Game crashing on splash screen

[arbola]

So AoE 3, after a few weeks of not playing has decided it suddenly doesn't want to work anymore.

Not the original nor the expansions work (all crash on the splash screen). Changing the compatibility settings, as suggested in other topics does NOT work for me.

Steams runprocess log states the following:

02/23/16 23:08:18 [AppID 105450] CreateProcess failed: ""D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Age Of Empires 3\msxml\msxml4-KB954430-enu.exe"" /s GLE 87
02/23/16 23:08:18 [AppID 105450] CreateProcess failed: ""D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Age Of Empires 3\msxml\msxml4-KB973688-enu.exe"" /s GLE 87
02/23/16 23:08:18 [AppID 105450] CreateProcess failed: ""D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Age Of Empires 3\bin\Register.exe"" GLE 87

Note: I ran this game perfectly fine through Steam a few weeks ago and haven't done anything to it or my system since then.

Any ideas?

[Buckethead]

perhaps these executable files being with an error or does not exist, not sure.

But you can run the game directly.
Go to: "D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Age Of Empires 3\bin\"

To start..
Vanilla (No expansion): run "age3.exe"
The War Chiefs: run "age3x.exe"
The Asian Dynasties: run "age3y.exe"

[arbola]

Hey thanks for the answer. However, I can't run the .exe files in the bin directory either (not even in compatibility mode). I also tried fixing up the issues with the msxml dll's but with no success.

The only thing I do know is that it has something to do with my system because hard deleting the age of empires 3 directory and then reïnstalling the game does not fix it..

[Panmaster]

AoE3 won't work since Windows 7 without installing DirectPlay from the Windows features. Otherwise any issues are because your system is corrupted somewhere.