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I keep getting the "The Launcher cannot query DirectX. Please update DirectX by installing the latest redistributable"

I'm on Windows XP and this is the Steam version of the game. GPU=NVIDIA 9800 GTX+ running 285.x drivers (newest available for XP)

Problems started after the most recent patch (the patch that added directx 11 support... but I'm XP so whatevs).

Pre-Patch, I would get the problem, the launcher would crash, but then the game would start anyway, so I didn't care, but now it doesn't launch at all. I can't downgrade retroactively (as far as I know?) because it's Steam, so I don't have the original media.

I've tried reinstalling directx, uninstalling & reinstalling directx.

Launching the game directly, launching the game as admin (I'm running as admin already, but I do "Run As" and uncheck the "protect this computer box"), Launching steam as admin, validating the game cache. re-downloading and reinstalling. Nothing works. I've tried disabling my anti-virus (Avast) ("C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps" is already whitelisted). Tried downgrading my gfx drivers to 280.x version.

I have no idea how to proceed, but any tips would be great.

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My idea is Get Windows 7 and download directX 11 – user24863 May 3 '12 at 12:49

1 Answer

up vote 1 down vote

Most likely, Steam is trying to launch the DX11 executable of the game instead of the DX9 version. Try opening the install directory of the game(located in your "steamapps" folder), check if there's a DX9 version of the executable and try running that directly.

EDIT: You can also try running lanoire.exe directly instead of the Launcher program

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To add to this, there are steam options you can add to the launch properties that specify things like DX9 mode. Try Right click game -> properties -> launch options. Then add /dx9 – Doomsknight Mar 2 '12 at 13:16
I already tried launched the .exe directly, There's only 1 .exe, and adding /dx9 to the steam launch options but that did not work. Neither did launching with /dx9 as a launch option to LANoire.exe directly (via a shortcut). – GKMachine Mar 2 '12 at 22:06

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