"Launching Game failed"

[Thamor]

Hi,

I cannot seem to get any Paradox game I own to start. I always get the error "Launching the game failed" in a red triangle when clicking play.

1. I do not use mods.
2. I have tried Borderless, Windowed and Fullscreen.
3. I have uninstalled the games, deleted the local files and even deleted steam and I am still getting the same issues.
4. I have run the Visual C++ x86 and x64 installers.
5. I have patched Windows with the latest update.
6. All my drivers are up to date.

I have attached some required information. I do not have system.log , error.log or settings.txt.

Many thanks

 

[AndrewT]

Has the game ever run successfully on this computer? Or never?

What antivirus app do you use? Add stellaris.exe to the exceptions list of your antivirus app; ESPECIALLY if you have Windows Defender, add it to the Ransomware "Apps Allowed Through" list

If you exit the Steam app and run stellaris.exe directly from File Explorer, do you get a Windows error when it fails then? Or what happens?

 

[Thamor]

Has the game ever run successfully on this computer? Or never?

What antivirus app do you use? Add stellaris.exe to the exceptions list of your antivirus app; ESPECIALLY if you have Windows Defender, add it to the Ransomware "Apps Allowed Through" list

If you exit the Steam app and run stellaris.exe directly from File Explorer, do you get a Windows error when it fails then? Or what happens?

Hi Andrew, thanks for the reply.


No Paradox game has run on this computer. I haven't installed a specific antivirus on this machine yet, and I have added Stellaris to Windows Firewall and Virus Threat protection exclusion lists (C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Stellaris and C:\Users\***\Documents\Paradox Interactive)

I tried running the application using administrator with Steam closed through "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Stellaris" but get the error "The application was unable to start correctly (0xc000007b). Click OK to close the application.

Still no luck.

Many thanks

 

[AndrewT]

That error usually means a bad or missing Microsoft module, commonly Visual C++.

Please Install ALL these Microsoft modules:

Download Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Service Pack 1 Redistributable Package MFC Security Update from Official Microsoft Download Center

A security issue has been identified leading to a vulnerability in MFC applications that are built with Visual Studio 2010 and ship the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Service Pack 1 Redistributable Package.

www.microsoft.com

Download Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable Update 3 RC from Official Microsoft Download Center

This update is the latest in a cumulative series of feature additions and bug fixes for Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable.

www.microsoft.com

Download DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010) from Official Microsoft Download Center

The Microsoft DirectX® End-User Runtime installs a number of runtime libraries from the legacy DirectX SDK for some games that use D3DX9, D3DX10, D3DX11, XAudio 2.7, XInput 1.3, XACT, and/or Managed DirectX 1.1. Note that this package does not modify the DirectX Runtime installed on your Windows...

www.microsoft.com

(run dxsetup.exe after extracting from this download)

THEn go here:

Latest supported Visual C++ Redistributable downloads

This article lists the download links for the latest versions of Visual C++ Redistributable packages.

support.microsoft.com

And run the x86 and x64 installers there.

Please let me know what happens with each one of those 5 installs, any error or problem.

 

[Thamor]

All of those downloads were repairing the existing installations, so instead, I deleted my existing installations, rebooted and installed the ones you suggested.

However, I am still getting the same errors in both the Paradox launcher and when I am trying to run the application from the local files.

Thanks.

 

[Thamor]

Hi Andrew,

I made the decision to rebuild my OS today and it seems to have fixed the problem.

I appreciate you taking the time to help me.

Tom

 

[AndrewT]

Probably one of those DLLs was corrupted or infected by malware. Glad you got there so quickly , well done!

 

[filip133]

How you rebuild your OS? I've on new laptop error with VS C++ and .NET Framework, and I can't run Stellaris :/

 

[AndrewT]

How you rebuild your OS? I've on new laptop error with VS C++ and .NET Framework, and I can't run Stellaris :/

That is not something we can help with. But your problem is very unlikely to need that. Make your own thread here, and give full problem details and history, and system details. Thanks.