Any fix/patch yet for the starting problems?!?!

[Erik]

I'm still expierencing problems when I want to start the game. Everytime I want to play the game I get one of these two messages:

1. Failed to initialize Steam

2. Application is already running

I've verified all the game files mutliple times, downloaded some updates, updated my graphic card driver to the latest version. Nothing solves this problem. All of my other steam games work perfectly.

I know I'm not the only one with this problem, why don't they fix this?

[al]

We're hijacking this thread beotches!

Harmonica, Do a clean boot[support.microsoft.com], and run the Hitman launcher first thing after it starts up and let me know.

[Harmonica]

Dogen: need to offer you a big thanks! :) Your tip of switching to the release beta version and downloading that was a good one! After Steam had sorted out the files on my drive, the game launcher ran correctly, and I was able to start the game from it without issue. Wow. What made you think of trying that? I might have lost my save games, perhaps (will have to dig around), but that is a small price to pay.

And I need to ask, do you know what situation this puts my game version in? It says 1.04. Is it competely outdated? Dare I risk now updated to the current version again? Hmm. I'm going to create an archive of this current setup of the game, though.

Big thankyou. Nice to just see the game run again and know that (hopefully) that rules out serious issues, and its a version compatibility. This gives me something to work with..

[al]

That's great Harmonica. I'm glad it worked. I saw that option a few weeks ago when I tried to see why I didn't have access to Sniper Challenge (still don't). Since that worked, that gives me more confidence that something corrupted either the exe or the setting that says it is a valid executable. So ... I think you could now "Opt Out" of the beta and then have access to your old saves.

[Gray Fox sTp]

Dogen: Your tip worked for me also. Its funny since apparently Square Enix has no idea what is going on. I contacted them and they tried to blame my computer of course. What's more, they take forever to respond. I've had the game for two weeks now and I was only just able to play it yesterday because of your help Dogen.

Thanks a bunch!

[Harmonica]

Yeah the classic response to problems over the decades has always been 'update drivers' or something, ie 'its your fault not ours' - which apparently only works in the computer/tech industry, in others you simply do not tell the customer it is their problem (ie 'the customer is always right').

Updating drivers has never once worked to stop problems I've had with games, or at least not since the late 90s. It mostly just messes up a system which was working fine.

[Olebrumgreven]

I had the exact same problem. What work for me was to start the launcher, enter options and turn of exclusive fullscreen. So keep the fullscreen option, but turn of the EXCLUSIVE fullscreen just to the right of normal fullscreen. This fixed the startup "application is already running" problem, removed the long blackscreen pause I had before the intro movie and all over made my game run smoother.
No idea why it worked though, but if it works for you as well the spread the word.

[Harmonica]

I don't know if that was my problem.

Additionally I should add that I haven't really played the game since this 'fix' above because the graphics are a lot lot worse than they should be (very blurry, hard to describe specifically, but just looked broken), possibly because I reverted to a launch version. Hopefully when I roll back to the current version it will fix that.

[Olebrumgreven]

I have now idea what my problem was, but this worked. Just give it a try.
I have no problem with graphics though. Runs smooth on Ultra and looks really nice. So you might have another mystery problem then mine.