DirectX Errors and Fixes

This post was written by admin on January 8, 2008
Posted Under: PC Security, Technology

DirectX technology is primarily used to include hi-tech gaming capabilities in your Windows system.

The technology enables the gaming software developers to perform low-level operations on your system by directly controlling computer peripherals such as joystick, mouse, and video and audio adapters used while playing computer games.

DirectX was first introduced in the year 1996 and since then the technology has undergone a number of developments.

While these developments in DirectX technology have considerably enhanced the gaming experience of users, they have also given rise to several related computer errors.

For example, if you try to run a game that uses a higher version of DirectX than the one currently installed on your system, you may receive an error.

DirectX 9 is the latest DirectX version available today and it comprises many new enhancements that considerably improve your gaming experience.

Although useful, one of the main disadvantages of DirectX 9 is that it does not comprise any DirectX uninstaller that can remove it from your system.

You may want to remove DirectX 9 from your system to fix DirectX error messages like the ones given below:

The game requires a later version of Microsoft DirectX.

The version of DirectX that is installed on the computer is incompatible with the game.

One of the DirectX files was not found. In order to fix the error, you may either have to reinstall DirectX 9 or remove it from the system.

Reinstall DirectX 9
To reinstall DirectX 9, first clean boot your Windows XP computer by performing the following steps:

Open the Start menu, select Run, type msconfig, and then select OK.
In the System Configuration Utility dialog box that opens, select Selective Startup checkbox and clear all other options given under it.
Next, open the Services tab, select the Hide All Microsoft Services check box and then select Disable All.
Select OK to apply your changes, exit the System Configuration utility and reboot your PC.
After restart, reinstall DirectX 9 on your system.

Note: While reinstalling, ensure that you install a version that is the same as or higher to the DirectX version already installed on your system. You must avoid installing a lower version because that can cause serious problems on the system. You can also check for and download the latest DirectX version from the Internet and then install it.

Remove DirectX 9

As there is no DirectX uninstaller available for DirectX 9 the best way to remove it from your system and restore the default DirectX version - DirectX 8.1 on Windows XP - is by making a few changes in the Windows registry.

To do this, open the Registry Editor window by running the Regedit command.

In the Registry Editor window navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftDirectX registry key.

Here, delete the DirectX folder and restart your PC.

When your system restarts, the default DirectX 8.1 is restored on your Windows XP PC.

You can confirm the restoration by opening the DirectX Diagnostics Tools by running the dxdiag command.

You can use the utility to review information related to DirectX installed on your PC, including its version.

Before making any changes in the registry, remember to back it up first.

This is important because any incorrect changes in registry can cause severe damage to the system and even render it useless.

You can easily create a registry backup using registry tools.

These tools also enable you to perform regular registry maintenance to keep your registry error-free and prevent system errors such as DirectX errors from occurring on your system in the first place.