Trying to run the game through steam on windows 7 64-bit OS, please help.

[mohfuu]

Haven't played medieval 2 in ages, I felt a sudden urge.

I'm trying to run Medieval II: Total War on windows 7 64-bit via Steam.
There seems to be an error with the launcher.exe

I run the game through steam.
Launcher.exe starts, brings me to a menu when I can press play.
When I press play I get an error from steam telling me that "failed to start game(the app is already running)" or some such BS.
This seems to be caused by the launcher.exe still running after it should essentially have closed down.

I tried to replace the launcher.exe with what according to a steam support poster should have been a working version of the launcher, but now the launcher.exe isn't on my list of processes in the task manager and when I try starting the game I still get the message without getting the launcher.exe to even startup at all.

Does anyone know what version medieval 2 is on steam (kingdoms not installed (don't know if that is even relevant)) Because at this point I think I just need to find a crack that overrides steam in cockblocking me from playing.

Or is this a common problem with an easy solution?

I'll post a solution if I find one, otherwise assume that my problem remains unfixed.

[irishron]

You have to be smarter than Win 7 when running an old XP program. ther is a host of them, Steam or my old dvds.

1. Log in as Administrator.
2. Disable the UAC.
3. In the launcher's icon or launcher.exe iteself, set it "Run as Administrator" and "XP mode".

If this does not do it, we shall add more to the list.

[mohfuu]

Progress but not success.

The launcher starts.
I click play.
It launches another launcher.
I click play.
At this point the before-mentioned error is displayed from steam.

[irishron]

Take ownership of C: drive. http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...Store-Problems is a good start.

If this does not do it, install Steam anyplace but Program Files (x86). I've had it in C:\Game and I now have it in D:\Games.

[mohfuu]

Take ownership of C: drive. http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...Store-Problems is a good start.

If this does not do it, install Steam anyplace but Program Files (x86). I've had it in C:\Game and I now have it in D:\Games.

I had full rights to C:\ and I only have one drive, I had my game installed in C:\Games\Steam\Steamapps\common\Medieval II Total War

I tried making my own launcher.exe which simply ran a command to start medieval2.exe
It was unsuccessful and caused an infinite loop until I terminated the process.

[irishron]

It can be done legitimately as too many have already done it.

Have you read this? https://support.steampowered.com/kb_...9828-SFLZ-9289

[mohfuu]

Yes, I've read that.
The problem is exclusive to Medieval 2: Total War. No other steam game I have fails to launch nor have I had that happen before.
There seems to be some kind of inconsistency between the launcher.exe and steam on what should be running and when.

No anti-virus or firewall could have hindered any of this, I don't have any of the processes listed on the steam support page active. My computer is running with a minimum of processes interfering and the chance it is some other conflict than one inherent to launcher.exe or interplay with Steam is next to none. I think launcher.exe has just become outdated and nobody seems to have a substitute for this.

[mohfuu]

Alright, the problem seems to be solved by legitimate means now.

Seems steam is to blame for this.
I restarted steam and steam applied an update. This seems to be the most likely suspect.

Also worth noting is that I specifically ran Steam.exe as administrator on the attempt that was successful, it should be set to run as admin by default.
I also made sure that both "medieval2.exe" and "launcher.exe" were running as administrator and in "Windows XP (service pack 3)" compatibility mode.

Launcher.exe is still lingering in the background and seems to be playing an annoying music that overlaps the in-game music until the music eventually fades out.
Is there any fix to this?

[irishron]

There is a launcher.exe fix on Steam in their forums by one of their members. The link I had disappeared with my last disc reformat. Check over there.

[mohfuu]

I found one on the steam forums, mentioned in the fourth paragraph of the original post however that was for version 1.2 I'm using medieval 2 version 1.3

[irishron]

It should work. 1.3 was basically for multiplayer, not singleplayer.