Solved PLEASE HELP, cant run .exe files/programs

ok so earlier today I was going to log on to one of my 2 accounts on my computer to do some work I had been letting pile up. Well for what ever reason It would not let me on my account as it said the password had been changed, most likely because I had let my little brother get on last night so do some research for a essay he had due. I'm actually good with computers so I figured no prob, I was just going to change back my password using cmd for a quick and easy fix, using the code line ( net user (Input what ever your username is) * ). it pulled up the please type new password, please retype new password, All of which I have done before multiple time on multiple computers either as a I forgot my password, my password got changed, or i just want to change my password fix. well it said " access denied system error 5 ", at this point I was a little confused as to why this kept happening but I figured no prob so I did a quick google search on how to fix this issue. One guy said online and I quote " Hello... Try Start> Run> net start dhcp." so I did, a little pop up came up and I dont remember what it said but i hit the ok and the pop up closed so i tried to change the password again. However nothing happened except the system error 5 came up again. So at this point I said screw it, i had already wasted like 30 minutes of my time on this and I had other things to do anyway. Well I come back like a hour later and i notice things on my computer are not acting right, for example I cant seem to open any .EXE file. I cant open folders, and my volume on my computer is gone. All and all my computer is in a state of ruin. Naturally I panicked, having no idea what to do i decided to try some things out. my first idea was to open cmd and see if there was anything I could so there, but its a .EXE, so then I tried to get to my system preferences to restore form last restore point so i would not loose any of my files. but that's also a .EXE, i cant run any web browser to look for help except google canary which is what I'm using now. i dont know why this one program works but I'm glad it does. A full system restore is out of the question as I literally have a years worth of work or more on my computer I don't even want to run the risk of loosing my data. What do I do to save my computer. please help, I'm begging. if it helps at all I'm running windows 8.1 pro.

First thing I would do is pull that hard drive and connect it USB to another computer and try to back up your years worth of data. Once that is accomplished I don't know how you will save your OS maybe someone else will, but a clean install should fix it. This is a prime example of how important it is to back up your data.

CMD prompts will run .exe files.

Example---

thanks clintlgm i will see what i can do about using a friends computer and david, great idea but for that to work i would need to run cmd first and i cant run any .exe, is there anyway to get around this? if anyone else has any ideas please feel free to post them.

SoulSniper said:

thanks clintlgm i will see what i can do about using a friends computer and david, great idea but for that to work i would need to run cmd first and i cant run any .exe, is there anyway to get around this? if anyone else has any ideas please feel free to post them.

Click to expand...

Can you open Task Manager ?

If so, click File & create a new task---



If you can't do that, I suggest backing up your files & returning your computer to factory specs & starting from scratch.

EDIT--- Have you tried Safe Mode yet ?

no i cant open task manager, and I have not tried safe mode yet. to be honest i'm scared that if i restart my computer to go into safe mode I might loose what ever little usage I have left in this thing.

Fixed

Ok well lucky after I messed around with everything I found out how to fix this exact problem. but first thing first, for anyone out there reading this that has this problem the first thing your going to want to do is of course back up your files, how you may ask, seeing as file explorer is a .exe and you can't run cmd because it is also a .exe and run is absolutely no help. Well I found that if I go to my gmail and start a email to my self and then click the google drive button then move over to the upload tab and the finally hit select files from your computer then you can go in to your file explorer, now for what ever reason you can't upload directly to your gmail account, however I found that if I were to the connect an external hard drive I could freely navigate my computer and pull off any important files or document to the external drive for safe keeping. Now that step one is out of the way on to step 2. either from you live tile screen ( new start screen ) or your log in screen press and hold your shift key then click restart, This will bring you to a screen where it will give you three options, either you could use you windows OS disk to revert all windows applications to default without messing up your files and programs, you could completely wipe your computer clean and start over, or advanced. now click on advanced the file the system restore option and restore from a point in time where you know your computer was working fine. this part my take a while. after that's all said and done your computer will restart then you just log in to your user account and everything should be working again. the only bug I found with this so far is that some of the program icons are missing but if that's the worst that's happened I'm ok with that, that should be a easy fix. well I hope this will help anyone who are in the same boat as me and I want to thank David and Clintlgm for helping me, Much love and best of luck
-SS

You might want to run the following CMDs---

1--- Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

and


2--- sfc /scannow

Use Administrator CMD prompts.

K thanks I will.