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.
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.
You may also like to read about our 3 must have tools to fix most Windows problems without getting help from a techie.
Translated by jak58. Latest update on August 12, 2019 at 08:24 AM by Ratnendra Ashok. This document, titled 'Unable To Run Executable Files (.exe) on Windows,' is available under the Creative Commons license. Recommended: Identify run.exe related errors If run.exe is located in a subfolder of Windows folder for temporary files, the security rating is 85% dangerous.The file size is 81,920 bytes (55% of all occurrences) or 31,744 bytes.
Can't Run Exe Files Windows 10
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.