Fix for game not launching

[JMM72]

If your Warlords doesn't launch, this has solved it for me. No other changes were made.

It's just due to a service in Windows for games, and the dreaded gameux.dll. It depends on what exact Windows version you're using, but for Windows 7 and since Warlords is a 32-bit application, the file you have to find is:
"C:\Windows\SysWOW64\gameux.dll"

You might need special permissions to access that folder, Google for "syswow64 access permission" and you should find several guides on how to access there.

Now *rename* the file to something like gameux.dll.old or similar. Don't delete it, you might need it.

That's it, should be fixed, the rest is an explanarantion.

The thing is that there's a service in Windows called Games Explorer. Some people know it's a resource hog and can hang or cause excessive CPU usage, and have uninstalled or disabled the service in one of several ways. The DLL can be present or not. Some games rely on services that might be uninstalled, some games cause the service to hang or cause problems, some games hang themselves if the service is not there but the DLL is present, some games require the DLL but not the service itself.

So, you might need the DLL in the future, for example just *yesterday* I had this problem with Just Cause 2, and many people were talking about memory, space, installing on system drive, using memory cleaners, that stuff. The error was caused just by the DLL not present.

IMHO it's yet another of those assumptions devs do about some services or files present of the system, followed by sloppy quality control, maybe thinking every computer is perfect in terms of enabled services, and if they're not *it's not their problem*. I've seen games needing WMP, even a certain version of WMP, a certain IE file or even setting, even just a system font that for some reason I uninstalled. And now I have two games, acquired in a span of 1 week, where one crashes if gameux.dll is not present, instead of gracefully skipping the feature related to it, and the other hangs if the DLL is present, because who knows why.

Rant over.

So in the future you have a strange crash on opening a new game, an error that makes no sense (Just Cause 2 said there was not enough storage space to complete the operation), or something, one thing you can try is to rename the DLL back to gameux.dll and retry.

[masternoxx1]

This is not the proper way to fix this. First I will post the proper way, and then at the end I will explain.


WIN7 64bit GAME EXPLORER DISABLE ---- by masternoxx1
GO TO C:\WINDOWS\SYSWOW64
FIND FILE CALLED GAMEUXLEGACYGDFS.DLL
RIGHT CLICK AND PROPERTIES
SECURITY, ADVANCED, OWNER
CHANGE OWNER TO YOU, ADMINISTRATOR
SAVE THEN GO BACK TO SECURITY, ADVANCED, PERMISSIONS
CHANGE YOUR PERMISSIONS TO FULL CONTROL
NOW OPEN THE STUPID FILE IN NOTEPAD
SELECT ALL AND DELETE ALL CONTENTS AND THEN SAVE IT
DONE






Windows Vista and Windows 7, has this stupid thing called game explorer which no one ever used that downloads game MPAA ratings from the internet mainly
This problem affects mostly older games such as Diablo2, Civilization4, Oblivion and many others. As described below.
(Other Windows versions such as 10, 8, and XP are not affected)
---------------------------
Windows 7 Game Explorer interfering with Game launching on systems lacking internet connections.
I've been without the net for about a week, and was agitated to notice that many of my games would not launch immediately, at first i thought it was my display drivers but more digging and watching the activity of Rundll upon a game launch, (and the fact that games not registered in the game exporer worked fine).
This has brought to light some issues in Windows 7 in regards to Gaming.
As we all know, Vista introduced the Game Explorer (GameUX.dll) which incorporates update checking and game information.
What most on't know, is that the instant a game is launched, Rundll.exe is spawned with the GameUX.dll,gameshim parametre and constantly polls the dns, network and domain functions in the OS.
The problem here, lies in the fact that if this process does not receive a response, the Game's process will sit frozen until a response is recieved.
Now the Rundll process actually acts as a mask for the games executable until the response from the servers is received, that said closing the rundll.exe prior to the handover being made will also close the Games executable.
You can work around this in a way by killing the actual game executable, which will keep the rundll open, and then opening the game executable again. However as it is polling the net api's (Wininet), Rundll will consume a full core (13% for my i7), until you close it. which can cause a number of issues in single core games, and the like.
I don't have anyway to directly contribute this, but its an issue in windows 7 which needs to be addressed, im sure it didn't occur in windows Vista, and i've reproduced it on multiple windows 7 installations, including my mothers home premium laptop and my brothers windows 7 ultimate laptop, as well as my own gaming pc. A lack of an internet connection SHOULD NOT, interfere with games that are registered with the Game Explorer.
It seems to have something to do with the Last Refresh timing, as modification of this value in the games information values (Registry) would modify the behavior, such as launching immediately as expected it should, or not launching at all with the rundll process consuming a full cores worth of cpu usage.
Edit
Just to note, after my net was restored, Rundll no longer chews through 13% of the cpu as it isn't constantly polling the network functions, (verified with processmon) and disappears within moments to launch the game.

