Earlier I posted this question. I finally found an installer that seemed to work. Now I have the TeXworks icon on my desktop. So I ran it on a .tex file. I got this console output:
Sorry, but "MiKTeX Configuration Utility" did not succeed.
The log file hopefully contains the information to get MiKTeX going again:
C:/Users/Yarb/AppData/Local/MiKTeX/2.9/miktex/log/initexmf.log
You may want to visit the MiKTeX project page (http://miktex.org), if you
need help.
Sorry, but C:\Program Files (x86)\MiKTeX 2.9\miktex\bin\texify.exe did not succeed.
The log file hopefully contains the information to get MiKTeX going again:
C:/Users/Yarb/AppData/Local/MiKTeX/2.9/miktex/log/texify.log
You may want to visit the MiKTeX project page (http://miktex.org), if you
need help.
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I went to that log file and found this:
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2015-09-10 18:28:20,953-0500 INFO texify - running 'initexmf --quiet --update-fndb' to refresh the file name database<br>
2015-09-10 18:28:20,999-0500 FATAL texify - The operation failed for some reason.<br>
2015-09-10 18:28:20,999-0500 FATAL texify - Info: C:\Program Files (x86)\MiKTeX 2.9\miktex\bin\initexmf.exe<br>
2015-09-10 18:28:20,999-0500 FATAL texify - Source: Libraries\MiKTeX\Core\Process.cpp<br>
2015-09-10 18:28:20,999-0500 FATAL texify - Line: 290<br>
2015-09-10 18:29:56,841-0500 INFO texify - running 'initexmf --quiet --update-fndb' to refresh the file name database<br>
2015-09-10 18:29:56,884-0500 FATAL texify - The operation failed for some reason.<br>
2015-09-10 18:29:56,884-0500 FATAL texify - Info: C:\Program Files (x86)\MiKTeX 2.9\miktex\bin\initexmf.exe<br>
2015-09-10 18:29:56,884-0500 FATAL texify - Source: Libraries\MiKTeX\Core\Process.cpp<br>
2015-09-10 18:29:56,884-0500 FATAL texify - Line: 290<br>
2015-09-10 18:30:00,495-0500 INFO texify - running 'initexmf --quiet --update-fndb' to refresh the file name database<br>
2015-09-10 18:30:00,544-0500 FATAL texify - The operation failed for some reason.<br>
2015-09-10 18:30:00,545-0500 FATAL texify - Info: C:\Program Files (x86)\MiKTeX 2.9\miktex\bin\initexmf.exe<br>
2015-09-10 18:30:00,545-0500 FATAL texify - Source: Libraries\MiKTeX\Core\Process.cpp<br>
2015-09-10 18:30:00,545-0500 FATAL texify - Line: 290
2015-09-10 18:30:43,457-0500 INFO texify - running 'initexmf --quiet --update-fndb' to refresh the file name database<br>
2015-09-10 18:30:43,503-0500 FATAL texify - The operation failed for some reason.<br>
2015-09-10 18:30:43,503-0500 FATAL texify - Info: C:\Program Files (x86)\MiKTeX 2.9\miktex\bin\initexmf.exe<br>
2015-09-10 18:30:43,503-0500 FATAL texify - Source: Libraries\MiKTeX\Core\Process.cpp<br>
2015-09-10 18:30:43,503-0500 FATAL texify - Line: 290
