When directly opening a download in Microsoft Edge, browser download files to some random location

Question

I have configured my Edge to download every file to C:\Trashed:

and to Ask me what to do with each download. And this works just like charm, when I click Save as in the download dialog:

But when I click Open, it download files to some temporary / random location (i.e. MicrosoftEdgeDownloads folder, for example -- C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Temp\MicrosoftEdgeDownloads\3c0b01e5-9a28-4e70-8214-8d796783305e) instead of C:\Trashed.

Is this a bug or by design?

I am asking, because when file is downloaded into above temporary location, my system (Windows 11) always prevents running applications from that location (actually: prevents applications run form there from creating temporary directories).

Therefore each click to Open in Microsoft Edge ends with something like that:

And in order to actually run such application I must always manually copy-paste it to some other location (i.e. from temporary directory to C:\Trashed etc.).

I am trying to figure out how to prevent this behavior.

Answer 1

It's by design, intentionally preventing malware from running in that location, while allowing the anti-malware app to to check the download before the file(s) are moved to the specified folder. You'll notice the same with some other applications, such as 7-Zip, for the same reason.

However, after the download is complete and vetted, all files should be in your preferred folder. If the download has not been moved to a location from which it can be run, check the particular anti-malware suite on that PC, which could be interfering with that process, and check or reinstall Edge. It's possible some third-party suite needs to be updated to fix that issue.