Why does GH3 for PC no longer launch?

June 5, 2009 1:31 PM

When I try to run Guitar Hero 3 for PC, GH3.exe will show up in the Task Manager, but the game does not launch. Until about 3 days ago, it was working fine. What's going on?

After enjoying playing Guitar Hero 3 for months on my PC (the lag issues eventually settled down), the game no longer works. GH: Aerosmith still works perfectly.

Clicking on the shortcut, opening it from it's actual location, and trying to get it to auto-launch by reinserting the DVD all result in the same thing: GH3.exe will show in the task manager, but the game itself will not launch.

I have gone through about 6 uninstall/reinstalls, with the same result each time. Another interesting piece of information: I downloaded the 1.3 patch from Aspyr and when I run it it tells me that GH3 is not installed on my machine.

I have a Dell XPS420 straight out of the retail box that was purchased last November. It's running Vista; I'm assuming the 32 bit version. Up until I got this machine, I was a Mac person, so I don't know much about how to get other specs - if you need them to help, I will gladly oblige if you tell me how to find them.

The only thing I could find on this issue online was at AMD Game Forums but it didn't seem to be resolved.

Any help you can provide would be awesome. Thanks much.

posted by ArsncHeart to computers & internet (6 answers total)

Did Windows automatically update itself? You can open it up and check out your update history to see if anything happened recently.
posted by dunkadunc at 3:25 PM on June 5, 2009

And if you see any recent updates, you can do a System Restore to try and undo what got screwed up. Hell, giving that a shot anyway probably wouldn't hurt.
posted by dunkadunc at 3:27 PM on June 5, 2009

You're using vista. Have you tried using the system restore function? That will tell you if is a system problem or something else you installed later.

To start


in the search box type 'restore'

Select the obvious

Choose go for a different system restore point.

Find one that is before your problem

Sit back and wait - it can take a while.

Let us know the results - if it's still a problem, knowing a reswtore doesn't help can be useful
posted by Sparx at 6:55 PM on June 5, 2009

I do see a couple of updates that happened automagically. I'm trying a system restore and will post results after. Thanks for the help so far!
posted by ArsncHeart at 7:57 PM on June 5, 2009

Well, I tried two different restore dates, and the game still won't run, but now at least Windows is throwing an error:

"Guitar Hero III has stopped working
A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available."

(Before closing the error I checked Task Manager again. GH3.exe is still there, but it's showing as 40,876 K memory usage, where before the restore it would show at about 27,000 K. I don't know if that's relevant in any way. I also tried re-download and installing patch 1.3 again after the restore, and I'm still getting the "software not found" error from that.)
posted by ArsncHeart at 9:34 PM on June 5, 2009

Have you tried running it under other compatibility modes?

Right click the executable, select properties and go to the Compatibility tab (should be the second one). Try XP Service Pack 2 for starters.

You can always post this very same question on the official game forum to raise attention and maybe get some answers.
posted by slimepuppy at 3:59 AM on June 7, 2009