TeXworks pdflatex compilation does not terminate

Question

I am new to LaTeX. I took a sample tex code and tried to typeset using TeXworks after choosing pdflatex option. I get this displayed in the console output.

This is pdfTeX, Version 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.15 (MiKTeX 2.9)

But apart from this, there is nothing and the compilation does not terminate - the red logo with white x is displayed no matter how long I wait. I have to click on that to manually terminate. No file is generated by compilation process in the folder. This is the code that I tried to compile:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{geometry}
\geometry{a4paper}
\usepackage[francais]{babel}
\title{Premier document}
\author{Un TeXnicien}
\date{}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\end{document}

Even if there are errors in my code, I would expect error messages. This seems like I have started running an infinite loop. What should I do to generate pdf file? I have been spending hours on this with no solution. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have tried this compilation with command line, LEd and LyX. And the compilation does not terminate in any of these!

Answer 1

Your output looks as if the pdflatex executable is broken. It doesn't load the format. pdflatex.exe is only a small wrapper for a call to pdftex and can be remade with initexmf (http://docs.miktex.org/2.9/manual/initexmf.html).

So try on the command line initexmf --admin --force --mklinks (if you have only a single user installation leave out the --admin).