Certain Games Suddenly Crash/Won't Start

NvaPskt

Honorable
Jan 27, 2014
4
0
10,510
A few days ago my copy of The Witcher 2 suddenly started crashing at launch. It was working before that just fine (C++ error). To troubleshoot I tried launching other games. Something very baffling happened...
Along with The Witcher 2, Sleeping Dogs, Vindictus, Tomb Raider and a few others hang/crash at startup (no error message). I'll get a white or black screen, the game will hang and I have to go to Task Manager to kill the process (it says "not responding"). Other games (such as Lego Batman, Dark Souls, Bully, Hammerwatch, AfterFall: Insanity, Castle Crashers) run just fine.
Here's what I have done:
-I "verified game cache" on all troublesome games. No problems found.
-I reinstalled Visual C++.
-I deleted then reinstalled the troublesome games.
-I made sure my GPU drivers were up to date. They are.
-DxDiag shows no problems.
-Scanned for viruses, adware, spyware, etc. Nothing.

I haven't made any recent changes to my PC, hardware or software. I haven't had problems AT ALL with these games in the past. I'm not having any other problems with my PC (slowness, crashing, errors, blue screens, etc.).

My specs:
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
Intel Core i7 930 @ 2.8GHz
6GB RAM
nVidia GeForce GTX 460 @3GB RAM
OnBoard Audio

I'm at a loss here because I can't narrow down where the problem might be. Why some games work just fine and others crash at launch. Why they SUDDENLY crash when just 12 hours before they were fine.

Any help is appreciated.
 
Solution
Sorry...

TBH I'm baffled. It looks like the problem is somewhere in Windows, but I can't say where. I'm guessing you don't want to reinstall Windows, do you...

NvaPskt

Honorable
Jan 27, 2014
4
0
10,510


How would I do that? In Windows 7 you can't "uninstall" or "repair" DX as far as I know. I downloaded the latest runtime from Microsoft's website and it just said I had the latest version.
 

NvaPskt

Honorable
Jan 27, 2014
4
0
10,510


I changed the registry key, ran the updater and it takes forever to initialize then says, "components are installed and ready."
No change unfortunately.
 

NvaPskt

Honorable
Jan 27, 2014
4
0
10,510


I was saving that for a last resort. Unfortunately, it seems like I'm almost there. I consider myself highly knowledgeable with computers and I'm stumped. The few others I know that are good with computers are also out of ideas. I figured I'd try letting the internet give me some suggestions (why I posted here) but no luck.
Anyway, thanks for the suggestion. I guess I'll just have to bite the bullet and do a clean install...