[SOLUTION] Steam games 0xc000007b error

[Mr ♥♥♥]

I re-downloaded Steam for the first time in years, bought a game and had to deal with this error. Launching the game from Steam itself did nothing, the .exe popped up in the task manager momentarily and disappeared, but locating the file in the "steamapps" folder and launching it directly created a message box with the error "0xc000007b."

After tons of googling, I found an apparent solution on Sevenforums ( http://www.sevenforums.com/gaming/331214-unable-start-correctly-0xc000007b-skyrim-dirt3-goat-simulator.html ), but they refused to answer the OP because he pirated the games. So, no luck there. Not gonna ask them for help when they just spit in his face.

The error is fairly common, not just in games, but it basically means there's an architecture mismatch. It's an x86 program trying to load an x64 DLL, or vice versa.

The solution to this problem is fairly simple. You just need to download something like Dependency Walker, or similar, which will analyze and figure out exactly what it's trying to load.

E.g, open Dependency Walker, find (in my case) the Goat Simulator .exe file in steamapps (though it applies to any game), load it. It'll tell you what files it's trying to load, and it'll tell you whether they're the proper CPU type (x86/x64). (It'll actually point out if there are mismatches, and where they are)

At this point, you just need to get the proper version of whatever DLL file it listed. Say it says your game is trying to load ABCXYZ.dll in x64, but it needs x86, then google ABCXYZ.dll x86 download, find a source that you trust, and download it. First, put the DLL in C:\Windows\System32, and if that doesn't work, put it in C:\Windows, and if not that, then just in the folder with the game .exe file.

Hope this helps somebody (I was going to share it to Sevenforums but they banned me for "trolling" apparently. I suppose the irony in that is entirely lost on them.)