Notepad and Regedit does not launch from C:\Windows or C:\Windows\System32, but will from C:\Windows\SysWOW64

Posted by lordhog on Super User See other posts from Super User or by lordhog
Published on 2012-04-20T21:27:43Z Indexed on 2012/06/26 21:20 UTC
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windows-7

My work machine was recently updated from Windows XP 64-bit to Windows 7 64-bit. I have found a few odd things that I can not figure out why they are occurring. If I type in Notepad.exe or RegEdit.exe from the Run diaglog the applications will not launch. When executing RegEdit.exe from the Run dialog the UAC does display asking for admin privileges, but the application never launches. Also, if I go to the Start menu and click on Notepad from there, Notepad never launches either.

Other programs seem to be okay, like mspaint, wordpad, etc. Now, if I launch Notepad or RegEdit from C:\Windows\SysWOW64 then these applications will run, though I think these are the 32-bit version and not the 64-bit version. I am not sure what is going on. Has anyone seen this behavior before and how to fix it? I have Windows 7 64-bit at home and I don't have this issue. I even copied Notepad.exe from home and place it in the C:\ folder and tried to launch it from there and it still doesn't work.

Regards, Mark

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