Solved: Steam and the Visual C++ Runtime Error
Unless you live under a rock you have heard about Valve's Orange Box, the blockbuster title that features all three Half-Life 2 games, Team Fortress 2 and Portal, which is fast becoming a gaming legend in its own right.
Totally sweet, right? Well, not if you you are unable to get Steam, Valve's online community/activation service, working on your Windows-based computer. Even if you buy buy the game at a physical store, you must install and run Steam to play any of the games included in the Orange Box.
However, I was not able to run Steam on my XP box for quite some time; I always got the damnable MS Visual C++ Runtime error. So what to do?
I tried everything. I made sure not to run any conflicting applications, in fact I made sure not to run anything else at all. But that didn't work.
I cleaned my registry, I applied a Microsoft XP hotfix, I ran memtest after memtest ... nothing seemed to work. Until that is I finally ran across a random post suggesting the issue might be due to corruption of files in the local computer's user account.
I made a new user account on my machine and wouldn't you know it? Steam started right up like a charm. If you are unsure how to create a new user account, simply click the "Start" button then find and click the option "Control Panel." You will see an option called "User Accounts;" this is where you can create a new account. Make sure to give it administrator privileges since you will probably want to start using this new account in place of the older, corrupt account.
If you are having this same issue, I highly recommend giving this a shot before you go so far as to reformat your drive and re-install XP. Now I just want to know what caused the corruption in the first place. I think this solution may have also "fixed" a problem with my Photoshop CS2 tools palette, but I haven't confirmed it for sure yet.
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November 1st, 2007 - 21:35
Wow, thank you! I am running Vista-32, and had the exact same problem. I tried what you said, and it works perfectly! I still wish I could figure out how to fix the original problem though.
November 6th, 2007 - 09:12
Thanx. I’ve been trying to fix this with the ‘help’ of the steam techs for nearly 2 weeks
November 16th, 2007 - 14:35
It really worked. Thank you.
Windows XP Professional SP2
: )
December 9th, 2007 - 07:53
Great!! It works for me too!! (windows vista 32bit)!! You’re a genius!
Now post this solution in Steam’s website..I know that many other gamers have this problem.. thx!
January 5th, 2008 - 15:23
This worked for me on XP also. I simply did a “Run As…” and selected Administrator and it worked. I was reluctant to create a new user account and loose all the settings.
I eventualy determined that the underlying problem was the Steam registry keys in the user account did not have read/write permission.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Valve
If you cannot view these keys, then from the popup select Permissions… and enable Full Control & Read for your user name.
After that, I deleted the key, and from then on steam started fine in my user account.
Good Luck.
May 16th, 2008 - 19:32
thz a lot jer that did the trick, i wonder how it lost its permissions though
June 5th, 2008 - 04:25
I resolve this in another way, by simply copying 5 dll files in the halflife2 directory:
It seems that the Half life installation misses some files or it does not look for them in the right directory. I did this:
search your hard drive for:
winsta.dll
shimeng.dll
setupapi.dll
wtsapi32.dll
and copy them into program files\steam\steamapps\\half-life 2\
then copy the file engine.dll located in
program files\steam\steamapps\\half-life 2\bin
to the following directory:
program files\steam\steamapps\\half-life 2\
now the game magically works.
June 5th, 2008 - 18:41
hey im having this problem too. but for world of warcraft, i have brand new vista pc. will this work for me, even tho its for wow?
June 6th, 2008 - 01:11
Charini: Without really knowing what your problem is, I did find this thread on the WoW EU forums:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=1610111077&sid=1
According to this thread it happens with WoW due to the presence of a trojan/virus on your computer! You will probably want to do a virus scan and contact Blizzard support for better help.
August 12th, 2008 - 19:10
I had this problem also, and this advice fixed it! But now i have yet another problem…My brother bought the orange box, and it works for his computer. So now I installed steam, and I tried to get TF2 BUT it wont install because I need a new serial key code or something. I need help! Do I need to buy a whole new game?
September 15th, 2008 - 01:59
I applied the hotfix edi but not work for me….
[I made a new user account on my machine and wouldn’t you know it? Steam started right up like a charm. If you are unsure how to create a new user account, simply click the “Start” button then find and click the option “Control Panel.” You will see an option called “User Accounts;” this is where you can create a new account. Make sure to give it administrator privileges since you will probably want to start using this new account in place of the older, corrupt account.]
same cant…any more solution?
February 16th, 2009 - 11:35
Sweet – permission fix did it. THANKS ALOT
March 3rd, 2009 - 17:19
i just wanted to say that I love this site
June 1st, 2009 - 12:50
The fix with copying 5 DLL files worked for me.
Thanks
October 31st, 2009 - 08:14
I have the same problem with Torchlight. I tried the fix with copying 5 DLL but it did’nt work. :/
August 3rd, 2010 - 08:54
I tried that fix and it didn’t work, however I did find that I can run steam, get that error and ignore it. I never press ‘ok’ and so far steam has worked like a charm. I’m not positive if it will allow me to run games as I’m downloading one as I type, however I presume since it let me begin to download them that it should be able to run the program. It’s annoying, but I figure it’s better then having to reformat and what not.
February 6th, 2011 - 21:40
I still have this error you fucktards at steam valve evil corp
March 14th, 2011 - 20:59
^Me too. Tried everything.
June 11th, 2011 - 03:11
I reinstalled Steam, worked like a charm.
August 11th, 2011 - 07:59
I downloaded (and it cost 13,99€) Super Meat Boy, and everytime i tried to play it this same error came to me… I´ll try this and damn, i hope it works…
November 2nd, 2011 - 04:19
THIS FIX did not work! Am trying dadopap’s suggestion now. Its fucking pathetic that steam hasn’t fixed this 4 year old problem yet.