I'm running Avast Premium Security on Windows 11. Because of performance testing reasons, I uninstalled the entire product.
Afterwards, I noticed that some applications didn't open and always gave the error "
Windows cannot find '<.....>. exe'. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again". I started troubleshooting and tried many, many things. After a couple of days, I stumbled upon a webpage describing the issue (not uncommon), but this time, the page actually provided the correct explanation and solution! Happy to say all apps are working now, but I lost many hours troubleshooting.
Apparently, it had to do with more than two dozen applications that were listed under "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\" and the applications had a value called "UseFilter" which was always set to '1'. After removing the '1', the apps immediately opened again, I didn't even have to log off or restart.
I wondered how this could have happened, and why these specific applications, and when I read more on the page providing the solution (see link below) I saw this:
..."
Avast has recently pushed out an update that has caused incorrect IFEO entries to be created through the use of a filter pointing to C:\Program Files (x86)\AVAST Software\Avast Cleanup\autoreactivator.exe"...
Although the page is from June 2020, I encountered this issue a week ago after uninstalling an up-to-date version of Avast Premium Security. It's possible that an update caused this issue, and not the un-installation but that I hadn't noticed this yet.
Just wanted to post this here in case other people encounter the same issue.
Source:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/recent-windows-10-updates-block-programs-from-running/
