Games for Windows Live Causing Computer Freeze on Start

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
I ran CCleaner yesterday and my guess is my Games for Windows Live got corrupted. I tried starting GTA4 and within a second or two after hitting start in Steam my whole computer would freeze. No response. Had to do a hard reboot. I figured it was just GTA messed up and tried a few more times. Same thing. Also same problem with GTA4 Episodes. I figured both were just broken and uninstalled. Today I tried Fallout 3 and it would start the launcher. After hitting play on launcher it would start a black screen then freeze within a few seconds. Same as GTA4.

Was able to figure out GFWL was the problem since other games worked fine but not those two. Uninstalled GFWL using regular uninstaller and rebooted. Reinstalled. Same thing. Tried various ways of uninstalling using Revo Uninstaller, a Microsoft Fix It tool that was supposed to remove broken installs. Nothing worked. Dirt 2 was also broken in the same way as the rest. Did a system restore back to before it happened. Same problem (was able to corrupt my install of League of Legends though so yay :( )

After 2 hours of work I got no where and gave up. I'm totally stuck. Any tips on how to fix the registry damage (as I'm almost positive that's the problem).

Also GFWL is worse than EA DRM. There I said it. Microsoft, you should be ashamed.

With GFWL not installed Dirt 2 would crash as usual with it, but Fallout 3 wouldn't even launch the game. The launcher would load but after I hit play the steam deals would come up like they do when you finish playing a game.

I'm stuck.

Edit: Uninstalling Windows Essentials using Revo and clearing out all the files and registry pieces left over didn't help either. It did clean out a bunch of registry keys labelled GFWL so I thought it would fix it.
 
Last edited:
Had previously found that thread. I don't think it's related. I'm 99 percent sure it's my registry being corrupted from CCleaner. However reinstalling it a bajillion times doesn't help. Should have made a back up of my registry.
 
Oh, it happened after CCleaner? I suppose your registry could be screwed up, don't really know what could be done about that, besides reinstalling Windows.
 
Oh, it happened after CCleaner? I suppose your registry could be screwed up, don't really know what could be done about that, besides reinstalling Windows.

Yeah that's what I've kind of concluded. I've worked on this issue for about 6 hours total now and just totally given up. For now I'll deal without GTA4, Dirt 2, Fallout 3, and NFS Hot Pursuit. Pity. I was wanting to play Fallout 3.

If anyone else has suggestions I'd be happy to hear them. I've uninstalled GFWL and used both Revo Uninstaller and CCleaner to remove leftover registry keys and any other remants of the program. Used the installer off the web and the installer that's in my GTA folder for GFWL and both do the same thing. I'm at an utter loss.
 
Something's wrong there or you're maybe having conflicts.

So I assume you still have GFWL on your machine? Tried uninstalling it in Safe Mode? Might be worth trying.

If not, it might be time to break out your Windows 7 DVD... :(
 
Something's wrong there or you're maybe having conflicts.

So I assume you still have GFWL on your machine? Tried uninstalling it in Safe Mode? Might be worth trying.

If not, it might be time to break out your Windows 7 DVD... :(

I could reinstal it then uninstall in safe mode. :P
 
Double Post, but CSGO does the exact same thing. But it doesn't have GFWL. I'm wondering if it's not entirely specific to GFWL. Very stumped. Also I'm now stuck on an old version of GFWL that doesn't say it's installed under programs list but I can run it, prompts be to update, and when I try, it gives me errors.

I think I'm going to reinstall Windows tomorrow.
 
Reinstall of Windows fixed Fallout 3 and CSGO. Will see about the rest once they're installed.
 
My problem is that after I log in (or play offline) in social club, the game just doesn't launch. and a BUNCH of people have this problem. Screw GFWL.
 
That's a bit different. GFWL is terrible but my issue was relating to corrupt registry I'm guessing. Fresh install fixed it all up. Prior I had used GFWL a lot with GTA4 and it worked alright. It was a pain on initial set up and sometimes their servers would be down (but rarely). But still, it's worse than Origin.
 
Back
Top