A Way to Install the Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Libraries
Updated  by  nm  2022-September-30

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News

2023-September-26  As of today, this evolving⁠[1] article has been on the web for 1 year.🕯

 

Terminology

Why I wrote this

While trying to launch KeePassXC v2.70[2] on one of my Windows devices, I discovered that it could not access the required MSVC Runtime Libraries. This is a common issue and is discussed in:

As suggested in the above GitHub issue, I installed the MSVC Runtime Libraries from learn.microsoft.com/en-US/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist, but KeePassXC v2.70 still would not launch. After a lot of troubleshooting, I figured out a solution.

 

My weird solution: Install PowerToys

My weird solution was to install Microsoft PowerToys because, according to github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/ (in 2022), the PowerToys installer installs the following items:

  • .NET 6.0.8 Desktop Runtime or a newer 6.0.x runtime.

  • Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime bootstrapper. This will install the latest version.

  • Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable installer. This will install one of the latest versions available.

And now I can launch KeePassXC on all my devices.⁠👏

 

  • The PowerToys MSVC Runtime Libraries will be available to KeePassXC even if PowerToys is not running.

  • Microsoft PowerToys, “is a set of utilities for power users to tune and streamline their Windows experience for greater productivity.”⁠[3]

 

How I stumbled upon my weird solution

I use two Windows devices, Device1 and Device2Device2 is newer, had a much newer version of PowerToys, and was able to launch KeePassXC v2.70+. So I thought⁠🤔 “What if I reinstall PowerToys on Device1?”  Doing that solved my launching-⁠KeePassXC problem!

 

See also

Endnotes


1. Many Infinite Ink pages, including this one, are evergreen 🌲 and regularly updated.
2. KeePass v2.70 was released 2022-March-21. I want to use v2.70+ because of this new feature: Support for [Diceware] wordlists in user configuration directory.
3. This quote is displayed on PowerToys General tab and I used PowerToys' Text Extractor tool to copy it.

Please share & discuss 📝 👎 👍 📯