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Cmd.exe No Longer Opens After Uninstalling Python

Anonymous
2022-09-29T14:05:52+00:00

Last night, I uninstalled Python 3.10.6 (which I got from python.org, the official site), but noticed immediately after that cmd.exe no longer opens, or may flash open and immediately close. I tried entering safe mode to open it, but that still didn't work. I believed it might have corrupted some system files, so I reinstalled Windows 10 following this article, but unfortunately that did not fix the issue either. What might be going wrong, and how could I fix it?

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Windows update

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Ramesh 176.3K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2022-09-29T15:08:39+00:00

Hi,

The Autorun value is not present in the 2nd key. It's normal.

Now, to fix the Command Prompt, run this command:

reg delete "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Command Processor" /v "Autorun" /f

That should do the trick!

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  1. Don Varnau 19,810 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2022-10-02T12:48:36+00:00

    This worked! Thank you for the help.

    Sorry that it's 3 days later, but...

    ArcKatsu,

    Please mark the post by Ramesh Srinivasan as the Answer. A moderator could mark it but it's preferred, for statistical purposes, that you mark it.

    Thanks,

    Don

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  2. Ramesh 176.3K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2022-09-29T14:57:03+00:00

    From CMD.exe help:

    /D Disable execution of AutoRun commands from registry (see below)

    If /D was NOT specified on the command line, then when CMD.EXE starts, it

    looks for the following REG_SZ/REG_EXPAND_SZ registry variables, and if

    either or both are present, they are executed first. 

    HKEY\_LOCAL\_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\AutoRun 

    and/or 

HKEY\_CURRENT\_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\AutoRun

    Now, to find what's being executed via the Autorun key, run these commands and post the output here:

    From a Command Prompt window, run:

    reg query "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Command Processor" /v Autorun

    and then, type:

    reg query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Command Processor" /v Autorun

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-09-29T14:50:13+00:00

    This did launch command prompt correctly. What does /d do? Is there a way I can get it to open normally again?

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  4. Ramesh 176.3K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2022-09-29T14:42:07+00:00

    Hi ArcKatsu,

    Can you check if running "cmd.exe /d" launches the Command Prompt correctly?

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