Is ZenMsg a virus?

Is Zenmsg a virus? asks:

It only opened a command box, and nothing else happened. Is this a virus?

No, it's not. 😊 ZenMsg is a command-line program (so it opens your DOS prompt if double-clicked on), but it requires command-line options to tell it what to do. When run without any options, it prints its usage information to the terminal and then exits; so when double-clicked on, your DOS prompt appeared and then closed because ZenMsg exited.

You'll want to run it from a PowerShell or Command Prompt window first (so that the console sticks around after the program exits), and you can see it just prints its usage information:

C:\Users\Noah\Downloads> ZenMsg.exe
Usage:
      ZenMsg [--error --alert --info --question]
             [--title] [--text] [--button label]
             [--icon name_or_file]
             [--default label] [--cancel label]
             [--disabled n]
             [--version] [--help]

    Use the "--help" option for more help.

(and it goes into detail on all the options)

If you call it with ZenMsg --help it goes into full detail (the same documentation that's in the ZenMsg.html page the program ships with), including all the names of built-in icons. Every icon available on the Error Message Generator is built in to ZenMsg, and you can point it to a custom image on disk to use your own icon:

BUILT-IN ICONS

Here is a list of all the built-in icons that you can use by name:

  aim_guy         - Blue AIM guy icon
  aol_icon        - Blue AOL icon
  attention       - Yellow triangle around an exclamation mark
  bomb            - Round black bomb icon
  bomb_dynamite   - Icon of a bundle of dynamite and a trigger
  bomb_grenade    - Icon of a grenade
  bulb            - White light bulb
  butterfly       - MSN Butterfly icon
  cake            - Slice of pink cake on a blue plate
  circularsaw     - Icon of a handheld circular saw
  control_panel   - Generic control panel icon
  cow             - Icon of a cow and a computer tower
  defrag          - Disk Defragmenter icon
  disk_blue       - Generic blue floppy disk icon
  disk_blue_label - Blue floppy disk with a label
  disk_orange     - Generic orange floppy disk
  disk_red        - Generic red floppy disk
  disk_red_label  - Red floppy disk with a label
  disk_skull      - Gray floppy disk with skull and crossbones
  disk_yellow     - Generic yellow floppy disk
  error           - Old-school X in a red circle error dialog icon
  error2          - Modern, shiny incarnation of an error dialog icon
  error3          - Beveled error dialog icon (like Windows XP)
  error4          - A red X icon
  file_cabinet    - File cabinet icon
  find            - Find Files icon
  floppy_drive    - Generic floppy drive icon
  fortunecookie   - Icon of a fortune cookie
  garbage_empty   - Empty garbage can
  garbage_full    - Bloated garabage can
  gun             - Icon of a revolver pistol
  hammer          - Icon of a hammer
  heart           - Icon of a shiny red heart
  help            - Old-school Windows Help icon
  hub             - Icon of a hardware hub of sorts (networking?)
  hwinfo          - Icon of a PCI device with blue "i" bubble above it
  ie5             - Icon of old-school Internet Explorer
  info            - Speech bubble with an "i" inside
  keys            - Generic icon of keys
  keys2           - Old Windows key icon
  keys3           - Generic key and padlock icon
  labtec          - Icon of a server or something?
  mac             - Striped colorful Apple logo
  mail            - Generic icon of an envelope
  mail_deleted    - Same envelope with a red X emblem in the corner.
  mailbox         - Mailbox with the flag down
  mouth           - Smiling mouth icon
  msdos           - MS-DOS icon
  mycomputer      - A "My Computer" icon
  mycomputer2     - A "My Computer" icon
  mycomputer3     - A "My Computer" icon
  newspaper       - Generic newspaper icon
  peripheral      - Generic computer peripheral icon
  plant_leaf      - A certain green leafy plant
  pocketknife     - A swiss army pocket knife
  question        - Icon of a speech bubble with a "?" inside
  radiation       - Yellow and black radiation symbol
  ram             - Icon of a couple sticks of RAM
  recycle         - Green recycle arrows logo
  recycle2        - Recycle arrows enveloping a globe of Earth
  scanner         - Generic scanner icon
  screw           - Golden screw icon
  screw2          - Gray screw icon
  setup           - Generic icon for "setup.exe" type programs
  skull           - Black skull and crossbones
  skull2          - Picture of a skull
  skull3          - White skull and crossbones
  tux             - Icon of our favorite Linux mascot
  tux_config      - Tux dressed up like a repairman
  ups             - Icon of an uninterruptible power supply
  zipdisk         - Icon of a single zip disk
  zipdisks        - Icon of numerous zipdisks

You can call ZenMsg from a batch file or any other program (e.g. a Python or Perl script could call ZenMsg.exe and send it parameters). For example, open Notepad and save the following as "example.bat" (with quotes, ensuring that it gets a .bat extension and not .bat.txt) and place it in the same folder next to ZenMsg.exe:

@echo off
ZenMsg --alert --title "Critical Error" --text "Now you've done it." ^
	--button "Ok" --button "Cancel" --button "Accept blame" ^
	--disabled 1 --disabled 2 > zenmsg-answer.txt

echo The user had selected:
type zenmsg-answer.txt
del zenmsg-answer.txt

Double-clicking your example.bat file would then pop up that alert box. ZenMsg prints the user's selected button to its standard output, which we captured above by piping it into zenmsg-answer.txt (it's possible to get output from commands in e.g. Perl scripts too, so your program can ask the user a question and then have branching behavior depending on which button the user clicked on).