Stellaris Launcher won't open V2.6

[Illuminarchie]

So I got stellaris on steam recently as it looks fun, but it would seem I can't open it. I tried opening it through a shortcut yet it wouldn't seem to open so I went on to steam to play it from there. Pressing play, steam says its running for a second, but no window opens. Then it closes, as if it hadn't opened in the first place.

Doing some research I have tried to solve the issue by:
- Starting and restarting steam
- Uninstalling and reinstalling stellaris
- Whitelist stellaris in my fire wall (even turning it off entirely when that didn't work)
- And when checking the file integrity it says that it is fully successful (seen in images below)

I've seen this is a problem when opening the game itself on other boards, but I've only seen this referencing the game after the game launcher has loaded, which in this case isn't loading at all. I've recorded what is happening on my computer as I try it.

I would really like to play stellaris, so if I'm being really incredibly stupid please tell me haha.

Thank you in advance!

 

[AndrewT]

So you never see our launcher, is that right? If so Please try this:

- exit the Steam app entirely
- uninstall Paradox Launcher v2 from the Windows "Apps and features" utility, if still present.

Delete the following folders if still present:

- C:/users/<UserName>/AppData/Local/Programs/Paradox Interactive/
- C:/users/<UserName>/AppData/Local/Paradox Interactive/
- C:/users/<UserName>/AppData/Roaming/Paradox Interactive/launcher-v2/
To see the AppData folder you'll need to enable View Hidden Items in File Explorer.

- run steam.exe as the Windows Admin user

- run the game from the PLAY button in Steam

IF that doesn't help, in this folder are some .log files:
C:/users/<UserName>/AppData/Local/Paradox Interactive/launcher-v2/
Please attach them here.

Note that you can run stellaris.exe directly from Windows Explorer, which bypasses the launcher.

 

[Illuminarchie]

Thank you for responding! I tried doing everything you said in in the first half however it availed similar results, so now I have attached the log file which is definitely showing something going wrong, mostly in reference to a file of msiexec? The log will be attached below to look,
Thank you!

 

[AndrewT]

something going wrong, mostly in reference to a file of msiexec?

This is a Windows problem: I've seen it a few times but I don't know what causes it.

Please go to C:/windows/system32/ folder and copy (NOT move!) msiexec.exe to the Steam folder where stellaris.exe is.

Then run the game from the Steam PLAY button. That should do it for you!