Steam Client Not Found

[awger]

I've had limited success starting Steam version of VoiceAttack. I have gotten it to work multiple times, but twiddling with "run as admin" seems to break things.

When I launch VoiceAttack (from steam client, from shortcut, from .exe, doesn't matter) I get UAC prompt for admin escalation and then the attached dialog box.

I have tried uninstalling, re-installing, cleaning out registry, etc.

Also... when it was "working" I was getting an additional prompt from Steam asking to verify a game launching with additional parameters. That looks like a Steam bug going back to (at least) 2016, but I don't think that's on you.

Any ideas?

[Pfeil]

Are you using a separate administrator account? Have you tried running Steam as administrator?

[awger]

I run apps (games) on an un-privileged account, UAC prompts for my admin account.

I have not tried running Steam as admin, and would prefer not to.

Is there a log somewhere I could look at?

Aside: I wasn't expecting a response that fast... kudos!

[Pfeil]

If you're using a separate account, VoiceAttack would not be activated on that account. Running Steam as administrator and using it to launch VoiceAttack may allow it to activate for that account, so you can launch it normally after that (without needing to run Steam as administrator again).

[awger]

Just did a Run-As of Steam as admin... launched VA, it came up without error. Logged out of Steam, relaunched as regular user, got UAC prompt, VA now running without error.

Looks like there's something dodgy about the Steam / Run-As admin / license validation? Not sure how I broke it, but it's working now... and I'm jonesing for some F-86 flight time, so I'll worry about it later.

Thanks for following up, will post back if I have any revelations.

And again... FANTASTIC CUSTOMER SUPPORT! THANKS!

[Pfeil]

VoiceAttack does not require Steam to be running provided it has already been activated for your user account.

When you use a different account to run applications as administrator, they run as that account instead, I.E. not the account VoiceAttack had already been activated with.


All that having been said, it's probably worth pointing out that it's not required to run VoiceAttack as administrator in most usage scenarios.

The main reason you'd want to run VoiceAttack as administrator is in case you need to send input to an application that is also running as administrator (as Windows does not allow non-elevator applications to interact with elevated applications, which would likely also be why Steam can't interact with an elevated instance of VoiceAttack to activate it unless it's also elevated)

[awger]

If I'm running the Steam version of VA, shouldn't the activation / licensing be associated with my Steam account, as opposed to my Windows user?

Using either my regular user account or my admin account I can login to my Steam account and see my Steam library (AV included). From an AV licensing perspective, it shouldn't matter which Windows account launched the Steam client.

As you said, I would expect that the only reason admin priv would be necessary was for VAICOM to talk to DCS -- which is my use case. All the docs for VAICOM re: DCS say to run VA as admin (for whatever reason) ... and, per my testing,  it does appear to be the case that, if I don't run VA as admin, VAICOM can't talk to DCS -- even though DCS isn't running with admin priv.

I'm running the non-Steam DCS-OB ... and, given the complications I'm seeing, I should probably have gotten the non-Steam version of VA.

[Pfeil]

If the activation were only associated with your Steam account, you'd need to run Steam every time you're running VoiceAttack.

The activation system is designed explicitly so you don't need to run Steam once VoiceAttack has been activated for that user account, I.E. you can run the executable directly and it won't launch Steam, or require Steam to be running.