It Takes Two - "There is a problem with your game's setup. Please reinstall..." [ Edited ]

[As7iX]

"There is a problem with your game's setup. Please reinstall your game."

I've been trying to launch this game for days and can't get it to launch for the life of me.

I downloaded it through Steam using the It Takes Two Friend's Pass button (a friend owns it and we're supposed to play it together).

When I first tried to launch the game it asked me to link my Steam Account to the EA app and so I did. Everything went smoothly and when it tried to run through EA's launcher it just gave me this error message 

It shows this message every time I try to launch it no matter what I try. And I tried a LOT:

- verifying the game cache through Steam (game files were intact)
- reinstalling the game
- running as administrator
- reinstalling the game in a different directory
- reinstalling nVidia drivers with DDU
- installing C++ Visual Redistributables, x64 and x86, as was suggested by people having the same error (everything from 2010 to 2022)
- reinstalling DirectX (did this by deleting d3dcompiler43.dll in system32 and then running the Microsoft DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer)

- clearing the EA app's cache
- disabling antivirus
- I've tried about a dozen other unrelated things out of desperation

My specs:
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790 CPU @ 3.60GHz 3.60 GHz
Installed RAM 16.0 GB (15.9 GB usable)
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Graphic card: Nvidia GeForce gtx 960

Edition Windows 10 Home
Version 22H2
OS build 19045.2546

My friend can launch it just fine, but since it's a two player game the purchase is useless. I would greatly appreciate some help on this. Thanks.

[As7iX · Accepted solution]

@EA_Illium Thanks, but I already solved it. It took me 2 weeks but I finally found the solution.

To anyone else having this horrible problem:

First, I had to sail the seven seas to launch It Takes Two without the EA app. This allowed me to see the real error when trying to launch the .exe, which was The application was unable to start correctly (0xc00007b). click ok to close the application. Much more informative than the generic EA error code that could mean a dozen things. Googling this error led me to the next step.

I found a third party software that could be used to trace what caused the error. Link and instructions here. It's safe. Turns out, two files were causing the error: xinput1_3.dll and D3DCompiler_43.dll. Both of these are DirectX related DLLs. Strange that these were causing the error when one of the first solutions that I tried was reinstalling DirectX. 

The software showed that actually I had x86 versions of these two files and they didn't work since my Windows is 64bit. I tried reinstalling DirectX again, but for some reason the installation would always install x86 dlls. 

SOLUTION: Simple, I just borrowed the same DLLs from my friend's Windows whose game works fine and just used those to replace my own two non-working DLLs. And IT WORKED. The game now runs, finally! 

[EA_Illium]

@As7iX If you try running through Steams client instead does this message continue to pop up?

[As7iX]

@EA_Illium Hi, thanks for the answer. That's how I do run the game. It then automatically launches the EA app and runs through there. 

[EA_Illium]

Hi @As7iX Thanks for this update!

Would it be possible to use a program like Revo Uninstaller to remove ITT, then verify through your windows apps that no version of ITT remains?

Once removed restart your device and run Steam and EA App as admin then attempt to install and run ITT to see if this error continues or if we get a different message?  

[As7iX · Accepted solution]

@EA_Illium Thanks, but I already solved it. It took me 2 weeks but I finally found the solution.

To anyone else having this horrible problem:

First, I had to sail the seven seas to launch It Takes Two without the EA app. This allowed me to see the real error when trying to launch the .exe, which was The application was unable to start correctly (0xc00007b). click ok to close the application. Much more informative than the generic EA error code that could mean a dozen things. Googling this error led me to the next step.

I found a third party software that could be used to trace what caused the error. Link and instructions here. It's safe. Turns out, two files were causing the error: xinput1_3.dll and D3DCompiler_43.dll. Both of these are DirectX related DLLs. Strange that these were causing the error when one of the first solutions that I tried was reinstalling DirectX. 

The software showed that actually I had x86 versions of these two files and they didn't work since my Windows is 64bit. I tried reinstalling DirectX again, but for some reason the installation would always install x86 dlls. 

SOLUTION: Simple, I just borrowed the same DLLs from my friend's Windows whose game works fine and just used those to replace my own two non-working DLLs. And IT WORKED. The game now runs, finally! 

[1890ae8bd2beba89]

@As7iX how does a non tech savvy person do this