# Cannot run executables I download

**URL:** https://support.blue-systems.com/t/cannot-run-executables-i-download/689
**Category:** Netrunner 12.12
**Created:** [February 20, 2013, 6:22am UTC](https://support.blue-systems.com/t/cannot-run-executables-i-download/689 "2013-02-20T06:22:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![anthonyama](https://support.blue-systems.com/letter_avatar/anthonyama/32/5_5575768a8748004e209b776fc1b2916d.png) [@anthonyama](https://support.blue-systems.com/u/anthonyama)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2013, 6:22am UTC](https://support.blue-systems.com/t/cannot-run-executables-i-download/689/1 "2013-02-20T06:22:45Z")

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I can’t for the life of me find the answer to this one  
If I download a program. Firefox 19 in this example and uncompress in my home directory, I can’t run it.  
Firefox is executable and running the cmd prompt just runs firefox 18.  
This also happens with peazip portable  
I’m assuming it’s a sending somewhere but I can’t track it down

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### Author: ![bouncing](https://support.blue-systems.com/letter_avatar/bouncing/32/5_5575768a8748004e209b776fc1b2916d.png) [@bouncing](https://support.blue-systems.com/u/bouncing)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2013, 7:54pm UTC](https://support.blue-systems.com/t/cannot-run-executables-i-download/689/2 "2013-03-10T19:54:17Z")

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> [@anthonyama](#):
>
> I can’t for the life of me find the answer to this one  
> If I download a program. Firefox 19 in this example and uncompress in my home directory, I can’t run it.  
> Firefox is executable and running the cmd prompt just runs firefox 18.  
> This also happens with peazip portable  
> I’m assuming it’s a sending somewhere but I can’t track it down

Sounds a lot like you just don’t have the program in your PATH. When you type “firefox” into the command line, it searches the directories in your PATH to find an executable to run. So for example, most paths include /bin, /usr/bin, /usr/local/bin, etc. Unless “.” is in your path, it won’t execute files in the current directory.

So what you can do is, if you’re in that directory, type “./firefox” to execute the local binary instead of what’s in /usr/bin.

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### Author: ![Kimiko](https://support.blue-systems.com/letter_avatar/kimiko/32/5_5575768a8748004e209b776fc1b2916d.png) [@Kimiko](https://support.blue-systems.com/u/Kimiko)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2013, 11:06pm UTC](https://support.blue-systems.com/t/cannot-run-executables-i-download/689/3 "2013-03-11T23:06:35Z")

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Then again, is installing Firefox inside your home directory actually what you want? Or do you want to install it to replace the earlier version of Firefox? In the latter case you’ll need the .deb package (use Muon or Synaptic to make things easy), not the .zip file from the Mozilla website.

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### Author: ![TheMadOne](https://support.blue-systems.com/letter_avatar/themadone/32/5_5575768a8748004e209b776fc1b2916d.png) [@TheMadOne](https://support.blue-systems.com/u/TheMadOne)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2013, 12:22am UTC](https://support.blue-systems.com/t/cannot-run-executables-i-download/689/4 "2013-03-13T00:22:08Z")

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Yeah never try to install apps “the windows way”  
always wait for the official package to appear.
