Solved "any" .exe stopped working

[archer]

Hello guys,

My buddy just re installed his Win 7 on his PC. All went fine. Updates are installing fine.

Issue, if we try to run a game (even a small game) it comes out with "*.exe stopped working". I have DVD for Street fighter 4 and I tried that. Game installs fine, but when we try to execute the exe it gives the above error.

I have tried SFC, clean boot, did a complete scan for virus and malwares. Any other suggestions?

 

[DavidE]

Have you looked in Event Viewer to see if there are any Errors/Messages that might help explain this?

 

[DavidE]

If Event Viewer doesn't help, have you checked if you have all the latest drivers?
If you have the latest, you might try a prior Video driver.
Sometimes the latest is not the best imho.

 

[archer]

Thanks for the reply David. I have checked the event viewer and no, there is no such message that could helped me.

I have the latest drivers installed. I will try to roll back to previous driver for his card and report back.

P.S. Issue started after installing an update. Not sure which one. But, he was able to play that specific exe before an update was performed and PC required a reboot. Once the PC was rebooted and the updates were installed. He tried to play the game and it started to give the error.

 

[DavidE]

Yea, that was my next thought, that an update broke something.
If the driver doesn't help it sounds like time to start uninstalling updates to see if you can determine which update caused the issue.
Maybe use Restore Points (if available), or start uninstalling updates manually ...

 

[archer]

Hmmm....that will be a long process. Any ideas which update could cause the exe files damage?

 

[DavidE]

Yea, I hear ya.
I don't know which update might have caused the issue
Was the re-install done with the latest official media refresh ISO ?

If that was used it should mean you would have the fewest number of updates to apply.
If you used an older "install media", more updates would be needed to get "up-to-date".

 

[badger906]

1) read this http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/19449-default-file-type-associations-restore.html and see if that solves it, if that doesnt..

2) Perform a SFC Scan (System File Check)

1. Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation, type the password, or click Allow

2. Type the following command, sfc /scannow and then press ENTER:

(A message will appear stating that 'The system scan will begin'. Be patient because the scan may take some time)

3. If any files require a replace SFC will replace them. You may be asked to insert your Windows 7 DVD for this process to continue

4. If everything is okay you should, after the scan, see the following message "Windows resource protection did not find any integrity violations"

5. After the scan has completed, close the command prompt window, restart the computer. (TIP repeat scan 3 times)

(just to give credit where its due I couldn't be bothered to type all that out on my phone so those instructions are from "Brianzion" on a previous post so all credit should go his way)

 

[archer]

Thanks for the tip Badger. But, as mentioned in my OP, I have already tried SFC scan. I tried the tutorial and that also did not solve the issue.

 

[archer]

Yea, I hear ya.
I don't know which update might have caused the issue
Was the re-install done with the latest official media refresh ISO ?

If that was used it should mean you would have the fewest number of updates to apply.
If you used an older "install media", more updates would be needed to get "up-to-date".

He bought his Win 7 DVD in 2012. I just checked the updates, there are a lot of them.

Not sure, what to check.

 

[badger906]

oh yeahhh.. I did speed read your op lol... ok maybe just maybe this is a naughty program causing the issue. which may or not be detected by a virus scanner if its a goodun..

this is lifted directly from ms
To resolve this issue, you can reset the registry settings to their default settings. To do this, follow these steps.
Click the Startbutton and type regedit in the Search box
Right-click Regedit.exe in the returned list and click Run as administrator
Browse to the following registry key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.exe
With .exe selected, right-click (Default) and click Modify…
Change the Value data: to exefile
Browse to and then click on the following registry key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile
With exefileselected, right-click (Default) and click Modify…
Change the Value data: to "%1" %*
Browse to and then click on the following registry key:

KEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\open
With openselected, right-click (Default) and click Modify…
Change the Value data: to "%1" %*
Close the Registry Editor and restart your PC

 

[archer]

Thanks Badger.
Tried the registry reset, it also did not help.

Any More advises

 

[DavidE]

This MS article has some registry entries you could check, and reset, if you see issues with them.
When you run an .exe file on a Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7-based computer, the file may start a different program

If you haven't run Windows Update Cleanup, that's a possibility.
I don't know if it will help with this, but it will remove any updates that have been superseded and aren't needed.
I've used the Cleanup Tool since it came out a few months ago and it hasn't caused any problems for me.
If the Install DVD is Pre SP1, you could also run the cleanup for SP1 backup files.

Step 1 in this tutorial has the link to the latest Win 7 Install ISOs.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html
I would use that if I had to re-install now.
If you end up doing another re-install, this should be the most up-to-date install media needing the fewest Windows Updates after the install.
Having said that, there are some problems with the ISO downloads right now:
http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/326289-something-wrong-digital-river.html

 

[archer]

Thanks David. I will try that and let you know.

 

[archer]

This MS article has some registry entries you could check, and reset, if you see issues with them.
When you run an .exe file on a Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7-based computer, the file may start a different program

If you haven't run Windows Update Cleanup, that's a possibility.
I don't know if it will help with this, but it will remove any updates that have been superseded and aren't needed.
I've used the Cleanup Tool since it came out a few months ago and it hasn't caused any problems for me.
If the Install DVD is Pre SP1, you could also run the cleanup for SP1 backup files.

Step 1 in this tutorial has the link to the latest Win 7 Install ISOs.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html
I would use that if I had to re-install now.
If you end up doing another re-install, this should be the most up-to-date install media needing the fewest Windows Updates after the install.
Having said that, there are some problems with the ISO downloads right now:
http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/326289-something-wrong-digital-river.html

Thanks a lot David! When you run an .exe file on a Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7-based computer, the file may start a different program fixed the issue.
Anyone with same issue can refer to the above link. Thanks a lot to both of you.

 

[DavidE]

You're welcome and glad to hear you got it sorted.
Thanks for posting back with the solution!

 

[archer]

One more thing, I will like to add. Issue came up again and this time I found the culprit. It was MSI Afterburner.

Uninstalled it and now all the exe's are running smoothly. Read some articles and found out that the "beta" versions may cause this issue. So, just wanted to tell everyone. Do not use the beta version if you are facing similar issue.

Ciao.

 

[dstapl]

The Google search that led me to this site was "any" exe stopped working Solved - but I don't see any "solved" results.
More specifically, my problem was "Update~1.exe stopped working." It happened right after doing a malware scan and I figured it was the result of Spybot removing some key part of an update program - assumed it was part of malware.
Has anyone had success in identifying and fixing the problem?
Tks

 

[lehnerus2000]

It sounds like the OP was lucky as sometimes you can't recover from these issues.

After I installed SP1, I could never get "Civilization 3" to run.
The only way I found to fix that particular issue (and avoid any future repeats) was to build an XP VM and install all of my old games in it.