exiftoolgui reports exiftool not found, although it finds it

[Juana]

I am using exiftoolgui now quite a while. Unfortunately, I had to do a rollback to a former version of my Win10 pro 64bit. Now it doesnt work any more. On startup, it always states "exiftool not found".

When I look in "about" it shows the correct version and in task manager, exiftool is running. No matter if i put the exiftool in c:\Windows or in the folder of exiftoolgui.

I tried the hack with the windows defender (which is not running on my system), with my antivirus software stooped, run as admin, or in several compatibility modes, "re-install" exiftool as well as the gui. Also tried different exiftool-Versions. It stays the same problem.
Current setup: Exiftool 10.50; Exiftoolgui 5.16.0.0

Does anyone have an idea, what I could try next?

[Phil Harvey]

So you have renamed "exiftool(-k).exe" to "exiftool.exe" and place it in your C:\Windows directory?

Just to try something different, does it work with an older version of ExifToolGUI?

- Phil

[Juana]

Thanks for the answer.

Yes, I did. exiftool.exe was either in c:\Windows, or in the same folder like the exiftoolgui. unforunately, the same behaviour. Exiftool is always running, but not recognized by exiftoolgui.

As well with different versions.

I tried it on my laptop, there it runs. I have no clue, what could be the problem.

[Phil Harvey]

And you can run ExifTool OK from the command line?  Just in case, make sure the executable flag is set on the file (if you run ExifTool on itself, there should be 3 x's in its FilePermissions).

- Phil

[Juana]

yes, exiftool runs fine via command line.
where do I check the file's permission? Is it the read, write... from windows, you mean?
yes, thats there.

[Phil Harvey]

You can check the FilePermissions by running exiftool on itself as I said:

exiftool -filepermissions "c:\windows\exiftool(-k).exe"

But it sounds like this isn't the problem.

Unfortunately I don't have any other bright ideas.

- Phil

[Juana]

well, actually, it does not show anything. instead, the window closes immediately. So probably, we found the problem :-D

[Phil Harvey]

No, I think this means we did something wrong.

First, I forgot that you should have renamed to "exiftool.exe" before copying to c:\windows.

So what happens if you do this?:

1. Run cmd.exe

2. In the cmd.exe window, type this then press RETURN:

    exiftool -filepermissions "c:\windows\exiftool.exe"

- Phil

[Juana]

the answer is:

File Permissions                : rw-rw-rw-

[Phil Harvey]

I'm no Windows expert, but this could be a problem.  The file should have execute permissions: "rwxrwxrwx"

I don't know how to set this in Windows.  On Mac/linux you would do "chmod 777 exiftool.exe".

- Phil

[StarGeek]

Running this command on my system has the same result.  In fact, all the command line tools in the same directory as exiftool  return rw-rw-rw-, so that doesn't seem to be the problem.

[Juana]

I changed the permissions, same results  :-(

[Phil Harvey]

Well, it was a long shot anyway.

I'm afraid I don't have any other ideas.

- Phil

[Juana]

thank you anyway, it was worth a try :-)

[Frank551]

Same problem here, but:
The problem starts after I installed the "1&1 Upload Manager" a tool to mount a cloud server to a drive letter (Windows 10).
After unmount the drive letter and delete the exifTool cache (at c:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\Temp\par-7370\) the Gui is starting again.

Maybe a similar cause at your system...

- Stefan