Thread: Windows 8.1 Fresh Install FFXI (Steam)

Hi I recently bought an Acer laptop at Bestbuy about...2 months ago. I've been on XIV for a while, but I wanted to come back to ffxi for quite some time now. So overnight I let the game reinstall and update, but when I went to play the game (In windowed mode), these things happened:

1.) A prompt came up asking me to install/enable Windows DirectPlay.
2.) That window quickly became unresponsive.
3.) My Taskbar quickly became unresponsive.

I'm not sure what happened, unless I'm doing something wrong. My Operating System is Windows 8.1 (I was originally on just Windows 8.) and I obtained the game by installing it through my Steam Account.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Save for a few updates, my computer is almost factory model still.

I just got a new PC with win 8.1 and had some similar issues this weekend.

I did however get the game up and running in short order and will try and be of assistance.

First and foremost, you can and should enable DirectPlay independent of FFXI or PlayOnline.

To do that (after a fresh reboot) go into Control Panel, open the Programs and Features menu, and then click Turn Windows Features on or off.

In there, you will want to turn on anything under Legacy Features.

You also want to go into .NET and add any frameworks, especially the 3.5 framework.


I can confirm for you that without BOTH of these steps, the game will never run on a windows 8.1 PC.

If you do both these things and still have issues check back in here.


Reboot after doing all of these updates, and then-and-only-then try launching FFXI.

That worked, thanks I'm back ingame <3