Error when "updating formats"

Hi,

I use a MiKTeX portable (2.9) on my work laptop (no admin rights, Win7x64).. Because I cannot download packages at work using the package manager, I have set up MikTeX to download all packages when I was at home.


However, after that, clicking on "Update formats" (in the "MikTeX Options" program) results in the error "The MikTeX configuration utility failed. Do you want to see the transcript?". When clicking on Yes, I get the following error: 


miktex-makefmt: Unknown engine: 
initexmf.EXE: The operation failed for some reason.
initexmf.EXE: Data: C:\Downloads\MikTeX\miktex\bin\miktex-makefmt.exe



(both executables are present)


Also, if I go to the "Formats" tab  and look at the details of format definitions, much of the information is missing; format key and name are present, but everything else is blank, including fields that previously were not (compiler, input file name, description, and for some formats the preloaded format). The preloaded format list is populated, but the compiler list is not!!


What may cause this issue? Any idea on how to repair that (without needing admin rights, or re-installing the whole thing which may get broken again as the full list of packages is installed...)?




Thanks in advance for the help!


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