"Preparing to launch Half-Life 2..." then nothing

[autojack]

I purchased Half-Life 2 in 2005 as a download through the Steam network. At that time, I had no problems playing it. Yesterday I performed a complete reinstall of Windows on the exact same hardware I was using before. Wanting to play Half Life 2 again, I installed Steam, logged in, and was able to download the game. Its status is now displayed as 100% - Ready. However, now when I try to launch it, all I see is a window that says "Preparing to launch Half-Life 2..." That window closes, and nothing else happens. If I look at the Task Manager, I see that the hl2.exe process runs for a few seconds, then exits. There are no errors.

I've searched the internet for explanations of what might cause this, and tried the following things to fix it:

1. Disabled Windows XP firewall
2. Set my monitor resolution to 800x600 and then 1024x768
3. Updated my Via 4-in-1 chipset drivers to the latest ones provided by my motherboard manufacturer
4. Exiting Steam, deleting my ClientRegistry.blob file, then running Steam again
5. Verified that I am running DirectX 9.0c
6. Installed the latest drivers for my video card
7. Verified my Steam cache files

My system is an AMD Athlon XP 2800 processor, Soyo KT600 Dragon Plus 2.0 motherboard, Radeon 9800 Pro video card, 512M memory, running Windows XP with SP2.

 

[McGooTheWise]

I'm sorry to say it, but you either have a Trojan, or you need to reinstall the game. To do this you click "Delete local content" then reinstall it. But you might wanna wait for someone else to post, cause I'm not sure. Les it's quick and easy for you to reinstall it, then no harm in trying.

 

[autojack]

Reinstalling didn't work, and I find it hard to believe I got a Trojan sometime in the hour or two between getting Windows installed and getting HL2 downloaded, considering that I launched IE exactly once to get Firefox downloaded, and my machine is behind a firewall.

 

[karimali831]

Nahh nothing to do with your PC, I also have this problem along with alot of others. Soon as I finished formatting my PC, I get this error...

Stay updated @ steampowered.com right now Steam isn't doing much about this issue because they like to **** around.

 

[Link]

So you think steam selectivly choses certain accounts and gives them errors? No? then it IS to do with his PC.

autojack, if you've been online for 2 hours with no anti-virus installed, regardless of whether you run a firewall, and regardless of what you were doing with your PC at the time, then there is a very good chance that you have a virus of some sort.

Saying that, I don't think its whats causeing your problem.

Do you have any other games on steam, and do they run at all?

 

[karimali831]

So you think steam selectivly choses certain accounts and gives them errors? No? then it IS to do with his PC.

autojack, if you've been online for 2 hours with no anti-virus installed, regardless of whether you run a firewall, and regardless of what you were doing with your PC at the time, then there is a very good chance that you have a virus of some sort.

Saying that, I don't think its whats causeing your problem.

Do you have any other games on steam, and do they run at all?

LOL I am using the same hardware and it worked great before, I formatted my PC twice and still get this error. It's nothing to do with his PC, it's a bug!

LOL You don't know what your talking about, jack for the true and best valvue support, stay updated @ steampowered.com

We are all talking about issues like these on the forums, and all know steam are have issues with this. Some people here just does not understand..

 

[DEATH eVADER]

I don't know, did you verify the game cache?

 

[Paulaner]

The standard advice is the same: update video/audio drivers, update directX, update Windows too! Maybe there is some software running in the background that causes the problem (other peripherals drivers, p2p stuff, and so on).

EDIT: I know that you just updated your drivers. Check other software running in the background.

 

[doomed - uk]

Once again, I am having to change the launch options due to Valve setting the games to run in resolutions and frequencies my monitor doesn't have or like. I enter this into the properties' launch options for TF2 and it worked so I mention this here in case it helps someone.

-w 1024 -h 768 -freq 85

(Or obviously some variation on that for your own monitors).

 

[Link]

LOL I am using the same hardware and it worked great before, I formatted my PC twice and still get this error. It's nothing to do with his PC, it's a bug!

LOL You don't know what your talking about, jack for the true and best valvue support, stay updated @ steampowered.com

We are all talking about issues like these on the forums, and all know steam are have issues with this. Some people here just does not understand..

Do you understand how computer programs work? They are the exact same bit of software on every machine that runs it. Therefore, if this was a steam bug, then it wouldn't work on any machine.

What it is is a conflict between steam and something else, most likley another program. Now you could argue that valve should test thier software agasinst every possible hardware config, and alongside every commercial bit of software, but that would be a stupid argument. So either way, shut up.

 

[karimali831]

This is either a problem with windows or steam, after installing Windows Home Edition, CSS Works fine, no steam games work for Windows XP Pro: SP2 for me.

I can assure you it has nothing to do with running background programs, trojans etc

 

[Paulaner]

I can assure you it has nothing to do with running background programs, trojans etc

It can be some strange and weird combination of drivers/software/hardware stuff. If some tech guy at Valve could locate and reproduce the issue, maybe a patch could help.

 

[Pelder]

My problem is quite similar, i installed HL2 yesterday and everything was fine, except the fps was very low even with lowest possible graphics. Then i tried to launch CS:S and message appeared informing that my drivers are outdated. So i updated drivers, and tried to start HL2 and it tries to launch but then returns to windows. I've tried to reinstall HL2 and deleted it's content on steam and then updating it again, but nothing seems to work. So the game works crappy if i don't update the driver, and if i update it doesn't work at all! Any solutions how to fix this shit?
Specs are, if you need them: AMD athlon 3000+ 2Ghz, Radeon 9600XT 256mb, 1,2gb DDR400

 

[songwriter]

I have the same, so its not a trojan. Its a bug! I played it fine last night, loaded up today, nothing. Wont get past LOADING screen. Pops back to Desktop.

There is a "fix" in the Steam forums but tried it, but it hasn't made a difference.

 

[Dassin]

Great,,, I finally find someone having the same issue and the thread is a year old.

My problem is similar . I'll be playing a HL2 mod. Exit it. Then when I try to restart it or another one I get "preparing to launch half life" then nothing. I have to reboot before I can start one again.

 

[AciD]

Take a look at this FAQ:
Games do not run after 'Preparing to Launch'


And if all solutions mentioned there won't work contact Steam Support.

 

[Dassin]

Thank you Acid...

Only thing I didn't fully work on was background apps. One of the first things I tried before searching the net for an answer was turning off background apps when I'd try to restart a game. But, I haven't tried shutting them down before initially playing. Either way it's kind of feels like cutting your nose off to spite your face by cutting off your AV.