===========================
I will explain now what happens. You launch an exe of a game and it goes through gameux.dll which then checks the database gameuxlegacygdfs.dll for the name of the game and other details. If it is not found then it does not hamper the game (which is what you want). If it is found then it will hang the game on first run, which is why it launches the SECOND time, and not the first. If you push ctrl alt delete you will find out that the from the first time you launched the game, the game EXE is RUNNING on your 2nd cpu core using nearly all of it trying to get some stuipid information from the internet from microsoft for its games service which is now shut down (it never completes).
The problem with deleting gameux.dll is that the same thing will happen, this time because it cannot find the gameux.dll file. Instead rundll32.exe will get stuck in limbo trying to load the gameux.dll file (which is now gone), so essentially it is almost the same problem.
The proper way is to remove the game entry from gameuxlegacygdfx.dll so that the EXE does not hang on the first execute. Note this is the ONLY WAY to avoid some process hanging.
If you do not believe me push ctrl alt del and you will see rundll32.exe using up half your CPU.

If you are using a 32bit OS the gameuxlegacygdfs.dll will be in a different location which I think is c:\windows\system32\ but if not there do a search.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_other-gaming/windows-7-game-explorer-interfering-with-game/efd39c74-cfab-4c2c-b6c5-834b8849a1b3#?page=1
-this is the entire post of the problem and the only thing that really works is posted on page 2 by qictamic.

[JMM72]

Just tried it, and I can confirm your method works, and it's better than mine - I can now have the DLL for JC2 or anyone which needs the DLL, and at the same time preventing other games to crash or consume CPU. TY.

[masternoxx1]

I'm not sure that you can overwrite the DLL without changing owner permissions, I don't think it will allow it, but maybe

[JMM72]

Definitely you have to change owner and permissions. Just by 'taking ownership' it's not enough.

[masternoxx1]

Right... thats what I meant... owner and permissions...
Whats really annoying about this is that to my knowledge Microsoft has not fixed this and has no plans to fix it, meanwhile on every game that is affected, you have people (who use Windows 7) mad at the developers and steam, when in fact it is not their fault whatsoever.
Perhaps I will send MS an email with instructions because are they too stupid or they just want you to buy Windows 10.

I didn't realize that the process was using another core until I tried to play Civilization 4 on my laptop, during which my laptop heated way up and started acting jittery, during which I pushed ctrl-alt-delete and saw TWO civilzation4.exe running, and then I realized, "ah that first time I double clicked it is still running" even though nothing happened on the screen to indicate it. With this fix my laptop can play Civ4 without overheating or I can play an mp3 in the background if I want to.

I was not able to notice much of a performance loss on my Desktop, on which I play Oblivion, and one day about 1.5 years ago I double clicked it and nothing happened. Then double clicked it again and it ran. So I was like, oh thats strange, whatever...

1.5 years ago is when they shut the game explorer server down I believe.
Regardless I don't like windows connecting to MS without my permission, why so they can spy on you, make sure you're not a little kid playing "adult" games or whatever stupid reason.

Microsoft need to patch this now

[JMM72]

I still receive updates for Windows 7, if they shut down the server how come they didn't issue any update to disable this for everyone on their systems? Also it's wrong that the whole service can't accept the servers aren't online and it just hangs, instead of just exiting gracefully. It's all very badly designed, both MS and game devs.

And yes they want us to get Windows 10. I'll return to Linux before 10, it's too bad for me for so many reasons.

[laub_michael]

I have the same issue with my Mac. How can I fix it there?

[JMM72]

I suggest you to open a new thread with your query, giving as many details and symptoms as you can. Macs have a completely different OS and your problem will have different causes, and you'll have more luck if you make a Mac-only thread.

[Deadeye]

thank you it works

[Tessitups]

Originally posted by masternoxx1:

This is not the proper way to fix this. First I will post the proper way, and then at the end I will explain.


WIN7 64bit GAME EXPLORER DISABLE ---- by masternoxx1
GO TO C:\WINDOWS\SYSWOW64
FIND FILE CALLED GAMEUXLEGACYGDFS.DLL
RIGHT CLICK AND PROPERTIES
SECURITY, ADVANCED, OWNER
CHANGE OWNER TO YOU, ADMINISTRATOR
SAVE THEN GO BACK TO SECURITY, ADVANCED, PERMISSIONS
CHANGE YOUR PERMISSIONS TO FULL CONTROL
NOW OPEN THE STUPID FILE IN NOTEPAD
SELECT ALL AND DELETE ALL CONTENTS AND THEN SAVE IT
DONE


i did all this but when i save the file i receive an error message from windows saying: refused acces...