Street Fighter 5 Not Launching? Here’s How to Fix It

Street Fighter 5 on PC has had its users bumping into their fair share of errors. While others can’t manage to get past the loading screen, most gamers have scratched their head due to Street Fighter 5 not launching. If continued over time, the issue at hand can become quite vexing. It’s best that you get to it right away for a quick, easy fix thanks to the slew of error fixes enlisted in this guide. 

Without any further chit-chat then, let’s jump right into the fixes for the Street Fighter 5 launching issue, so you can instantly resume playing. 

How to Fix Street Fighter 5 Not Launching

The fixes detailed ahead have allowed fellow Street Fighter 5 players to launch their game perfectly again. It’s advised to follow each solution carefully for achieving the best results. 

Restart Your PC

Before you venture into the more effort-taking steps of resolving the Steet Fighter 5 not launching problem, it’s best to perform a simple restart first. More often than not, rebooting your Windows 10 PC can allow the device to unwind and get back to being fully functional again. Doing so also automatically takes care of any sneaky background processes, clears up RAM, and refreshes the whole system — you know how it goes.

To restart your PC, click on the Windows Start menu in the bottom-left corner of the screen followed by selecting the “Power” button. This ought to expand the options and allow you to click on “Restart.” 

Once your PC boots back up, give the game another go. With luck by your side, you might just have fixed the Street Fighter 5 not launching issue right from the get-go, but don’t fret if you haven’t. We’ve got a bunch of solutions lined up for you below to help you troubleshoot this bug and resume playing again. 

Exclude Street Fighter 5 From Microsoft Defender 

Microsoft Defender is an essential Windows program that functions as an anti-malware component. It’s responsible for keeping viruses and everything of the like at bay and keep our devices safe from recurrent malware forays. However, this same service could be hindering users from playing Street Fighter 5.

It’s definitely worth a shot to exclude Street Fighter 5 from being scanned by Microsoft Defender, as this is something that can potentially fix the game not launching. To do this, follow the steps listed ahead. 

1. Open the device’s “Settings” to commence the process. 

2. Once done, click on “Update and Security” to get to the next step. 

3. Right after that, you’ll be taken to another page which will comprise a plethora of settings and optimization options. Here, look to the left column and find “Windows Security.” Click on it to get to the next step. 

4. As you see the contents of your screen changing, click on “Viruses and threat protection” and continue moving forward. 

5. Now that you’re got yourself another window open, click on “Manage settings” right below the “Virus and threat protection settings” area to proceed. 

6. Now in the page that appears next, scroll down a little to find the “Exclusions” section. Once you’re there, click on “Add or remove exclusions” to proceed. I understand that steps can get pretty tedious, but they’re outright necessary to fix the Street Fighter 5 not launching issue.  

7. The last step is to simply add the exclusion to Windows Defender. You’ll do that by clicking on the button that’s specified below. The objective here is to select the whole of “Steam” folder to maximize your chances of success. If you’re not playing Street Fighter 5 from Steam, select whatever folder you’ve stored the game in. Be sure to mark the whole folder and not just the game application.  

Give yourself a pat on the back for making it this far. Once you’ve excluded Street Fighter 5 from the shackles of Microsoft Defender, there’s a strapping chance that you can now play the game like normal again. If doing all the above still hasn’t launched Street Fighter 5 for you, we recommend trying the next fix. It closely accompanies Microsoft Defender, but is widely more problem-solving. 

Disable Your Running Antivirus Software

A slew of reports have been coming in across the internet mentioning that the Street Fighter 5 not launching is because of your currently running antivirus software. This is no less than a common occurrence, so rest assured regardless. Your antivirus might be recognizing Street Fighter 5 as a potential threat to your Windows 10 PC, so what we’ll do now straight away is disable it and you’ll be hopefully good to go. 

It’s worth noting that some people may not have an additional antivirus software installed other than the in-built Windows Security program that takes care of our protective requirements. The following step-by-step tutorial focuses on the latter, but you’ll also find some tips on how to disable other antivirus software on your PC by the end of this section. 

How to Disable Windows Security

The steps given below will illustrate the process of disabling Windows Security on your PC. Follow them as they’re mentioned exactly to minimize the Street Fighter 5 not launching stomachache. 

1. To begin, go to your Windows 10 “Settings” by either looking it up using the Windows Search bar or by accessing the department through the Taskbar if you have them pinned there. 

