If you have recently installed Vista you may have realized that some of your older games and applications will no longer install with error messages informing you to upgrade DirectX 9.0c

The first time it happened to me was when I installed Nero 7 Essentials onto a new Vista computer and it asked if I wanted to update to DirectX 9.0c … “ummm, excuse me? Doesn’t Vista come installed with DirectX 10?” Yes. But it appears that DirectX10 and DirectX9 are more like cousins rather than brother or sister.

Some games such as FEAR, Oblivion, Battlefield 2 (BF2) and Battlefield 2142 (BF2142); and some applications like Nero 7 and 3DMark06 will not install on Microsoft Vista unless you first install DirectX9.0c updates.

Don’t worry, this won’t overwrite any of your DirectX 10 files. Trust me (or don’t and back everything up first). The Direct X 9 updates appear only to add a few DLL files which are required by the above programs.

You can get the update from Microsoft here:

Let me know if this helps with any other games or applications. I am interested in building up a list of programs that require this update to work.

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Filed under: Windows Vista

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