If your Steam game has stopped working out of the blue and verifying game cache integrity and defragmenting game files do not fix your issue, then this post is for you.
The problem is probably because your game got auto-flagged for compatibility with Windows 7. This feature seems to do more harm than good. Begin by going to:
- Start
- regedit
- Find file
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionAppCompatFlagsLayersC:Program FilesSteamSteam.exe - Delete it
- Find the specific game.exe and delete that key as well
- Restart Steam
Things to try if that doesn't work:
- Right-click the game's executable
- Click Properties
- Click the Compatibility tab
- Check Run As Administrator
- or check run in compatibility mode for Windows 98 or ME
- or check Disable Desktop Composition
- or you can disable the Steam overlay through the Steam options menu