I've just installed MiKTeX and then installed TexMaker. When I try to compile a document that is known to be valid, I get:
could not start the command pdflatex -synctex=1 interaction=nonstopmode %.tex
I'm not sure if this is the problem but I noticed that MiKTeX is not in Program Files or Program Files X86. Instead, I find it in C:\Users\theUser\AppData\Local\MiKTeX and also in C:\Users\theUser\AppData\Local\Programs\MiKTeX. The DVI Viewer in TexMaker is set to the latter path.
I'm really not sure what all of the commands mean in the configuration window of TexMaker but it seems like I have some sort of path issue here.
Note that I can compile the .tex document if I use TeXworks that came with my MiKTeX installation and then if I open the .tex in TexMaker, I see the compiled PDF in the built-in viewer but I still get the same error no matter what I try to build.