"Process failed to start" Error when using QProcess to run ie4uinit.exe

[forgottenduck]

So I'm trying to put code in my application to refresh the user's icon cache so that I can ensure that their project files get the appropriate icons associated with them.

In order to do this, I need to run ie4unit.exe which is in System32. This should be simple, but for some reason I can't run this from Qt no matter what I try. I'm hoping I can get some insight from here.

Here's the code, I did test this in an isolated new project and it still doesn't work.

QProcess* process = new QProcess();
    connect(process, &QProcess::errorOccurred, this, [=]{
        qDebug()<<process->errorString();
        qDebug()<<process->arguments();
        qDebug()<<process->workingDirectory();
        qDebug()<<process->processId();
    });
 
    connect(process, static_cast<void(QProcess::*)(int,  QProcess::ExitStatus)>(&QProcess::finished), this, [=](int exitCode, QProcess::ExitStatus exitStatus){
        qDebug()<<"  process finished";
    });
    connect(process, &QProcess::started, this, [=]{
        qDebug()<<"  process started";
    });
 
    QString winPath = QString::fromUtf8(qgetenv("windir")) + "\\System32\\";
    process->setWorkingDirectory(winPath);
    process->start("ie4uinit.exe", QStringList()<<"-ClearIconCache");
    process->waitForStarted();

QProcess* process = new QProcess();
    connect(process, &QProcess::errorOccurred, this, [=]{
        qDebug()<<process->errorString();
        qDebug()<<process->arguments();
        qDebug()<<process->workingDirectory();
        qDebug()<<process->processId();
    });

    connect(process, static_cast<void(QProcess::*)(int,  QProcess::ExitStatus)>(&QProcess::finished), this, [=](int exitCode, QProcess::ExitStatus exitStatus){
        qDebug()<<"  process finished";
    });
    connect(process, &QProcess::started, this, [=]{
        qDebug()<<"  process started";
    });

    QString winPath = QString::fromUtf8(qgetenv("windir")) + "\\System32\\";
    process->setWorkingDirectory(winPath);
    process->start("ie4uinit.exe", QStringList()<<"-ClearIconCache");
    process->waitForStarted();

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You can see I have some debug statements in there. The output I'm getting is:

"Process failed to start: No such file or directory"
("-ClearIconCache")
"C:\\Windows\\System32\\"
0

So it is not starting because it can't find the file, the arguments are being provided correctly, and the working directory is set up correctly. I have confirmed that I can run this via command line with the command "ie4uinit.exe -ClearIconCache". The file does exist in the correct location.

Not only that, but if I pick a different exe from System32, such as "dvdplay.exe" It runs fine. I get the "process started" and "process finished" debug messages. The code is the same, and the directory is the same, the only thing I did was change the exe in process->start().

I thought maybe the error message was misleading and this was a permissions problem, but I checked the permissions of dvdplay.exe and compared them to the permissions of "ie4uinit.exe". The permissions are all exactly the same.

I'm at a bit of a loss here.

Any suggestions?