IDA Free (9.3 & 9.3SP1) installation

IDA General
1

Downloaded the IDA Free version and noticed that the extension is ‘ova’ and not ‘exe’.

Instructions reference installation by double-clicking on the ‘exe’ file.

‘ova’ extensions are typically used for virtual machines. Tried running the downloaded file as a virtual machine (under VMware Workstation) and get an error “Invalid header block”.

So, is the free version supposed to run in a virtual machine or is the link to download pointing to a wrong file?

Thanks!

2

The valid download should be an .exe. How exactly are you downloading it? What is the final download URL used by your browser? Mine is `https://download.eu.hex-rays.com/installers/release/9.3sp1/windows:x86_64/ida-free-pc_93_x64win.exe?\[snipped\]\`

3

i get to the Download Center from the link in the email that was sent to me after i signed up for a free license.

i log in after receiving a verification code by email. i go to the ‘Download center’ and click on “93sp1” which expands to show 2 folders, ‘IDA Free’ and ‘SDK and Utilities’. clicking on ‘IDA Free’ shows executables for the different platforms to the right.

clicking on the download icon downloads the “ova” file. i never actually see the URL for the download. the same thing happens for the 9.3 version. downloading earlier versions do download an “exe”.

please note that i am doing this from the United States.

when i try to use your link i get an error message, “MissingKeyMissing Key-Pair-Id query parameter or cookie value”. even shortening the link to just “download.eu.hex-rays.com” gives me the same error.

4

Thank you for the update. So far we are unable to reproduce the
described behavior.

You should be able to get the actual URL by using “Copy download link”
from the entry in the list of downloads.

Alternatively, open Dev tools (F12) and look in the Network tab for the
request which results in the ova download.

5

if i left-click on the download button the download proceeds as one would expect.

if i right-click on the download button i do NOT see a “copy link” option. the context menu that is displayed is attached as ‘Download context menu.jpg’.

clicking on F12 then the Network tab and then doing a download yields the results in the attached ‘Network GET.txt’, retrieved with “Copy Request Headers”.

in that text i do see a file name of ‘ida-free-pc_93_x64win.exe’ so i’m not sure where the ‘ova’ name is coming from.

a couple of interesting points are:

  • i am running firefox (ver. 149.0.2) where i have the issue of a ‘ova’ download instead of an ‘exe’.
  • disabling all firefox extensions and disabling real-time virus protection still yields an ‘ova’ download.
  • when i do the same test under a relatively clean virtual guest system using firefox i get an ‘exe’ downloaded as one would expect.
  • when i do the same download under MS Edge on the host system i DO get an ‘exe’ downloaded.
  • using a hex editor i opened up the ‘ova’ file and it started with MZ. comparing the ‘ova’ file with the ‘exe’ from the Edge download shows that they are identical so the ‘ova’ is simply the ‘exe’ but renamed.

so, at this point it looks like it might be something unique to my system and/or firefox.

the reason i thought it might be a Hex-Rays issue is that i came across this link that talks about the Flare VM and ‘ova’ is a VM type of file.

Flare VM

i do run VMware Workstation if that gives any insight as to why a ‘ova’ file is being downloaded.

Network GET.txt (1.8 KB)

Download context menu
Download context menu218×322 31.8 KB