The post title is referring to an error shown when trying to launch a game through Steam , most often related to Team Fortress 2.
I had that annoying error for about months now, but recently resolved it. So I just thought of sharing what I did.
Here's what I did.
As some people may have suggested, I
1. Deleted everything in steam folder except : steamapps , steam.exe , and clientregistryOLD ( you renamed your current clientregistry )
2. Then I went into "safe mode with networking " <-- accessed="accessed" as="as" be="be" br="br" by="by" can="can" f8="f8" pressing="pressing" start="start" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" up.="up." you="you">3. I ran Steam as Admin , and then waited for it to "update"
What I realised in safe mode is that, nothing else other than the essentials are running in the background. For example : my antivirus wasn't running.
4. Then after updating, I validated my game cache . ( Steam -> library - > Right - click games -> properties -> local files )
& Defragment game files. I launched tf2 after all that.
5. I was monitoring the processes on Task Manager as I clicked play. Surprisingly hl2.exe was running, but the window would appear for awhile. ( before this it wouldn't even run )
6. I uninstalled my anti virus ( im using AVG ) and rebooted.
7. TF2 was playable .
Uhm on a side note, you can also try updating your graphic card driver. I'm not sure which steps would help you specifically but you can try all, I think uninstalling anti-virus could be of help, cause even though I placed tf2 and steam under exceptions it still wouldn't launch. Just a suggestion!
Goodluck!
As some people may have suggested, I
1. Deleted everything in steam folder except : steamapps , steam.exe , and clientregistryOLD ( you renamed your current clientregistry )
2. Then I went into "safe mode with networking " <-- accessed="accessed" as="as" be="be" br="br" by="by" can="can" f8="f8" pressing="pressing" start="start" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" up.="up." you="you">3. I ran Steam as Admin , and then waited for it to "update"
What I realised in safe mode is that, nothing else other than the essentials are running in the background. For example : my antivirus wasn't running.
4. Then after updating, I validated my game cache . ( Steam -> library - > Right - click games -> properties -> local files )
& Defragment game files. I launched tf2 after all that.
5. I was monitoring the processes on Task Manager as I clicked play. Surprisingly hl2.exe was running, but the window would appear for awhile. ( before this it wouldn't even run )
6. I uninstalled my anti virus ( im using AVG ) and rebooted.
7. TF2 was playable .
Uhm on a side note, you can also try updating your graphic card driver. I'm not sure which steps would help you specifically but you can try all, I think uninstalling anti-virus could be of help, cause even though I placed tf2 and steam under exceptions it still wouldn't launch. Just a suggestion!
Goodluck!