the Windows Explorer address bar first — it'll resolve to your real folder (something like C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Local\...) — then add that resolved path.

After whitelisting, restart GlassOut (or use Settings → Connection → Pick a different engine) so it can spawn the engine cleanly.

Still blocked?​

If the engine still won't start after whitelisting, grab your logs from Settings → Diagnostics → Upload diagnostic logs and reach out — see Troubleshooting for the full checklist.