If you are unable to download any exe file in Windows 10 or even on Windows 7/8/8.1, there may be a problem in your Internet Options or Windows Registry needs to be configured correctly.
- Windows 7 Not Opening Exe Download
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This error usually occurs when you have disabled downloading of executable files in Internet Options. This can be done manually by any user or it can also be altered automatically through some software. While there can be many other possibilities, these two are the most popular ones. We will talk about fixing unable to download any exe file in Windows 10 using both methods one by one. Let’s start with fixing Internet Options.
Note: If Windows Explorer is not appearing Under the Processes tab, simply open up a folder, Computer or This PC to start the Windows Explorer process. Run Start menu troubleshooter. Microsoft recently released Windows 10 Start menu troubleshooter which allows you fix most of the common issues with Start menu.
You may also like to read about our 3 must have tools to fix most Windows problems without getting help from a techie.
Quick Summary
Fixing unable to download any exe file using Internet Options
May be your Internet Options are not set properly that’s why .exe file downloading is creating an issue. Apply below steps to set Internet Options orderly.
- Type Internet Options in the Start Menu and open the first result you get.
- Go to Security tab, in Internet Options window, and select Custom Level.
- A new window will open. Here find Downloads, expand it further and enable File Download and Font Download.
- Scroll below and look for another option with name Launching applications and unsafe files, select the Prompt option for it.
- Press Apply and OK. Close all open windows.
Fixing exe files not opening using Windows Registry
- Open Registry Editor window by typing regedit.exe in Run dialog/. And go to the following entry.
“HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPloiciesAttachments”. - Here you have to create a new 32-bit DWORD value with name ScanWithAntivirus and set its value to 1, this value will off or disable the scan.
So now any file you will download, antivirus software will not scan it, and your download will not suffer anymore.
Adding a Registry for EXE file extension
- Download the following Registry key:
Reset Exe in Windows Registry - Now go to file where you save it, double-click on it to add this registry into Windows Registry.
- A confirmatory window will open to ask you for changes you are going to made in Registry Editor. Press Yes, and here you are done.
After applying the fixes, hopefully your issue of unable to downloading or save any exe file will be resolved. But be sure of what you are downloading, and always download from official websites to avoid viruses with downloads, as you may suffer any issue if the virus comes along with your download files.
When you start Disk Defragmenter using any of these ways in Windows 7, nothing may happen except a brief blue circle (hourglass):
- Right-click on a hard disk drive-letter, click Properties, and click Defragment now… from the Tools tab.
- Access Disk Defragmenter from the Start menu shortcut or Search results.
- Run Dfrgui.exe from the WindowsSystem32 directory.
This happens if the Disk Defragmenter service isn’t turned on. To enable the service, use these steps:
Windows 7 Not Opening Exe Download
Login to a user account with administrative privileges
1. Click Start, type Services.msc and press {ENTER}
2. Double-click Disk Defragmenter service from the list
3. Set the Start type to Manual
4. Click OK.
Try launching Disk Defragmenter now.
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About the author
Windows 7 Not Genuine
Ramesh Srinivasan founded Winhelponline.com back in 2005. He is passionate about Microsoft technologies and he has been a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for 10 consecutive years from 2003 to 2012.