Windows 10: Windows randomly prompts to open 'C:\Program.txt' file

This is starting to annoy me because it will interrupt anything - even playing games. It doesn't seem to be triggered by anything in particular; I'll be afk and return to be prompted with this:





If I try and open it with notepad it tells me it's trying to open 'Program.txt':





Anyone know what's going on here? Thanks!

:)

 

"How do you want to open this type of file" box, but no filename listed!

Recently upgraded a Windows 7 PC to Windows 10.

Since upgrading, I get random Windows dialog boxes asking "How do you want to open this file?" Usually happens while using Chrome or IE, but I can't say for sure it hasn't popped up while not surfing. The odd thing is it doesn't list the name of the file it's
trying to open.

Fearing it may be malware, I have only tried selecting Notepad, which gives a message "Cannot find the C:\Program.txt file. Do you want to create a new file?" So I click "Cancel." I have run full scans with Norton and Malware Bytes with no negative items.

Any ideas or suggestions for what this may be and how to resolve?

Thanks.

 

Windows Temp files

Hi Dennis, c

Close all Open Windows File Explorer Windows

Open Command Prompt as Administrator

Run this command and hit Enter:

icacls *.tmp /grant everyone:F /t /q

When the command completes, close Command Prompt

Open Windows File Explorer, you should now be able to delete those files . . .

 

Hi, reported a number of times, Win 8 on at least.
Try
ouverture fenetre program.txt - Microsoft Community
- where a solution was found.

 

I don't have Orange Livechat. This is what I have on startup:




I scanned with AdwCleaner, which found nothing.

 

OK thanks- I'm sure you've tried some searches, and you're saying it's not necessarily related to games. That it has been observed by others suggests there should be some useful info out there.

1. Process of Elimination
So..
a. Does it ever occur if you do a clean boot?
If so
b. Does it ever occur in Safe Mode?

-> process of elimination.

2. Analysis
You haven't got any sort of window to analyse to point you to a source, unfortunately.
You could use Sysinternals Process Monitor to capture events, the difficulty possibly being identifying the event from the capture.
If I were to do that, then I'd have your PC set to run as little as possible, and set the filter in Process Monitor to reject all routine activity so very little is reported in the filtered capture.
Then sit and wait for the event.
Hopefully that will be sthg that is not filtered.
Note that the full report is still available, so you can go back to that knowing where to look.

 

Here's another example of a cause of this, but only on logon:
"I had already disabled the Google Toolbar Notifier but decided to take a look the never before opened Task Scheduler and saw that Orange.fr had inserted a LiveBox assistance app to start at logon. I disabled that performed a Cold Boot.

On restart no sign of that pop up. Just to check I re-enabled and restarted..and there it was.

I disabled and re-started..it was gone"

 

So far I've disabled as much as possible in msconfig to no resolution. It's really as far as I can get to a clean boot, because I have stability issues with disabling intel's VGA; an entirely different issue that I've given up on trying to resolve. I'm not sure if I'm prepared to spend however many hours in safe mode for it to trigger either.

I've downloaded the tool you've advised. When it occurs, should I save it and upload it here?

 

Hi, well, it depends how frequently the problem occurs. If it doesn't occur in safe mode or after a clean boot, then you're partly on track to identifying it, and it's somehow linked to or triggered by a program you're running.

If that's so, then enable some more programs and boot normally, wait long enough- if you don't see C:\Program.txt again, enable more and so on.

When you do start having it happen again, try to isolate it to a particular program. If you can do that and nothing else triggers it, and you don't need that program, then solved.

Otherwise, the program could be revealing some issue in Windows.. we simply don't know.

Using Proc Mon as described may help further, but it could be hard to identify exactly what's happening.
Inspecting the report will be up to you I'm afraid.. I can only suggest the means.

 

I had this issue and just figured it out. Do you have MyDefrag installed? For me in task scheduler I found a MyDefrag daily schedule and when I run the task, I get the same popup. Delete that task

 

I actually do have MyDefrag, but this issue hasn't happened to me in a while. Think the anniversary update resolved it (at least on my end).

 

For those who are still interested in solving this problem (I just did): The error is generated when your task scheduler has a task referring to a missing program. Just remove the program (its schedule) that is trying to run, but not present on your PC. This can be any program, keeping in mind when you get the error might help (once every hour, at start up, etc.).

 

Good for you to reply, I think an update resolved the issue for me as I've not experienced it in a long time.

 

Thanks for your help! After more than a year of having this pop up all the time, I finally seem to have fixed it.
*Party

I opened Task Scheduler and turned on logging (although you don't need to do this).
Go to the 'Task Scheduler Library' (top-left) and sort the scheduled tasks by 'Last Run Time' with the latest at the top.

Wait for the "How do you want to..." window to pop up and then refresh the Task Scheduler window (press "Refresh" in the right hand 'Actions' page). The top item should be the program that's causing the problem.

Right click on the task name and select "Disable"

That should solve the problem! If it does it again, open the Task Scheduler again and do the same to find the last run task and disable it.

My problem was caused by a program called "Cron_Aggregator" which was set to run at 20.45 every day and repeat every 10 mins after for a day.

I hope this helps someone else with the same issues. *Smile