[SOLVED] Steam/Adobe acrobat won't open

[tinypapertiger]

I am unable to open steam or adobe acrobat files. I think this started happening around the time I installed windows 1909 in November, but I'm not 100% on that. Other executable files work just fine (i.e. browsers, blizzard games/other games, Microsoft office, basically everything else but these two have worked). Also, I can open up pdf files in browsers like chrome/edge, but just not as a standalone in a normal adobe acrobat window.

Things I have tried to do to resolve the issue:
-Uninstall and reinstall the programs
-Run as administrator
-Run in compatibility mode for different windows versions
-Changed registry for executable programs to "%1"%* (got this from some youtube video, all other executables still work but steam/adobe are a no go)
-Tried running these programs with all anti-virus programs disabled

I'm not sure of what else I can try other than doing a reinstall of windows entirely, or maybe version 1909 reinstall if that's possible. (I don't have any pre-1909 restore points to revert to)

If anyone can think of something that might be the root cause of this please let me know!

 

[Grobe]

The acrobat reader have a very easy solution, just use another pdf viewer less bloated. Personally I'd use Sumatra PDF and Foxit Reader.

Do you get any error message when you try to open steam? What do you see on your screen , excactly?

 

[tinypapertiger]

The acrobat reader have a very easy solution, just use another pdf viewer less bloated. Personally I'd use Sumatra PDF and Foxit Reader.

Do you get any error message when you try to open steam? What do you see on your screen , excactly?

When I try to open either of these nothing happens. So, basically if I click steam, or right-click and run as administrator, and nothing opens. If I go to task manager there are no steam programs running in the background or anything.
All I can do is uninstall it and reinstall it.
And yeah, I do have a workaround for pdf files, I just figured they might be connected somehow since they have the same symptoms.

 

[Ralston18]

No errors or even pop-up windows?

Interesting.

Firewall(s)?

Have you looked in Reliability History or Event Viewer for any error codes, warnings, or even informational events that are logged when the "click" failures occur?

Try flushing the DNS cache and check the Hosts file.

 

[tinypapertiger]

Thanks guys, problem solved.

I did what Ralston18 said and I also searched "steam" on my PC and deleted all the files it left behind after uninstalling. Probably should have done the latter from the start but oh well. Not sure which one fixed it in the end...