Windows by default has an association of EXE files to allow you to run executable programs. We normally don’t need to do mess around with it because wrongly associating EXE extension to another program can be a disaster whereby running any EXE file will run under the program that you’ve associated. If you double click on any EXE program but it doesn’t do anything, then it is possible that the exe association has been deleted from the registry. There are third party tools that can fix EXE association but it doesn’t make sense at all because you won’t be able to run the tool in the first place when it is an executable file… The solution is to either download a EXE .reg fix or the Microsoft Fix it tool which is in .msi extension.
The bigger challenge that I’ve faced was a rogueware that associates itself with EXE extension. Whenever Windows is booted up, the rogueware is automatically started because Windows loads a bunch of EXE files during startup.
It is not possible to run any program at all because doing that will triggers the rogueware and blocking the program. Both .reg fix and Microsoft Fix it tools are useless in this case.
Rogueware blocking any programs from running
Using Process Monitor to monitor the registry changes, I found that this rogueware changes the EXE association to the following:
Rogueware is triggered whenever any EXE file is ran
After spending some time trying to figure out a solution on how can I fix the EXE association when the rogueware is blocking nearly every extension that allows me to run a program, I finally figured out the trick is to run the program from the Windows Task Manager. It won’t be possible to run the Windows Task Manager by right clicking on the Taskbar and select Start Task Manager because the rogueware blocks it but fortunately it is possible to launch the Windows Task Manager from the shortcut key Ctrl+Shift+Esc.
Once you’ve launched the Windows Task Manager by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Esc, click on the File menu and select New Task (Run…).
Then browse for any program that is able to fix the EXE extension. Terminating the process is useless since running any EXE file will run the rogueware so it is only logical to fix the EXE association first, then only terminate the rogueware’s process. Although the window looks very similar to the Run command when you press WIN+R, but they are actually different.
The difference between Create New Task and Run
After resetting the EXE association and followed by a restart, everything is back to normal plus the rogueware is no longer active because running any EXE file will not trigger to run the rogueware. Although this solution works for the rogueware that I’ve encountered, but it is still not fool proof because the rogueware can be “upgraded” to block the Ctrl+Shift+Esc hotkey and implement persistence feature to monitor and re-adding the registry key if it is removed.
Workaround to Fix EXE Association in Windows 7 is a post from: Raymond.CC Blog