How-to Install Games for Windows Live

How to get Resident Evil 5 (and other Games for Windows Live games) running on Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10, 11, etc.

tl;dr

If you just installed Resident Evil 5 and your game isn't starting it's most likely because you don't have GFWL installed. You can download it here on PCGamingWiki[community.pcgamingwiki.com].

Once you download the .zip file, you can extract all of the files and it should look like this:

After that's downloaded and extracted, just run gfwlivesetup.exe and you should be good to go.

The Problem

The main problem with getting RE5 to run is that the G4WL installer that's included with the game (redist/gfwlivesetup.exe) will not work.

When you first install the game, or more often than not every time you launch the game, the BH5AE_install.vdf (source[gist.github.com]) | depot[steamdb.info]) file will try and run the default gfwlivesetup.exe installer.

In case you're not familiar with what a .vdf file is, it's a Valve Data File. You will also see these referred to as "Valve's KeyValue format". If you want to read more about the install scripts you can read this Steamworks documentation on "Creating and using InstallScripts".

Here's the relevant part of Resident Evil 5's install script (BH5AE_install.vdf):

"Run Process"
{
	"GFWL"
	{
		"process 1"		"%INSTALLDIR%\\redist\\gfwlivesetup.exe"
		"command 1"		"/q"
		"HasRunKey"		"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\Software\\CAPCOM\\RESIDENT EVIL 5\\GFWL"
	}
}

This script will (most likely) run every time the game is started, meaning that if you do not already have GFWL installed, the setup will fail. This is because the installer included with Resident Evil 5 is an online version of the installer and you'll get this error message:

There's two log files that get created, one is setupexe.log and the other is xliveinstall.log. The xliveinstall.log is what actually failed in setupexe.log.

-------------------------------
Logging Started: 10/31/2021 12:46:43
EXE: C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\GFWLive\Downloads\gfwlivesetup.exe (3.5.89.0)
DLL: C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\GFWLive\Downloads\gfwlivesetup.exe (3.5.89.0)
Source Folder: C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\GFWLive\Downloads
OS v6.2  (build 9200) 64 bit
OS Product Type: 0x00000004
User Default LCID: 0x0409
-------------------------------
(12:46:43) Download folder: C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\GFWLive\Downloads
(12:46:43) Already installed: xliveredist.msi
(12:46:43) Already installed: gfwlclient.msi
(12:46:43) Already installed: dotNetFx40_Client_x86_x64.exe
(12:46:43) Downloading http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=201788 to C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\GFWLive\Downloads\wllogin_64.msi
(12:46:43) Download Status: go.microsoft.com
(12:46:43) Download Status: 23.10.117.99
(12:46:43) Launching C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\GFWLive\Downloads\gfwlivesetup.exe elevated
(12:46:43) Download Status: 302
(12:46:43) Download Status: http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/4/0/740357D6-EFA8-43C1-A7DF-A8EEDD104638/wllogin_64.msi
(12:46:43) Download Status: download.microsoft.com
(12:46:43) Download Status: 23.193.120.113
(12:46:43) HTTP Status Code: 404
(12:46:43) Error downloading. [Code:0x800c0006]
(12:46:43) Download http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=201788 failed [Code:0x800c0008]

The last line there tells us what happened.

(12:46:43) Download http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=201788 failed [Code:0x800c0008]

Since the files that gfwlivesetup.exe needs to download are no longer available from Microsoft, the installation fails. This isn't surprising if you've been around for a while as Microsoft frequently removes downloads for products they no longer support (RIP Zune...).

The Solution

The short answer is that you need an offline version of the Games for Windows Live installer. You can download this from PCGamingWiki here:

Microsoft Games for Windows - LIVE 3.5.95.0[community.pcgamingwiki.com]

This is a .zip file containing the following files:

• gfwlclient.msi
  
• gfwlivesetup.exe
  
• wllogin_32.msi (skipped automatically on Windows 8 and later)
  
• wllogin_64.msi (skipped automatically on Windows 8 and later)
  
• xliveredist.msi

Once you have downloaded the .zip file, extract all files (not just gfwlivesetup.exe) and then run gfwlivesetup.exe.

Having everything together in one folder and named appropriately should allow the GFWL installer to run without issue.

Verifying

Method 1: Launching the Game

This is the quicker of the two options.

