wat to d if unable to open cmd or regedit aswell
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Blogs Windows XP Unable to open .exe files
Blogs Windows XP Unable to open .exe files
Unable to open .exe files
Sunday, 20 September 2009 20:45 | 
Author: Arun Nair | 
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Most of you should be familiar with the File association error, where Windows will ask you to choose a program to open a file that you try to execute. It will be very easy to select the program if the file is say a “.txt” file or a “.mp3? file. You can select notepad to open a “.txt” file and may be winamp to open a “.mp3? file. And this can be fixed easily by selecting the option “Always use the selected program to open this kind of file” that you see on the “Open with” window.
But what if you get the same error when you try to open a file with a “.exe” extension. For example one of the users here, tried to open calculator by typing calc on the Run window as we usually do, but it popped up with the message shown below.
Why?
This is called a File association error, which is very obvious from the name that the associated program for a specific file extension is corrupted. If it is a regular file like a .txt or a .mp3, we can go ahead and select the application that we want to use to open the file, but how do we slect an application to open a exe file, I mean how do you select an exe file to open a exe file.
All these file associations are defined in the Registry under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. Goto start -> Run and type regedit to open the registry editor. Remember regedit is also an “.exe” file that is used to edit the registry files.
How to fix it?
Click Start -> Run and type command. (Do not type cmd, it will not work because cmd is an exe file but command is a “.com” file)
Then on the command window, type cd C:\Windows
Then type regedit. Registry editor will open without any issues.
Goto HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\open\command.
Double-click the “Default” value in the right pane.
Delete the current value and type “%1? %* and click ok. Type this value exactly as you see. It is (quote-percent-one-quote-space-percent-asterisk) as shown below. If you have something else delete them.
