Windows 11 Issues

[Liamthanks]

Previously I was running ArchiCAD 27 & 29 on Windows 10, however over the holiday break I built a new PC with a AMD 9800X3D, 64gb of RAM and the OS installed on a 1TB m2.NVME SSD.

Over the past few weeks I have constant issues with ArchiCAD taking an eternity to load up and the other day it got to a point where it just refused to open at all. After spending that morning looking into the matter, I ended up having to change permissions and some other tweaks to get it working, however I believe that the culprit appears to be the Smart Control App that has been implemented as part of Windows 11. While I can use the program now, the initial start-up can take anywhere from 5 minutes or more to load up and I find this incredibly frustrating with a brand new computer. 

I am looking for feedback / advice from other users as to whether this is a common problem with this OS and if so, asking for any potential workarounds that you may have found. The big one would be disabling the Smart Control App entirely, however to re-enable it requires a fresh install of Windows 11, so at the moment this would be a last resort. Given the specs of the PC, there should really be no excuses for poor performance that I am experiencing.

Operating system used: Windows 11

[Francois Swanepoel]

Hi @Liamthanks I'm glad to find your port about this issue. I came to load a post about the disruption & pain caused by this "Smart App Control" setting in the Windows 11 > Windows Security app.

I also got the same issue of the "Smart App Control" error notification with my Archicad 27, 28 & 29, on my recently upgraded PC built in August '25 (CPU: 13th Gen i3-13100F, 48GB RAM, OS: Windows 11 Pro 24H2 build 26100.7628, Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 6500XT 4GB). All my Archicad's was working fine in December '25 and this PC was off until a week ago when I started it up again. So starting Archicad, I got this Windows notification: "Part of this app has been blocked". I also read Microsoft's "Smart App Control Frequently Asked Questions".

Apparently this came through & was automatically enabled by a recent dreaded Windows Update.
Here is some references I found to understand what is happening & what the cause is to hopefully find a fix to make Archicad 27, 28 & 29 run as usual again:

1. In this YouTube video, the presenter confirmed this error notification, but warned that turning "Smart App Control" OFF is not recommended and can not be switched back on. For him he had to redo a clean install of Windows 11.
2. In this YouTube video, the presenter also complained about this error notification, but he chose to turn "Smart App Control" OFF and he was happy that his computer performed better as it was before Microsoft turned this feature on FOR him, like they did for us too.
3. (but this may be the best fix) In this YouTube video, the presenter showed an easy way to turn "Smart App Control" OFF and ON again without issues, by a setting in the Registry Editor.

I took the chance following the method in the 3rd video and could turn "Smart App Control" OFF and ON again without issues. Even after rebooting on both options, Windows did not switch it in my case. You may have to check it as it might be different on your PC & OS version though.

Microsoft is disrupting our work more & more and pulling our PC performance down every time with their Windows 11 updates (and I'm not even mentioning the noise of users everywhere that is fed up with their constant push to making perfect hardware redundant & their forced privacy breaches of our data through their AI nonsense no-one asked for, etc).

How will Archicad's compatibility with Windows be impacted going forward?

I really hope we can see Archicad compatibility with Linux OS rather sooner than later!

At least the community out there are finding fixes for this "Smart App Control" blocking our Archicad's... until Microsoft runs another update, so we have to keep a constant watch on this, however disruptive & time wasting it may be.

I hope this works for you too.

[David Collins]

I’m also having problems with (I assume) Windows 11 and Smart App Control.

ArchiCAD 29 can sometimes take up to two minutes just to display the opening splash screen. Then I get these notifications:

 

Typically if I close the program and try again and it will open normally without the notifications, though there’s no knowing if Windows is still blocking something. The odd thing is that the “Part of this App has been blocked” notice sometimes flags different components. It’s not always the same thing.

Internet talk says that a future Windows 11 update will give us the ability to temporarily turn Smart App Control off and on as needed. That’s not an ideal solution, just an admission that the problem exists.

[Ian T Reid]

I'm still running good old ArchiCAD 26 and the only way I could get it running is by switching Smart App off. I can't afford to waste time on my key productivity tool because of this. I'm now seriously thinking its time to go back to Apple - for all its issues - the way Microsoft is hacking around with Windows 11 is a complete and very unfunny joke.