A strange phenomenon - a certain .exe file won't run, nothing happens at all when I double click on it. OK egg timer appears for a second then disappears but thats it ! Specifically: I downloaded a driver for a serial port SIMM card reader and the setup.exe won't run. The file is definately OK because it runs fine on my laptop. Also found a previous copy I'd downloaded about a year ago (same version) and that doesn't work now either but it did at that time. Have had this before once or twice before in the past but put it down to a corrupt file and forgotten about it but I do need this particular driver. Tried running in all compatibility modes and also in safe mode and yes, I am logged in as Administrator. No other problems with my system that I'm aware of, all programmes I use regularly are working OK. Norton WinDoctor reports no problems for whatever that's worth !

I have also seen this problem and I believe that is down to a Hotfix that has been applied to XP from windowsupdate. The hotfix in question is Q328310 if you have this one on your system go to Control Panel->Add Remove programs and un-install this hotfix and the installer should then work ok. After the software is installed take another visit to windowsupdate to reapplythe above hotfix plus another update which is supposed to correct the problem caused by that hotfix.

Thanks for the tip Maurice, I don't have this hotfix so I downloaded it from MS but it insists on having SP1 installed which I don't have and don't particularly want. The file runs OK on my laptop which does not have SP1 either and has the same version of the sysmain.sdb file they speak of so maybe this is not the problem. I have actually got round the problem for now by installing the driver/application on my laptop and simply copying the folder to my PC and surprisingly it works but I would still like to know what the actual problem is.

check to see if its just this one exe if its more check out the rest of this post http://computing.net/windowsme/wwwboard/forum/34103.html Name: Martha Date: January 26, 2003 at 14:44:11 Pacific Subject: Lost all .exe files OS: ME CPU/Ram: Pentium/ 64 ram Comment: Could someone help me to recuperate the .exe files. I lost them cleaning from virus. Thanks, Martha. Report Offensive Message For Removal Response Number 1 Name: WhitPhil Date: January 26, 2003 at 14:52:35 Pacific Subject: Lost all .exe files Reply: I "presume" that you mean they no longer run when you try. If so, download and run Exefix08. It will correct the registry entry for you. http://home.earthlink.net/~rmbox/Reticulated/Toys.html

Thanks wawadave but I did say in my original post that everything else is working OK so this is most definately not a virus problem. I'm sure that the answer is in the MS hotfix that Maurice mentions but I refuse to install SP1 to fix what is in reality a a very minor isolated problem so I'll live with it. Re Exefix08, I would be very wary of running Win9x registry fixes on XP !