Windows 10 Information/Troubleshooting (2015)

Space Engineers in Windows 10
We have computers in the office running Windows 10 and we are fixing every issue that we are able to reproduce. This doesn't mean we've found every bug but it does mean that we have the game running without major issues.

We are still getting a lot of support emails and posts on the forums from players who are having trouble. Unfortunately we think there are many causes for this that are beyond our control. Some of the most common things are hardware of all kinds that don't have Windows 10 drivers, have Windows 10 drivers with limited support, or have Windows 10 drivers with unknown bugs.

DirectX 9 Questions
There have been some questions about DirectX 9 support in Windows 10. DirectX 10, 11 and 12 have added new features beyond those in DirectX 9 but no DirectX 9 features have been removed. This means that DirectX 9 is fully supported by newer versions.

Some players have had trouble using DirectX 9 but found that DirectX 11 will work without issues. This is caused by hardware and driver support issues mentioned above. We recommend using the latest drivers directly from the hardware designers.

NVIDIA https://www.geforce.com/drivers
AMD https://support.amd.com
Intel https://downloadcenter.intel.com

Space Engineers doesn't display properly in Windows 10
This is often an issue with drivers. Please try the following before posting in bug reports.

We have found that our games will usually run on Windows 10 in compatibility mode (https://www.windows10forums.com/articles/compatibility-mode.7).
You can try Windows 7 and Windows 8 modes to find which works better for you. This is usually a good workaround until there are updates for your drivers and for Windows 10 compatibility.

The exe files for space engineers can be found here (default location)
32-bit C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\SpaceEngineers\Bin\SpaceEngineers.exe
64-bit C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\SpaceEngineers\Bin64\SpaceEngineers.exe

File Access Issues
Many players have reported problems accessing files. This is often the .log file, the .cfg file, or in some rare cases saves and blueprints.

The following error is from the .log file

Code:

Cannot create log file: System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path 'C:\Users\YourUserNameHere\AppData\Roaming\SpaceEngineers\SpaceEngineers.log' is denied.

Some users are reporting this problem after switching to Windows 10. In some cases we have found that the users have copied files from their old operating system to the new one. In other cases it seems to be an issue created by the Windows 10 upgrade. This creates the problem where the old files have different ownership credentials from the new user account on Windows 10. This prevents Space Engineers from accessing them.

The easiest solution in this case is to

• move the %appdata%\SpaceEngineers folder to a different location
• start the game and have it create new folders by
  • creating a new custom world with at least one mod enabled
  • creating a new blueprint
• This will create blueprints, mods, and saves folders as well as new cfg and log files
• Then copy your the contents of your old saves and blueprints folders into these new folders in %appdata%\SpaceEngineers
• Do not overwrite the new cfg and log files

Space Engineers process won't close and the game can't be started without rebooting
We have found that when Space Engineers won’t close properly it is because of improperly set permissions in the steamapps folder. Sometimes this happens after upgrading to Windows 10 or when creating a secondary user account without administrator privileges. This can usually be fixed by resetting the permissions for the SpaceEngineers folder inside of steamapps. This can also be applied to the %appdata%\SpaceEngineers folder in cases where the log and cfg files cannot be written or accessed.

To reset the steamapps permissions: (you will need administrator access to your PC for this process)

• Go to the installation folder for your copy of the game (Default: c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\)
• Right click on the SpaceEngineers folder
• Click properties
• Go to the Security tab - here you should see three users [SYSTEM, YourUserName, Administrators]
• Each of these users should have “full control” checked in the permissions
  
  
• If full control is checked for all of them:
  • Edit the permissions to remove full control from your user name (Be careful, you will need administrator access to restore your permissions)
  • Apply the new permissions
  • Edit the permissions again to restore full control to your user. Make sure this gets applied to all sub-folders if you have the option.
  • The permissions should now be set properly to allow Space Engineers to function normally.
• If full control is missing for some of them:
  • Edit the permissions to add full control to your user name (You will require administrator access to do this)
  • Apply the new permissions. Make sure this gets applied to all sub-folders if you have the option.
  • The permissions should now be set properly to allow Space Engineers to function normally.
• If your user name isn’t on the list:
  • Edit the permissions to add your user name to the list of users. (You will require administrator access to do this)
  • Make sure you give your user name full control.
  • Apply the new permissions to all sub-folders if you have the option.
  • The permissions should now be set properly to allow Space Engineers to function normally.

Other Issues
If your issue hasn't been covered here please check both the bug reports and troubleshooting sub-forums carefully for similar issues. If you make a new bug report or add to an existing one please include your log file. Instructions for this can be found in the bug reports sub-forum.