2. Once you’re in the main “Settings” area, the next step is to select “Update and Security,” which will be located in the last row slated in the page. Clicking on that area will help you proceed in this tutorial. 

3. After you click on “Update and Security,” you’ll see another page popping up in place of the previous one on your screen. There, click on “Windows Security” in the left column to get to the next step. 

4. As soon as you do that, you’ll see a bevy of new options appearing in the middle of the screen. The next step is to click on “Virus and threat protection” right under the “Protection areas” section. This will open up another window for you. 

5. Having done that, you’ll then have to click on “Manage settings” under the “Virus and threat protection settings” section. 

6. Lastly, click on the toggle under “Real-time protection” to turn off the shields of Windows Security and let your Street Fighter 5 run freely. A prompt will appear after clicking on the specified area, so do make sure you select “Yes” to finalize the process. 

That’s your cue for getting the Street Fighter 5 not launching issue fixed! Try starting the game again to see if disabling Windows Security has done the trick for you. 

To get back on what I iterated earlier, it turns out that users who’ve installed other antiviruses on their devices have been able to get Street Fighter 5 to work by either shutting them down temporarily or uninstalling them. This goes out for the vast majority of entry-level antivirus software, such as Avast, Avira, McAfee, and Bitdefender. 

Therefore, check if you can disable your antivirus momentarily to see if that fixes the launching problem. If it does, it’s best that you uninstall the program altogether and opt for a different one. Alternatively, you can keep the software disabled until you’ve play the game and enable it afterward.

If disabling Windows Security still hasn’t done the job for you, it’s time to move on to other potential fixes. Keep on reading for more information. 

Launch Street Fighter 5 With All Other Apps Closed

The title is pretty self-explanatory here. Some users have reported fixing the launching issue on Steam, and simply by closing all other running apps and running the game application all alone. While it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact ideology here, it’s possible that some other application you have installed on your device is inhibiting Street Fighter 5 from launching. 

Therefore, make sure that before you click on that handsome “Play” button on Steam for Street Fighter 5, no other programs are running. It’s pretty basic stuff but effective nonetheless. However, if doing this didn’t work, continue on to the other solutions below. 

Analyze System CPU Usage

Street Fighter 5 not launching on Steam could very well be an overly exhausted CPU consumption, particularly where the processing power is 99% utilized. In cases like these, it’ll be hard for any graphics-intensive application to launch, let alone Street Fighter. Therefore, all you have to do is fire up the Task Manager on your PC and analyze your CPU usage. 

You can do that painlessly either by looking it up through the Windows Search bar or by pressing the “CTRL,” “Shift,” and “Esc” keys together as a time-saving shortcut. Once done, evaluate the CPU usage and terminate background processes accordingly and give your system a little breathing room. 

As depicted in the screenshot below, any CPU usage above 90% isn’t workable. If Google Chrome is causing this exorbitant surge, I advise clearing your cache and browsing history. In addition, a restart can pay off substantially here as well. 

After clearing out the Task Manager, try launching Street Fighter 5 to see if it works now. If you had high CPU usage before, the Street Fighter 5 not launching hassle should be no more in the question. If the issue still persists, continue on to the final fix we have left. 

Terminate Intel-Related Background Processes 

A horde of users have reported that ending two notorious tasks from the Task Manager have helped restore their copy of Street Fighter 5 to normalcy. These two processes are Intel Driver Support and Intel System Usage. If either of them are running in the background while you’re trying to run the game, they’re probably causing the game not to launch.

To lay this probability to rest, launch the Task Manager on your Windows 10 PC and scroll through the list of running services. If you spot either of the two aforementioned programs, terminate them on sight. Once done, launch Street Fighter 5 to see if it works. Hopefully, you can now get the game to launch. 

Conclusion

Players running into errors is unacceptable behavior. After all, games are meant to take away our stress in life, not add more to it. The Street Fighter 5 launching issue has riled up tons of enthusiastic gamers, and if you’re one of them, you acknowledge the major bother. However, in this error fix-oriented article by eXputer, we’ve shown you a variety of ways to fix your game in due time. 

Be sure to follow each method meticulously as we’ve penned it down for maximum efficiency. If you’ve managed to fix your Street Fighter 5 not launching using any of the listed solutions, comment down below so fellow users can take notes. As always, happy gaming! 

• Got a knack for playing action-packed fighting games? Check out this specially curated Genshin Impact Weapon Tier List for a worthy incentive.