[SOLVED] USB Drive With Application Wont Run

Apr 23, 2021
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Hello, I hope this is the correct place to ask this.

We utilize a USB stick that contains an application that we use for work. This application worked fine until just recently. The program will no longer launch.

We tried this USB on 3 desktops and 3 laptops and the program will not launch. All 3 desktops and laptops are Dell with windows 10. We then tried on a 4th dell desktop with windows 10 and the application worked on there.

I am at a loss on this issue. The program worked before on all computers. Now it longer works on all but one. No recent updates or changes have taken place.

Another catch here is the USB is protected by the company that owns the program so we can't make any changes to the USB and files contained on it. We can only run the program. They even sent us a brand new USB in case it was their problem but we have the same results as the original.

Any suggestions at this point would be much appreciated as I'm at my wits end trying to figure out why this application won't run
 
Solution
This is a weird one, and I've seen some similar stuff rarely since 1709. Try opening an administrator command prompt then running the program from commandline to see if you get "access denied." This can happen even with a FAT32 USB stick which of course cannot even store permissions

In some situations, and particularly on a local account with administrative rights, Microsoft has decided that's somehow less trustworthy than someone logged in to a domain or Microsoft Live account. I chalked it up to people at Microsoft never imagining that someone may want to use a local account and miss out on all that Cloudy goodness. Usually when you try to run a restricted program using a limited user account you get a popup box to enter in...
Apr 23, 2021
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need more detail then won't run. crash? bsod? closed? is there a name for this app? run as administrator ?
check event viewer for error?

Thanks for the response. I figured more info would be needed. Just wasnt sure where to start.

No crashing. No blue screen. Run the application as administrator, which is required to run it, and then absolutely nothing happens. It's as if you never tried to start the application. I don't see anything relevant being logged in event viewer as well.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Thanks for the response. I figured more info would be needed. Just wasnt sure where to start.

No crashing. No blue screen. Run the application as administrator, which is required to run it, and then absolutely nothing happens. It's as if you never tried to start the application. I don't see anything relevant being logged in event viewer as well.
What is the difference between the one desktop that works, and the others that fail?

OS version and updates?
Hardware?
 
Apr 23, 2021
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Software differences between the systems?

Have you tried running this application the first thing after a full power off reboot?
Yes. Have tried this after a full reboot. When the issue first arose. We were able to get the program to run one time by turning the computer off entirely and unplugging it. But that solution worked only once and does not work now.
 
This is a weird one, and I've seen some similar stuff rarely since 1709. Try opening an administrator command prompt then running the program from commandline to see if you get "access denied." This can happen even with a FAT32 USB stick which of course cannot even store permissions

In some situations, and particularly on a local account with administrative rights, Microsoft has decided that's somehow less trustworthy than someone logged in to a domain or Microsoft Live account. I chalked it up to people at Microsoft never imagining that someone may want to use a local account and miss out on all that Cloudy goodness. Usually when you try to run a restricted program using a limited user account you get a popup box to enter in other credentials, and this box is suppressed when you are logged in as an administrator so you never get to see it even to enter a blank password. The problem is a user with administrative rights can now have fewer rights than the actual built-in account named "Administrator" (which should be visible under Advanced User Management under good old "control userpasswords2") so the next troubleshooting step would be to log out then log in under that account.

I'd also disable any Sync settings and Turn Off Windows Feature MultiPoint Connector. Other than that you could try mounting the USB drive as a fixed disk rather than removable. Good luck
 
Solution
Apr 23, 2021
6
0
10
This is a weird one, and I've seen some similar stuff rarely since 1709. Try opening an administrator command prompt then running the program from commandline to see if you get "access denied." This can happen even with a FAT32 USB stick which of course cannot even store permissions

In some situations, and particularly on a local account with administrative rights, Microsoft has decided that's somehow less trustworthy than someone logged in to a domain or Microsoft Live account. I chalked it up to people at Microsoft never imagining that someone may want to use a local account and miss out on all that Cloudy goodness. Usually when you try to run a restricted program using a limited user account you get a popup box to enter in other credentials, and this box is suppressed when you are logged in as an administrator so you never get to see it even to enter a blank password. The problem is a user with administrative rights can now have fewer rights than the actual built-in account named "Administrator" (which should be visible under Advanced User Management under good old "control userpasswords2") so the next troubleshooting step would be to log out then log in under that account.

I'd also disable any Sync settings and Turn Off Windows Feature MultiPoint Connector. Other than that you could try mounting the USB drive as a fixed disk rather than removable. Good luck
Appreciate the reply. I'll give it a shot Monday and hopefully with some success.
 
Apr 23, 2021
6
0
10
This is a weird one, and I've seen some similar stuff rarely since 1709. Try opening an administrator command prompt then running the program from commandline to see if you get "access denied." This can happen even with a FAT32 USB stick which of course cannot even store permissions

In some situations, and particularly on a local account with administrative rights, Microsoft has decided that's somehow less trustworthy than someone logged in to a domain or Microsoft Live account. I chalked it up to people at Microsoft never imagining that someone may want to use a local account and miss out on all that Cloudy goodness. Usually when you try to run a restricted program using a limited user account you get a popup box to enter in other credentials, and this box is suppressed when you are logged in as an administrator so you never get to see it even to enter a blank password. The problem is a user with administrative rights can now have fewer rights than the actual built-in account named "Administrator" (which should be visible under Advanced User Management under good old "control userpasswords2") so the next troubleshooting step would be to log out then log in under that account.

I'd also disable any Sync settings and Turn Off Windows Feature MultiPoint Connector. Other than that you could try mounting the USB drive as a fixed disk rather than removable. Good luck
Running the program from command prompt worked. And even more interesting, the program now works on the all the computers again without having to use cmd. I have no clue why. But I'm extremely thankful for your suggestion.