Method 2: Manually Verifying GFWL Install

So, aside from just launching the game, you can go to the Resident Evil 5 install directory and try running the gfwlsetup.exe file manually. If you're not sure where the game is actually installed, you can follow this guide[savelocation.net] that will walk you through it.

Go ahead and run gfwlsetup.exe. Don't be alarmed when you see that it still failed. First, we again need to view the log files and see what happened. This time, we're going to look at setupexe.log (instead of xliveinstall.log). If everything was done correctly, we should see that it was able to find the GFWL redists.

-------------------------------
Logging Started: 11/10/2021 07:25:52
Source Folder: C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\GFWLive\Downloads
OS v6.2  (build 9200) 64 bit
OS Product Type: 0x00000004
User Default LCID: 0x0409
Command Line: "C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\GFWLive\Downloads\gfwlivesetup.exe" -skipupdate
-------------------------------
(07:25:52) Direct DL: 0
(07:25:52) DL Recent: 0
(07:25:52) Offer ID: 
(07:25:52) Initialized
(07:25:52) Exit code: 0x00000000
(07:25:54) Download folder C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\GFWLive\Downloads
(07:25:54) Resources initialized
(07:25:55) Install Started
(07:25:55) Downloading redists only
(07:25:55) Microsoft Games for Windows - LIVE (Found) 
(07:25:55) Games for Windows Marketplace Client (Found) 
(07:25:55) Microsoft .NET Framework (Found) 
(07:25:55) Windows Live ID Sign-in Assistant (Waiting) 
(07:25:55) Download Start Notification: 3
(07:25:55) Windows Live ID Sign-in Assistant (Downloading...) 
(07:25:56) Download Error: 0x800c0008
(07:25:56) A network error occurred while attempting to get information from the server. Check your network connection and retry.
(07:25:56) A network error occurred while attempting to get information from the server. Check your network connection and retry.
(07:25:58) Exit code: 0x800c0008

The main thing we care about here is the following:

(07:25:55) Microsoft Games for Windows - LIVE (Found) 
(07:25:55) Games for Windows Marketplace Client (Found) 

So, if you see that, then you're good! If you're unable to run the game still then this will at least help you determine whether or not GFWL is the problem.

FAQ

Q: Why did you go through all the trouble documenting all this?

Because some people are hesitant to download files aren't comfortable messing around with things that honestly should just work. Unfortunately, since CAPCOM half-assed this (and everything they do), you have to do some manual steps to get the game working.

I also see people saying to download just one .dll file and put it in the game directory and things like that with no explanation of why or what it does and as a developer I figured I'd walk through identifying the problem, the actual solution, and then verifying it in case anyone chooses to do that. If you follow this guide, you won't need to download random files again if you one day choose to reinstall RE5 since this isn't just a "quick fix" it's the actual solution.

---

Q: Why can't I download the files from Microsoft?

If you could, then this wouldn't be an issue. Microsoft removes things they don't want to support anymore. Another example of this is Zune. Normally, removing things would force the game's developers that were using it to update their product. CAPCOM however is not a normal developer. If they really cared about their fans they wouldn't just continue to fix and improve RE5 as a new release and they'd go back and apply those fixes for their existing customers too.

---

Q: So why hasn't CAPCOM fixed it?

CAPCOM has no interest in fixing something if they're not financially forced to do. The money they would lose from people just refunding the purchase is less than the development cost of actually fixing it, especially when there's a community patch that does what they should have done and plenty of guides available, like this one.

---

Q: My game still doesn't work?

This is just one of the many problems included with Resident Evil 5. If you need help troubleshooting, feel free to shoot me a message here or on Discord (Gundwn#6651).

[tonyend]

This was the solution for Kane & Lynch 2 on Win 11. Thanks.

[Kevstriker87]

didnt work i downloaded and same shit happend
\

[DrummerOnTheSpectrum]

I cannot even download the zip file just gives me viruses

[Anjin1984]

Thank you. You just saved so many games for me!

[MifuneMach5]

Legend

[anakin]

if i do this will i be able to play in coop normally?

[Amezz]

Thank you for this guide. Worked like a charm!!

[Zoey.]

GFWL makes every game relying on it a big hassle to run

[Yekkusu]

The thing is, I'm pretty sure RE5 had GFWL removed from it with the Gold Edition DLC. So, it is annoying to have the game not working because it's missing a DLL from that software that was removed from the earth by MS.

[NulTRix(♡♪✧)]

Thanks for this. It's a big help.