frustrating .exe behavior

[Sixstringer]

I recently reformatted my laptop harddrive and began reinstalling everything. I've had everything up and running for a couple weeks but recently I downloaded XP sp2 and a few other updates. Certain .exe files have been behaving very oddly. I double click on them and nothing will happen, nothing in the task bar, nothing in the task manager, nothing at all, just a flicker of the cursor and a brief hourglass. I downloaded Norton anti-virus and i can't install it because the .exe doesn't do anything . Other .exe's behave the same way, but not all of them. I've tried a bunch of stuff but my knowledge is limited. I can provide more detail if some one has an idea as to what the problem might be.

-ebubs

[Aegis]

SP2 creates incompatibility issues with many applications.

Edited June 12, 2005 by Aegis

[Sixstringer]

ok...but i'm talking about just the .exe installation file, it's not even an application until i install it. I should at least be prompted for the install or maybe even an error message? Something besides an "incompatibility issue" is wrong here. Besides I'm not positive this problem started with SP2. Actually now that I think about it, it didn't. It started a few days earlier when i tried to download and install the x-plane game. I downloaded the .exe but it doesn't do s***.

[dman]

since you know when the problem started, use system restore to roll back to the first restore point before this.

[bilemke]

I assume you have anti-virus software isntalled of some sort already right?

If so.. May I ask which one? Sounds like a problem I have had a few times...