knotty sleet
Went to play the game today (1/28/26) and I'm now getting this error from steam. Im guessing my Windows 11 must have pushed an update that is now causing my Windows Smart App Control to block the game from launching. I was able to login yesterday and play the game without issue.
flint dragon
Hi @knotty sleet Did you also email in about this issue?
flint dragon
Are you opted-in to the Windows Insider Program? There was an update (KB5074105) that released on to the Insider program on the 27th. It brings some changes to SAC and may be what has caused this issue.
You can check if you are opted into the Insider Programme by typing Windows Insider Programme into the Windows search bar and open the settings page that will show.
knotty sleet
I did not email in but in checking the settings I am not part of the program. Thanks!
flint dragon
Ok, thanks for the info. Can you take a look at your Windows Update History and see what updates have installed recently please?
In Windows Update you should see Update History, click it and it will give you a list of updates.
Can you expand:
See if anything updated in there in the last couple of days
Also,
Please can you verify the integrity of the game files in Steam: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/0C48-FCBD-DA71-93EB
And can you try running the game directly from the foundation.exe file
Easiest way to find this is to:
knotty sleet
Nothing for updates, files are verified, launching from the .exe file still caused the error
flint dragon
Ok thank you for testing and checking.
Did you do a check for Windows updates? You look to be missing some recent updates.
FYI there have been 3 reports of this so far for Foundation in the past 24 hours. It's a very low percentage of players, however the Smart App Control feature may well be switched off for most people.
There are also a lot of reports for many games on Steam for this issue. It looks like it is most likely an issue with the feature itself. There seems to be a surge in reports recently but looking at your update history there doesn't seem to be a correlation with any update from Microsoft.
Currently you can't switch SAC back on after switching it off. Apparently Microsoft have an update in the works so that it can be switched back on.
At this moment we don't have any way forward to fix this. It would appear to be out of our control and being caused by the Smart App feature. We are looking into it though.
knotty sleet
lol good call on the updates, will run those to see if it helps. but yeah, super weird all around given the weird impact on steam users in general. thanks for the info thus far and I guess ill stay tuned. will circle back to this thread if it magically starts working again lol
flint dragon
yep, thanks. Let us know if the updates work (if there are any for you). That would be very helpful 👍
And I'll keep you posted.
flint dragon
Hey @knotty sleet A Steam user has posted a workaround by adding an exclusion in Windows. The second comment on this post here
If you are willing to test you could give that a go and let us know if the Windows SAC allows the game to start afterwards.
knotty sleet
okay will circle back to see if I can test this. In the meantime running the updates didn't change anything
flint dragon
Thanks for letting me know. After reading some more about this issue I didn't expect updates to help but it was with checking.
knotty sleet
Good Morning @flint dragon that work around fixed it 🙂 Thanks for finding that for me! Really appreciate the help
flint dragon
Great! Thanks for testing it out!
Out of interest, do you use the built-in Windows defender for your antivirus?