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Win10 will not open stub/exe files. What program do you want to open this file with?

  • 2 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 9 views
  • Last reply by dave101917

dave101917
dave101917

New i7 PC, Win10 seems to install just fine. Updates seem to install as expected. Using MS Edge to dload stub file to install both Firefox and/or Thunderbird mail client. Attempts to 'open' 'save' or 'save as' all work to dload the file. System will not open .exe files. Response is the same whether I open the file via the Edge prompts or double click the .exe in the dload folder. Along the lines of, in a separate window, "What program do you want to use to open this file?"

No doubt this is a windows problem but since Mozilla is it's first victim I thought this would be a good forum to get a no nonsense answer/fix...thanks in advance! David.

Edit...I should add, this is 2 identical PC's this is happening on, both 'new out of box', for what it's worth!

New i7 PC, Win10 seems to install just fine. Updates seem to install as expected. Using MS Edge to dload stub file to install both Firefox and/or Thunderbird mail client. Attempts to 'open' 'save' or 'save as' all work to dload the file. System will not open .exe files. Response is the same whether I open the file via the Edge prompts or double click the .exe in the dload folder. Along the lines of, in a separate window, "What program do you want to use to open this file?" No doubt this is a windows problem but since Mozilla is it's first victim I thought this would be a good forum to get a no nonsense answer/fix...thanks in advance! David. Edit...I should add, this is 2 identical PC's this is happening on, both 'new out of box', for what it's worth!

Modified by dave101917

Chosen solution

Thanks so much for your reply and yes you took me right to where I needed to be. One MS user had noticed the downloaded file name had been altered. Where it should have been '.exe', something in the process changed the file name to '_exe' which just confused the heck out the WinOS. I changed it back to .exe and voila! Thanks again and if possible leave my reply so others might save themselves some hours of poking around MS site! Thanks js!

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jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
  • Top 25 Contributor

The "full" version of Windows 10 (i.e., not the "S" or "RT" version) should be able to run EXE files with no problem.

On older installations, inability to run EXE files sometimes was caused by malware. However, that would be very unlikely on a new install.

You might want to try some other installers to see if they have the same issue. If you need a useful program to try out, this one is handy for comparing text documents or the contents of different folders: http://winmerge.org/

I do see some similar threads on Microsoft's forums. Not sure if anything suggested here is useful: can't open .exe files windows 10 - Microsoft Community

dave101917
dave101917 Question owner

Chosen Solution

Thanks so much for your reply and yes you took me right to where I needed to be. One MS user had noticed the downloaded file name had been altered. Where it should have been '.exe', something in the process changed the file name to '_exe' which just confused the heck out the WinOS. I changed it back to .exe and voila! Thanks again and if possible leave my reply so others might save themselves some hours of poking around MS site! Thanks js!