BrowserWorks
Waterfox cannot be installed or run on Windows due to missing MSVC redistributables
What happened?
Waterfox (from at least 6.5.2 onwards) cannot be installed as upgrade from G* version on Windows 10 21H2 or 11 24H2 and later, when installed (without upgrade) it won't start. Both happen because Windows isn't shipped with MSVC runtime anymore and those libraries (VCRUNTIME*.dll, MSVCP*.dll etc.) are missing.
Please consider either bundling of runtime libraries or additional option during setup which would offer download and installation of "VC 2015-2022 Redistributable". In any case the setup should check dependencies before continuing.
Reproducible?
- [ ] I have checked that this issue cannot be reproduced on Mozilla Firefox.
Version
Other
What platform are you seeing the problem on?
Windows
Relevant log output
I have just attempted a clean install of 6.5.5 immediately after downloading it onto a new Windows 10 LTSC installation and encountered the same issue, so it is not just about upgrading from a G* release or any other.
After finding this issue, I have just tried again with a fresh download of 6.5.0 which also throws errors about missing VCRUNTIME140.dll and MSVCP140.dll.
As suggested in https://umatechnology.org/how-to-fix-missing-msvcp140-dll-file-windows-10-11/, I fix this issue by re-installing https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vc_redist.x64.exe. I have no idea if this works for everyone.
I just encountered this issue when installing Waterfox 6.5.6 on a fresh install of Windows 11 24H2. @rmok-git recommendation to reinstall vc_redist.x64.exe worked for me!
Certainly, separate installation of vc_redist.x64.exe would allow Waterfox (or its setup) to run, however, it sholdn't be considerd a fix: MSVC runtime is requirement of Waterfox and as such it should be provided to the user by one of following methods
a) Waterfox setup bundles and installs the libraries when required b) Waterfox setup verifies existense of the libraries on the end-user machine and - in case they are not found - aborts or pauses installation (providing the reason and a link to download) until the libraries are installed manually. c) Waterfox executable is linked to MSVC runtime statically
You cannot rely on non-techie user's willingness to fiddle with cryptical errors and their solutions... they will just go and keep using fricking Chrome.
I just finished a fresh install and updates of Windows 10 (10.0.19045) (64bit) and installed Waterfox 6.5.6 (64bit) on it with the same errors mentioned above. Using the link to the vc_redist.x64.exe in his post solved it for me, too. Thanks for sharing this info and link.
