[2022] EU4 not Launching on Windows

Has this game ever worked on this machine? Or never yet?

When you ran eu4.exe manually was any Windows error shown?

ryarovyk said: but for some reason, logs and settings.txt are not in the folder:

settings.txt ought to be in the same folder as pdx_settings.txt . There should also be a /logs/ folder there - is there not?

What antivirus do you use? Some need extra steps.  

As the problem happens when you run eu4.exe directly, the issue is nothing to do with the launcher.

When you ran eu4.exe manually was any Windows error shown?  

That 0xc00007b Windows error is almost always caused by a missing or bad Microsoft module, usually Visual C++.

In the Windows control panel uninstall ALL instances of VC++ 2010 and 2015/17/19/22 - there may be several of each. No need to touch any others.

Then Install these Microsoft modules:

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

www.microsoft.com And run the x86 and x64 installers there.

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

www.microsoft.com And run the x86 and x64 installers there.

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.

then reboot.

Does the fix that 0xc00007b error?  

ryarovyk said: the arm64 files give me an error saying it's not compatible with my computer

Which is why I said to only run the x86 and x64 installers!


We have one more shot; I'm afraid this is a bit of work, but please delete this list of files (about 50 in total)

C:\Windows\SysWOW64\mfc100.dll
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\mfc100u.dll
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\msvcp100.dll
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\msvcr100.dll
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\msvcr100_clr0400.dll *
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\xinput1_3.dll
C:\Windows\System32\mfc100.dll
C:\Windows\System32\mfc100u.dll
C:\Windows\System32\msvcp100.dll
C:\Windows\System32\msvcr100.dll
C:\Windows\System32\msvcr100_clr0400.dll *
C:\Windows\System32\xinput1_3.dll

* you may need to change user permissions on these two files before you can delete them. If they won't delete, don't worry about them

PLUS all files that fit the pattern d3dx9_??.dll in both those folders; usually about 20 in each.

Then run those 6 installers above again, plus this one:

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

www.microsoft.com (run dxsetup.exe after extracting this download to its own folder anywhere on your computer)