Steam Game Always Asks for UAC Confirmation or Installs VC Redist

— Gaming
Photo of UAC prompt.

I recently picked up Assassin’s Creed III during the Steam Summer Sale. The first few times I played the game, I noticed that I was getting a UAC prompt and that Steam was was running a first-time setup for VC Redist (as though I had just installed the game).

Screenshot of Steam installing VC Redist
Steam would try to install VC Redist every time I started the game.

This was mildly annoying, and neither restarting Steam, restarting my PC, nor verifying the integrity of the game cache fixed the issue. After a quick Google search I came across this suggestion in the Steam forums. It turns out both the “VCRedist” and the “uplaylauncher” entries were missing for me. Once I added them manually I no longer received either prompt when starting the game.

The Fix

  1. Open regedit.exe (you might be prompted by UAC).
  2. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > Wow6432Node > Valve > Steam > Apps > 208480 (the last folder may be different depending on the game).
  3. There should be four entries in addition to the (Default) entry: DXSetup, Punkbuster, uplaylauncher, and VCRedist.
    Screenshot of registry entries for Assassin's Creed III
    There should be four registry entries for Assassin’s Creed III.
  4. If any are missing, right-click and add a new DWORD (32-bit) Value.
    Screenshot of creating a new registry entry.
    Create a new registry entry if necessary.
  5. Give the new entry a value of “1” (use Hexadecimal).
    Screenshot of new registry entry value.
    Give the new registry entry a value of “1”

Hopefully that helps!