Can't run Half Life 2 on Windows 7

[Ruggerbugger]

I've installed Steam and updated HL2, but when I try to start the game, all I get is the decrypting files dialog. This appears and disappears, and that's it, no game.

Does anyone have any tips?

edit: in addition, when I try to install episode 1 from the disc, I get a "not enough disk space to run Steam" message. This is clearly nonsense, since there's well over 400GB free

[arthurleung]

May be try UAC off?

[TAKTAK]

But can it run Crysis?




Seriously though, are you sure that it isn't trying to install it somewhere daft? i.e. a little thumb drive

And is it not linked to your steam account? Could you not download it through steam (obviously this is a PITA when you have the discs, or if you're not on a pukka connection)

Failing that, try reinstalling steam with admin rights (*sigh* i hope it's not this )

[12GaugeShotty]

Wow. I think my copy of HL2 went into the trash a LONG time ago. Surprised that anyone would ever want to play it again. HL2DM was about worthless too.

[tigerboyce]

Wow. I think my copy of HL2 went into the trash a LONG time ago. Surprised that anyone would ever want to play it again. HL2DM was about worthless too.

What?

[Blaineoliver]

Half life 2 was possibly the greatest game ever made. Try running steam with admin rights, or try vista compatibility mode.

[directhex]

You really don't need to run Steam as admin under normal circumstances, btw. Rather disturbed that the common advice is to do that

[Phage]

Wow. I think my copy of HL2 went into the trash a LONG time ago. Surprised that anyone would ever want to play it again. HL2DM was about worthless too.

It was a classic, and still sets the benchmark in many respects. I would be interested just to see how it would play on my new box. And the DM was a great time-sink, the gravity gun allowed a range of new tactics that were not available in any of the competition at the time.

[jimbouk]

You really don't need to run Steam as admin under normal circumstances, btw. Rather disturbed that the common advice is to do that

I did on 64-bit Windows 7, otherwise it wouldn't start up Maybe they've fixed it now though...

[Salazaar]

I've installed Steam and updated HL2, but when I try to start the game, all I get is the decrypting files dialog. This appears and disappears, and that's it, no game.

Does anyone have any tips?

edit: in addition, when I try to install episode 1 from the disc, I get a "not enough disk space to run Steam" message. This is clearly nonsense, since there's well over 400GB free

Have you tried the verify files and defragment files options from within Steam?

Another option would be to delete the local content and redownload it...

[lodore]

I have just installed steam on windows 7 64bit and downloaded HL2 Deathmatch using steam and it runs perfectly.
i installed steam from a limited user account and it asked for admin rights using uac.

[shbris]

i played my copy a few days ago works fine under 64bit w7

why do you need the cd? if your registered with steam or whatever shouldn't need the cd's anymore just download it

[schmunk]

Half life 2 was possibly the greatest game ever made.

Nope, Half Life was better.

[12GaugeShotty]

Half life 2 was possibly the greatest game ever made. Try running steam with admin rights, or try vista compatibility mode.

Oh, I agree that it had a good story but beyond that it has no replay value. There is no real multiplayer aspect, the world is very linear and restrictive. IIRC someone made a movie of the entire game from start to finish. You get no more excitement than that by playing the game again. It's a giant re-run.

[Dave_07]

not sure if this will help, but i was reading on the steam forums about something similar to this, but it was a while ago, and the post seems to be dead now.

Anyway the jist was that some people were having probs with games under steam through DEP, on win 7.
The fix provided was to set DEP "for all programs and services except those I select" and then adding the offending exe to the DEP exceptions list. I this case it would be the half life 2 executable.

Dunno if that applies to your situation, but you can give it a whirl i guess.

[[GSV]Trig]

Works fine on my system and I've not done anything out of the ordinary..