Quote (Support)

I have gone crazy trying to figure out why none of my source games would start up in Vista, giving me "hl2.exe has stopped working" when I tried to run them. I searched around the net for answers, and finally came up with a solution. If you have this problem, you more than likely have problems running certain media files, and on your system information, it is unable to display your CPU or amount of ram.

This fix is slightly different for most people, so try all of these methods untill the problem is resolved.

On an administrator account:

>>Right click "Computer"
>>Click "Manage"
>>Under the "System Tools" section, Double click "Local Users and Groups"
>>Click "Groups"
>>Right click "Administrators"
>>Click "Add to group..."
>>Click "Add"
>>Click "Advanced"
>>Click "Find Now"
>>Double click "Local Service"
>>Click "Ok"
>>"NT Authority\Local Service" should show up in the list now
>>Click "Ok"
>>Close Computer Management and reboot.

If that does not work, boot your computer up in safe mode with command promt. In the command prompt, type in one of these three variations of this command. (first one worked for me)


Net localgroup Administrators local service /add



net localhost Administrators /add Local Service



net localgroup Administrators /add Local Service