Biber not running - located in PATH, no error messages with compilation, biber --help produces no output

Question

On MS Windows 10, 64 bit, recent TeXlive instalation, I am unable to run Biber. I am using TeXWorks for compilation. When biber is called, it produces no output in console and running lualatex biber lualatex produces same output as running only lualatex.

• Biblatex v. 3.14
• Biber from TeXlive 2019

Searching with where biber in windows cmd line, I get correct location of instalation:

C:\texlive\2019\bin\win32\biber.exe

same binary is also used in TeXworks as compilation tool.

According to answer here:

Troubleshooting for biber

issuing in cmd line

biber --help

produces no output whatsoever (no webpage, no error). How can I resolve this situation? How can I reinstall Biber, preferably via tlmgr? This issue is present on my Office PC (at work), so I might not be able to tinker with TeXlive installation fully.

As MWE (in case content of .aux files or so is required) could work example from Overleaf tutorial:

https://fr.overleaf.com/learn/latex/Bibliography_management_with_biblatex

MWE

\documentclass{article}

%citations

\begin{filecontents}{sample.bib}
@article{einstein,
    author =       "Albert Einstein",
    title =        "{Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter K{\"o}rper}. ({German})
    [{On} the electrodynamics of moving bodies]",
    journal =      "Annalen der Physik",
    volume =       "322",
    number =       "10",
    pages =        "891--921",
    year =         "1905",
    DOI =          "http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/andp.19053221004",
    keywords =     "physics"
}

@book{dirac,
    title={The Principles of Quantum Mechanics},
    author={Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac},
    isbn={9780198520115},
    series={International series of monographs on physics},
    year={1981},
    publisher={Clarendon Press},
    keywords = {physics}
}

@online{knuthwebsite,
    author    = "Donald Knuth",
    title     = "Knuth: Computers and Typesetting",
    url       = "http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/abcde.html",
    keywords  = "latex,knuth"
}

@inbook{knuth-fa,
    author = "Donald E. Knuth",
    title = "Fundamental Algorithms",
    publisher = "Addison-Wesley",
    year = "1973",
    chapter = "1.2",
    keywords  = "knuth,programming"
}
\end{filecontents}

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}

\usepackage{comment}

\usepackage[
backend=biber,
style=alphabetic,
sorting=ynt
]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{sample.bib}

\title{Bibliography management: \texttt{biblatex} package}
\author{Overleaf}
\date{ }

\begin{document}

\maketitle

Using \texttt{biblatex} you can display bibliography divided into sections, 
depending of citation type. 
Let's cite! The Einstein's journal paper \cite{einstein} and the Dirac's 
book \cite{dirac} are physics related items. 
Next, \textit{The \LaTeX\ Companion} book \cite{latexcompanion}, the Donald 
Knuth's website \cite{knuthwebsite}, \textit{The Comprehensive Tex Archive 
Network} (CTAN) \cite{ctan} are \LaTeX\ related items; but the others Donald 
Knuth's items \cite{knuth-fa,knuth-acp} are dedicated to programming. 

\medskip

\printbibliography

\end{document}

Answer 1

This answer is written according to comments posted by Mrs. Fischer. With her guidance, I was able to solve my issue. This solution is specific to Windows users with user-control enabled (usually a company setting).

It seems, that biber during execution requires to be "unpacked." This process is blocked from user-control due to forbidden write location. You should follow these steps (tested on Win10 with user control):

1. Create new user environment variable called PAR_GLOBAL_VARIABLE and set it to path, where you have guaranteed writing access (somewhere, where you have your own files). I recommend create new empty folder for that.
2. start cmd.exe and start command biber --help. That executes biber and makes it unpack in location, which you have specified. It takes some time and its a lot files, so make yourself a coffee or tee
3. After that, in cmd output you will get biber help page. That signals it is working.
4. Set compilation tool path in your tex editor (in my case, TeXworks) to path where you "unpacked" biber to biber.exe file newly created.
5. Test a compilation run, it should work OK.