"gw2-64.exe is not a valid win32 application" error after game CTD

[Discarnate.6537]

I was playing GW2 as usual yesterday when I got asked to join the guild hall for something. As the map (Lost Precipice) was loading, my game suddenly crashed to desktop. I didn't think much of it, restarted the game, tried to join the guild hall - crashed again.Ever since that, I am not able to start the launcher at all. Whenever I try, I get an"... is not a valid win32 application" error message, even when trying to run the game with the "repair" option in the command line. I also tried simply uninstalling and installing the game again, but the uninstall manager informed me that there is no such application on my PC (?!) and there was nothing to remove, so I just re-installed. However that also only worked when I started the game directly from the install launcher while it was still downloading all the game data. After logging out yesterday I have the same stuff again today.

My operating system is Win7 64-bit with all the latest updates, for reference.

Can't figure out what would be causing this error so I hope somebody here can help me. Thanks in advance!

[Aeon.4583]

This all does look like virus activity to be honest. Do you have ani-virus solution?

[BunjiKugashira.9754]

@Aeon.4583 said:This all does look like virus activity to be honest. Do you have ani-virus solution?

I wouldn't say virus activity and rather guess it's an overprotective anti-virus.@Discarnate.6537 Did you check if your anti-virus has quarantained your GW2.exe?

[Discarnate.6537]

Nope, anti-virus has nothing flagged. Did a system scan too and it didn't alert me to anything. My personal best guess is that, due to the crash, the game files and possibly related system files got corrupted, so I can't access the program at all anymore, not even via uninstall. That's probably why re-installing does not work properly either - there may be some leftover data which isn't automatically removed anymore and interferes with the new installation.I wouldn't know how and where to fix that, though.

[Shikigami.4013]

I would say it is neither. I had the same error just a week ago or so on a machine that has practically no data/programs on it and no antivirus (because almost nothing is installed on it except GW2 and a virus is not generated out of thin air). The error was exactly the same as for him.

Unfortunately I can't give any viable solution for "normal people" because the way I did it was just copy over the .exe from another of my PCs and it worked again ever since (I have GW2 on muliple machines).

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

The reason the uninstall app doesn't work as it directs to the 32-bit client, rather than the 64-bit client.Is your game placed in Program Files? If so, try moving it to its own folder or the desktop.

If you continue to have issue, you can contact the Tech CS Team via the 'Support' link above/below.

Good luck.

[Wandrer.8173]

Performing a Guild Wars 2 repair with the command Gw2-64.exe -repair should do the trick for you. I had to that as well after the last bugfix.

[ArmoredVehicle.2849]

"is not a valid win32 application" is usually caused by a corrupted exe. In such a case you don't need to re-download the entire game, Simply download the exe from the GW2 website and replace it with the corrupted one. It would be best to run -repair after that.