Demo and full game giving error. Details inside. (Solved)

So I heard a lot of people with graphical issues, but they all seem to talk about getting a black screen with nothing loading or effects in game going crazy. My issue is slightly different. When I try to load either version of the game, demo or full, I get:

"Unable to execute file:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Nifflas\Knytt Underground\Knytt Underground.exe

CreateProcess failed; code 14001.
The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect. Please see the event log for more detail."

I do not believe there is any way I can see the event log so more details are hard to get. I'm running 64 bit windows with an Nvidia Geforce GTS 450.

Any assistance or details on the issue are greatly appreciated. I will continue looking into stuff about graphics cards, but I don't see similar reports around here so I suspect that isn't the issue. All 4 of the graphic drivers I need are supported, my stuff up to date, and card pretty far from out of date.

A small update on this issue. My laptop is giving me the exact same error. This is really upsetting because my laptop is in almost every way different from my desktop. The only similarity that comes to mind is windows vista, but even then it's 32 bit vs 64 bit. Given I can find no one else with this error, it seems really odd I would get it twice in a row.

Looks to me that you might have a permission issue. Do you have administrative rights, or can you try running the game as administrator?

Another option is to reinstall the game in a different directory and see if that helps.

I have tried a few other directories, including installing it on my second harddrive. I have also tried right-click > run as an administrator to both the game and the installer. Neither of these gave a change in the error or overall results.

Hmm, at this point I'd like to see the eventlog entry.

You can access it by going to start->control panel->administrative tools->event log. (it can be different if your OS is not english)

Go to the applications log, and find the entry, copy and paste it here.

Activation context generation failed for "C:\Program Files (x86)\Nifflas\Knytt Underground\Knytt Underground.exe".Error in manifest or policy file "" on line . A component version required by the application conflicts with another component version already active. Conflicting components are:. Component 1: C:\Windows\WinSxS\manifests\x86_microsoft.vc90.crt_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_9.0.30729.1_none_e163563597edeada.manifest. Component 2: C:\Windows\WinSxS\manifests\x86_microsoft.vc90.crt_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_9.0.30304.0_none_d9c474bda3593bfa.manifest.

This is from my laptop:
Activation context generation failed for "C:\Program Files\Nifflas\Knytt Underground Demo\Knytt Underground.exe". Dependent Assembly Microsoft.VC90.CRT,processorArchitecture="x86",publicKeyToken="1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b",type="win32",version="9.0.21022.8" could not be found. Please use sxstrace.exe for detailed diagnosis.

A different error, but the one I would prefer get fixed is my desktop computer, as my laptop computer probably wouldn't run the game well anyways.

The error for the laptop seems so be a missing Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable (2008, I think). I don't know if the game installer is supposed to include it or check if it's installed, but I guess it doesn't hurt to try and install it separately.

The component giving the error on your desktop is the same, but I don't know how it can be solved. Maybe you need to reinstall the Redistributable, but then any other applications using it might stop working.

In any way, this should be enough information for Mathias to look into it. He should be able to tell you what the problem is. I'll notify him by PM of this topic.

I hope it's soon. My day off today and I wanted to chill with this new game...

Tried the visual redistribute both 2008 and 2012, didn't change either time.

Hi! Thanks for the bug report.

Chances are you will need the Visual C++ 2008 SP1 redistributable, since that's what we use to compile the game.
It can be downloaded here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5582

Hopefully, that'll fix the issues you're having.

Downloaded, hit repair, tried it, same error. Restarted computer, tried it, same error. Reinstalled Knytt, same error.

Right, I see what the problem might be. I will have to recompile some of our libraries; if I PM you a new executable, will you be able to test it?

Thanks.

I would be glad to. Thank you so much for the dedication to helping with this.

I'm making a note here just incase anyone in the future finds this same error, I fixed it. I do not fully understand what happened, why my computer refused to update properly but I found a similar error people were having with Microsoft Office (even though my MSoffice worked just fine) and applied the fix here.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;2525435

Simply installing all the required files will not automatically fix the issue at hand if the computer itself keep loading up the older versions of the redistributes. Once again, I do not know what caused it in the first place but I'm not doing much more research as I have a game to play now.