The following guidance provides a recommended approach for IT organizations deploying the FBXBankTrends desktop app to a broad user base.
A direct download to our application is available here:
The standalone files found within the above setup .exe can be distributed by an IT organization to a given directory on a windows computing device. A zip file for these files is available here:
Please note that the FBXBankTrends.exe is launched from the bank-trends.com website. To launch the application, a user must be signed into the website and then click on a dashboard link from their subscription menu. Note, URL's that launch the application will start with 'trends:'
This custom url protocol utilizes 'Windows OS Protocol Handler' (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/search/-search-3x-wds-ph-install-registration) and requires Windows OS registry settings.
The setup .exe creates the registry settings in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry hive, here's an example representation as contents within a .reg file that the setup .exe is using, with Windows OS and Windows User Profiles directory (Users) installed to the C: drive:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\trends]
"URL Protocol"=""
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\trends\shell]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\trends\shell\open]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\trends\shell\open\command]
@="C:\\Users\\<username>\\AppData\\Local\\Informa\\FBXBankTrends.exe %1"
As an IT Organization, you can deploy and create the registry settings based on your requirements, choosing either 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER' or 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE' as the hive is swappable for where the trends key lives under 'SOFTWARE\Classes'.
As an example, if your IT strategy is to have the .exe deployed and executed from 'Program Files' on a given windows computing device using the windows OS environment variable %ProgramFiles%
1. Unzip and copy the three files from FBXBankTrendsFiles.zip to %ProgramFiles%\Informa
%ProgramFiles%\Informa
- FBXBankTrends.exe
- FBXBankTrends.exe.config
- spf.ctrl
2. Create the corresponding registry settings, utilizing the windows os environment variable %ProgramFiles%, where it requires the key to be type of REG_EXPAND_SZ which is a hex implementation for a .reg file, swapping out 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER' or 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE' depending on if you want it specific only to the user ('HKEY_CURRENT_USER') or global to any user on the computing device ('HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE')
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\trends]
"URL Protocol"=""
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\trends\shell]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\trends\shell\open]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\trends\shell\open\command]
@=hex(2):22,00,25,00,50,00,52,00,4f,00,47,00,52,00,41,00,4d,00,46,00,49,00,4c,\
00,45,00,53,00,25,00,5c,00,49,00,6e,00,66,00,6f,00,72,00,6d,00,61,00,5c,00,\
46,00,42,00,58,00,42,00,61,00,6e,00,6b,00,54,00,72,00,65,00,6e,00,64,00,73,\
00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,22,00,20,00,25,00,31,00,00,00
Alternatively, create the registry settings using a static directory location for 'Program Files' with REG_SZ approach of, again swapping out 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER' or 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE' as needed
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\trends]
"URL Protocol"=""
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\trends\shell]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\trends\shell\open]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\trends\shell\open\command]
@="C:\\Program Files\\Informa\\FBXBankTrends.exe %1"
Additional Information:
FBXBankTrends-Setup.exe and FBXBankTrends.exe are code signed with Entrust EV Code Sign certificate allowing for instantaneous reputation with Windows OS, SmartScreen, Defender and similar technologies.
FBXBankTrends-Setup.exe is an 'Inno Setup' application. The application uses an encapsulated installer that doesn't rely on any other software, frameworks, libraries to be installed before use. As noted in the FAQ, it's configured to run as 'Windows User Mode' and does not require Windows Administrator privileges.
FBXBankTrends.exe is a Microsoft.NET 4.7.2 WPF windows desktop application, with minimum requirements documented in the FAQ. As noted in the FAQ, it's configured to run as 'Windows User Mode' and It doesn't rely on any other software, frameworks, libraries to be installed on the Windows computing device before use. Its code base is entirely encapsulated within the FBXBankTrends.exe, FBXBankTrends.exe.config and spf.ctrl files.
When working with a given dashboard, the contents of the dashboard is downloaded as binary data via a BankTrends web service method called by the WPF application using port 443. The dashboard binary data is stored as a binary Windows .tmp file in the users profile temp directory. Upon closing the WPF application the binary .tmp file is removed from the users profile temp directory.
External web services are called by the WPF application, depending on which binary .tmp dashboard is loaded, using ports HTTP (80) and HTTPS (443). The list of external web service domains are cu-metrics.com, bank-trends.com, arcgisonline.com, cmapsmanager.com, cmapsanalytics.net, and tomtom.com. Some of these external apis are hosted through AWS, Google, Azure and other cloud based platforms which can translate the api call into other domains like gstatic.com, msecnd.net, cloudflare.com, and amazontrust.com,which we cannot control how these services have implemented their IPs, DNS, and Name services.
Please reference the FAQ for further guidance: