Windows Vista Program Access Issue

Frisbee

Hey so came home today to discover something wrong with the house PC that the likes of my mam/brother use.

Basically I can't access any .exe's on it, every time I click on something or try run it through cmd I'm getting this error:

*file path*

Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item.


Anyone be able to give me an idea of what the problem is?

Cheers

JonathanAnon

Can you include the file path in your posting... This can happen if you have the shortcut pointing to an executable that is on a removable drive (which you plug out) or similar... but it shouldnt be happening to the majority of your executable files, which should always be sitting on your C: drive (and your C: drive can not be plugged out, it should always be available)

Have you had any hard drive issues.. seems like the File Allocation Table may have got a bit messed up. Might be no harm running chkdsk and seeing if it finds anything.

Frisbee

Hey yeah it's all on my C:\ drive and it just happened out of the blue.

And I can't even run chkdsk as no .exe files will run, I just keep getting the error message...

Any other ideas?

JonathanAnon

Take one of the executables as an example... navigate through Windows Explorer and see that it actually still exists in the correct folder.. run it and post the error here. And when you say EVERY executable file, do any of the them run properly ?

KylieWyley

Try right-clicking the .exe and then clicking "Run as Administrator".

Frisbee

JonathanAnon wrote: »

Take one of the executables as an example... navigate through Windows Explorer and see that it actually still exists in the correct folder.. run it and post the error here. And when you say EVERY executable file, do any of the them run properly ?

Yup tried it with several different .exe files and they are all in the correct directory.

No .exe file will run, every time I try and run one I get the error from the OP...

KylieWyley wrote: »

Try right-clicking the .exe and then clicking "Run as Administrator".

Tried that earlier, no joy.

JonathanAnon

Hey Frisbee, I've googled your error and it seems that AVG Free Edition can cause this behaviour on some PCs. Are you running this? In this scenario, the user was able to run the files in safe mode but it brought up the same error that you got when in normal mode.

Frisbee

JonathanAnon wrote: »

Hey Frisbee, I've googled your error and it seems that AVG Free Edition can cause this behaviour on some PCs. Are you running this? In this scenario, the user was able to run the files in safe mode but it brought up the same error that you got when in normal mode.

Yeah I googled searched it earlier too and saw that was an issue in some cases.

No AVG though

I haven't a clue what's after happening

JonathanAnon

Might be worth your while going in to safe mode all the same, see if you can access it .. what security software do you have running at the moment .. ?

Frisbee

JonathanAnon wrote: »

Might be worth your while going in to safe mode all the same, see if you can access it .. what security software do you have running at the moment .. ?

Yeah I'll try it again tomorrow, been at it since I came home.

The security on it atm is Norton.

Podman

Aagh, the dreaded Norton. I myself always remove that unwanted resource-muncher.

Just another thing to look out for.. Are you logged in as Admin or guest?

If I were you, I'd get avg and Malwarebytes on there, and do a few scans for viruses.

Hope it works out, whatever the solution is.

Codpeas

I saw something that sounds really similar before and am now trying to dig out the details - must have them somewhere.

If my recollections are correct it ended up being a really simple fix and that the problem occured cause someone accidentally changed the .exe file association... worth taking a look in that direction while I try to recall more detail.

Frisbee

Tried the file associaton change and it wouldn't work because I just kept getting the same error.

Have also tried to get through regedit on the cmd and it won't let me with the same error.

This is starting to strike me as the sort of thing that I'm not going to be able to fix by myself as every time I think I have it sorted I'm getting headed off at the last obstacle.

Cheers for the help everyone.

JonathanAnon

Have you tried safe mode? Also some people who have had the issue having recently installing IE8 find that uninstalling IE Enhanced security from Windows Components can fix the issue.

Others say this worked for them.

Here is a simple trick to solve this annoying error in Windows vista.
* Right-click on the file you want to open.
* Click Properties.
* Under the General tab, at the end of the window you should be able to see a security option like this: Security : This file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer.
* Click the button Unblock.
* Click Apply.

I still wouldnt rule out the security software causing the issue. Might well be worth your while reinstalling Norton (or just remove the damned thing altogether and use one of the free ones, I HATE Norton) to see if that affects the problems.

Frisbee

Cheers, still haven't had any luck with fixing it so I'll give this a shot when I get home.