Strange error which is stopping me from playing

[TheWackson]

Hi all,

I installed New Vegas on my new PC and I cannot seem to play the game. Whenever I click on play in the New Vegas launcher it would simply close and bring me this error:

 

"The application was unable to start correctly (0xc000007b)"

 

Now this is the strange bit for me, I've tried pretty much every method I've seen about New Vegas crashing on start-up and nothing seems to work. This included the drivers, compatibility mode ect...

I've been in contact with both Steam and Bethesta customer support and cannot seem to help me- rather they just tell me that its an error on either side...

 

I'm on my last legs right now, I've got no mods for it what-so ever installed and I've uninstalled and reinstalled it 3 times now.

I really hope you guys could help me out here thanks.

 

I've also attatched the application error for clarity.

[dubiousintent]

Please see this web article regarding that exception code.

 

Which version of Windows are you running? Is it 32-bit or 64-bit? Is it fully patched / up-to-date?

 

Was this error code the first problem you encountered after initially installing the game, or did you attempt to re-install the game before it showed up? If you applied the 4GB patch before you ever launched the "FalloutLauncher", it may have caused an obscure problem identified by Kitty Black (aka "Purr4me") a little while ago. No sense confusing the picture if that isn't the case.

 

As we don't know exactly what you have tried ("everything I know of" doesn't mean we don't know of something else), so likely we are going to mention things you have already tried. It's a process of elimination. We've collected everything we can find in one place, but even so there are always things missing.

 

* Did you install Steam to it's default location? If so, please see the wiki "Installing Games on Windows Vista+" article for why the original default Steam behavior of installing games to the "C:\Program Files" or "C:\Program Files(x86)" folder tree was bad (they learned better, and don't do that any more); and why "disabling UAC and running as Administrator" is NOT sufficient, with instructions how to move it. This is the single most important thing you can do to fix and protect yourself against problems in the future. As much of a PITA as that is, it's never going to be any easier than now. System updates often cause issues with games installed to these folder trees. With the game moved out of the default location you will not need to be running it as an "Administrator Account", which is safer. Please see the 'Restoring to "Vanilla"' section of the wiki "FNV General Mod Use Advice" article as well.

 

Please see the 'Solutions to Starting the game problems' section in the wiki "Fallout NV Mod Conflict Troubleshooting" guide.

In particular, make sure you have launched the "Steam Client" first before attempting to launch the game. You do NOT have to launch the game from the Steam "Library". You can in fact run the Client in "off-line mode" with saved credentials, but you do still have to run it first FOR EACH game session. Then you should check that you have the DirectX 9 and latest .NET DLLs installed (also).

 

Finally, after each "fix" is applied, check your Windows EventLog for other errors. Anytime the game "Crashes to the Desktop" (CTD) it's typically going to generate an error message in the Windows Eventlog under either "Application" or "System" tabs. These do not always appear "on screen". Please see the "Windows Error Messages" section of the wiki "How to read most Bethesda game error logs" article.

-Dubious-

[TheWackson]

Hi, I did play around with the 4GB launcher when I was trying to originally start the game. As I thought that maybe that would be a way of fixing it...

I've installed steam in its default location as I'm not too tech savvy and I never knew that the default location was bad. In my messages to steam support however, they mentioned that this is an issue outside of the steam client

so they just threw the towel in without really giving any proper advice.

 

I've tried a few things from the disk genius website,(methods: 3,4, and 5) with no luck. Most of the stuff on there with the exception of the 3rd party software I've tried with no luck in the past.

Is the original post of "Kitty Black" still around I'm wondering?

[dubiousintent]

Your problem technically doesn't match the symptoms that Kitty was addressing, but we also don't know all the circumstances under which the problem arises. However, it is a pretty rare case. I've added the gist of her solution (and a link to the post) as entry "Issue - Game freezing on launch after re-install" under the "Solutions to Starting the game problems" section of the wiki "Fallout NV Mod Conflict Troubleshooting" article, along with some other similar problem solutions. I recommend you try the following and the other solutions in the entry first.

 

As for the solutions in this web article regarding that exception code that you tried, for Nr 5 and 6, you want to be sure you have the 32-bit versions installed. IF you have a 64-bit OS installed, by default it will only install the 64-bit version and you have to make sure you ALSO install the 32-bit versions by choice. (They will go into separate folder paths, so they don't overwrite each other.)

 

The TomsHardWare site has a good list of these "0xc000007b" error causes as well. But when the problem only occurs with FNV on a Windows 10 or later system, the most likely reason is due to the age of the game. At the time it was released, the game was designed to look for DirectX9 files with specific versions in the file names. Later versions of DirectX might be "backwards compatible", but the file names are not the same and the game does not recognize them as being equivalent. Please see "Cause-1" in the Issue: Vanilla game Hangs on startup section of the wiki "Fallout NV Mod Conflict Troubleshooting" guide.

 

-Dubious-