Mass Effect Windows Vista 64-bit troubles

The other day I had bought the 2 year old Mass Effect RPG from Electronics Arts on discount from Valve’s Steam service. I was amazed that on the first time run the game abruptly crashed with a cryptic message. This issue repeated on every attempt to load the game whether using the Steam launcher or running the binaries manually. There is a simple but not so obvious fix that wasn’t fully detailed in my attempts to search for a solution on the web.

In File Explorer you need to find the Mass Effect launcher …

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\mass effect\Binaries\MassEffect.exe

Right click the MassEffect.exe program and bring up Properties.

1. Select the Compatibility tab
2. Within the Compatibility mode section select the Run this program in compatibility mode for check-box
3. Make sure the pull-down list has Windows XP (Service Pack 2) selected
4. Now select Run this program as an administrator check-box in the Privilege Level section
5. Press OK

You should now be able to run the game from within Steam without any problems. Once you have launched Mass Effect for the first time I found you could disable the Run this program as an administrator check-box, that way you are not prompted for administrator rights every time you run the game.