If you see this error message: ‘The application was unable to start correctly’ it’s probably because you’re trying to run a game or program and there’s something not quite right.
Below are various methods, most of which are simple, which you can use to try and fix the 0xc000007b error. You may only need to do one but in some cases you’ll need a combination of them.
Typically you’ll see this error when there’s a mixing of 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows and applications.
Solution 1. Restart your computer
The first thing to try is restarting Windows. It sounds too simple, but it sometimes yields results.
Solution 2. Update .NET framework
In most cases it’s Microsoft .NET framework causing the issues. You can download the latest version of .NET Framework from Microsoft.
When it’s installed (or re-installed) reboot and try your app or game again.
Solution 3. Enable Administrator rights
Try running the game or app with admin rights. To do that, right-click on the shortcut or the actual executable for the game, select Properties and open the Compatibility tab. Tick the ‘Run this program as an administrator’ box, and click on OK.
Solution 4. Reinstall the app or game
You can uninstall and re-installing the game or program you’re trying to run – simple but sometimes the quickest and most effective way to get rid of the error.
Solution 5. Update Windows
Update Windows. In many cases Windows will automatically update, but to check, head to Control Panel and search for ‘Windows Update’.
In later versions, including Windows 10, you can open the new Settings app (just search the Start menu or click the cog icon which appears just above the Windows logo when you click it in the bottom-left of the screen.
In the Settings app, click on Update & Security then you should see a button to check for updates:
Solution 6: Reinstall Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Packages
Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Package is a runtime component necessary for running of multiple applications. The files in Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Package usually corrupt due to many reasons. And this can cause the 0xc000007b error. In this case you need to reinstall this components.
Fix 7: Run check disk
The error can also result from hardware issues, especially from your hard drive. You should run check disk using Command Prompt and see if there is any problem on your disk.
a) Click on Start menu and type “cmd“. Right click Command Prompt in the result and select Run as administrator.
b) Enter “chkdsk c: /f /r“. (This means you are going to check and repair C drive. If you want to check another drive, replace “c” with the corresponding letter of that drive.) Follow the instruction to complete the process.
c) After that check and see if the problem is solved.
Update DirectX
To avoid errors you should always make sure your computer has updated to the latest version of DirectX. If none of the previous solution works, you should try updating DirectX. The way to check whether your DirectX is the latest version is downloading DirectX Runtime Web Installer from Microsoft’s official website. Download the setup file and run it. Then you can follow on-screen steps to reinstall it. When installation completes, you need to restart computer.
Fix Compatibility Issue between System and Application
In some situations, application running on your computer is not totally compatible with system. For instance, some software requires high system configuration, but system on your PC can’t meet requirement. You need to set the compatibility settings between system and application, because the incompatibility between system and software may lead to error talked about in this guide. Let’s see how to do this:
Step 1 Right click the application that can’t start correctly and select “Properties”.
Step 2 Click “Compatibility” tab on the Properties window and click button “Run compatibility troubleshooter”.
Step 3 Select “Try recommended settings”, and you can either test the application or just click next.
Step 4 If the previous step doesn’t work, you can select compatibility mode manually from the drop-down menu. Select earlier version of Windows and click “Apply” and “OK” buttons.
Check your hard drive with command prompt
Hard drive issue is likely to give rise to various problems and checking hard drive can remove these problems. You can follow steps given below to check your hard disk for errors.
Step 1 Run Command Prompt as administrator on your PC. If you are using Windows 7, click Start button and search “cmd” in the search box. If your computer is running Windows 8/8.1, press the windows key and search for “cmd”. Right click cmd and select “Run as administrator”.
Step 2 Type chkdsk c: /f /r in Command Prompt and press Enter key.
Step 3 If your Windows is installed in drive C, then you’ll get message “Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N)” Type Y and press Enter key.
Step 4 Computer will restart and check the disk during restarting.
Perform a clean boot
A clean boot can help you find out whether this error is caused by a third party application, for it is able to eliminate software conflicts. Please note that you must log on computer as administrator to perform a clean boot. Once you’ve done with the troubleshooting, you need to reset computer to start as usual. The following steps take Windows 10 as example.
Step 1 Click Start button and search for msconfig. Click System Configuration from search result.
Step 2 Select “Service” tab on the dialog box. Select “Hide all Microsoft services” and click “Disable all” button.
Step 3 Click “Startup” tab to tap “Open Task Manager”. For startup item here, select each and click Disable.
Step 4 Close Task Manager and click OK on the “System Configuration” window. Restart computer.
Create a new user account
We can create a new user account to check whether this issue occurs in the new account.
Step 1 Click Start button and select “Control Panel”.
Step 2 Select User Accounts and “Manage another account” respectively.
Step 3 Click “Add a new user in PC Settings” and then follow the on-screen instructions to complete the process.
Step 4 Once this is done, login to the new user account and check if the issue occurs in the new user account.
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