Hello,

I'm trying to find if anyone has encountered this bug when launching. It doesn't let me continue as well:

Failed to create dir: \\?\\Larian Studios\Baldur's Gate 3
The system cannot find the path specified.
'

Thank you very much. :)

Yes. I get the same bug. Do you have English Windows version?

Yes I do have the English Windows version.

Then my theory about me having Norwegian OS was wrong. Might be the some issue as others that the Anti-Virus might block the program from accessing and creating folders for making the profile.

No AV here. Even Windows defender is completely deactivated. Shouldn't be an issue honestly.

I have sent several bug reports. I tried creating the folder that was missing, but it cannot create the folder and files inside those folders either. It's not able to write to that specific folder.

what is even //?// I've tried creating folders in all the programdata. In documents and such. No luck

You might want to try and give all access rights to Steam and the folders underneath and run steam and the game in admin mode

I think it just means it's hidden or something. I were thinking about that too, but that might be what it is. Hidden or protected as the users folder in C:/ is hidden. Hence why Steam and the game probably would need better permissions to write to the folder.

No luck there either

Then I have no idea. Gotta wait for patch or Dev feedback on the issue.

I tried creating a new user on windows. Same error also.

I found the issue. Assuming you're having the same issue I had. I had identical symptoms to what you've put above and in the topic title!

The issue relates to Windows 10's protection against apps writing to certain folders by default, including the users data folder.

#### DO THE FOLLOWING AT YOUR OWN RISK. IT INVOVLES ALTERING WINDOWS SECURITY SETTINGS...

Steps to resolve the issue:
- Hit Settings > Update & Security > Windows Security
- Click on Open Windows Security button at the top of the right side of the window
- Select Virus & threat protection
- Under Current Threats click Protection History
- You will see the apps attempts to write to the save folder
- Select one of them
- An option to permit will be available
- Select and acknowledge
- Sorry I forget the exact way the option shows up as I already selected and completed it!

I did the above and now my game works fine.

Windows 10, Steam, North America, English

Best of luck!

Hello Weasel, Thanks for that. I currently see nothing under Current Threats and my Windows defender is completely disabled.

Was definitely worth a try

@Weasel656

Thanks alot for the help there. It worked. It's definitely there @Cikylucky, you need to find the admisitrer controlled folderaccess or whatever it is called. I have Norwegian there, which I really hate. But inside that you can allow an app through the directory/folder access.

Glad it's been helpful, even if it only resolves one other person's issue! :)

Hello Darkgogg,

Yes I am at the page. It's off. So it shouldn't block anything.

So what is probably happening is that while you may have Windows Defender disabled now, it has still previously blocked the app. So what I want you to try is to add a few exclusions in the Windows Defender Virus and threat protection page, and one more step after once you've done that.

Add a folder exclusion for \Documents\Larian Studios
Add a process exclusion for LariLauncher
Add a process exclusion for bg3.exe
Add a process exclusion for bg3_dx11.exe


Then navigate these course of actions

Virus and threat protection > settings > Manage settings > Manage Controlled folder access > Allow an app through controlled folder access > Allow app

When you're there, which should look something like the picture below, make sure bg3.exe and bg3_dx11.exe isn't blocked already in that list.




I've had remote desktop sessions with interested community members tonight and have personally tested and verified this for an identical issue, so it should hopefully be identical enough to solve it for you!

I would recommend turning Windows Defender on, looking for blocked threats, and allowing any (From this game). If they aren't there, try and run the game again with Defender turned on, and look again. This may work, then you can try turning it off again. Sometimes that's the kind of weird fix that does it.

I don't have the Virus and Threat Protection option on my pc.
This is a new clean install of windows too. Can't access it, says I need to contact my IT admin. I am the only user on the PC.
I get the directory error too. Windows Defender isn't blocking anything and I have no other AV on this system.

I got this to work... kinda. After following the directions, I have a new issue during the patch process on GOG. The error reads as:

C:\ Program Files (x86) \GOG Galaxy \ Game \ Baldurs Gate 3 \ unins 0003.exe

I'm open for help.. really I could use it. No, don't skip my post... GAWD DAMN IT. Downloaded this at 10:30 am and I'm still not having any luck even launch at 8:15 pm.

Im also having a system file error

Failed to create dir: \\?\\Larian Studios\Baldur's Gate 3
The system cannot find the path specified.

Ive tried the suggestions on this thread with no luck. Ive tried uninstalling the game multiple times and no luck, same error each time. Im lost in what to do next to fix this. please any help would be appreciated.

Hello,

Here what I've done to make it work:

Open Start on Windows 10.

Search for Command Prompt, right-click the top result, and select Run as administrator.

Type the following command to enable the built-in Administrator account and press Enter:

net user "Administrator" /active:yes

Open Start on Windows 10.

Click on your user. Sign out or select administrator.

Game works now.

So this is really a set of permissions of some kind on the folders. Even though my current account is an administrator. This is really weird.

I fixed it on my pc. Had to open file explorer. Go to properties on the Documents folder. Under the location tab choose to reset default. Fixed it right away.

This is not an option if using OneDrive Backup, which uses folder relocation.

I hope this gets fixed quickly, especially since it should be an easy fix.

This might partially be a Windows issue:

- creating the problematic folder manually did get me to the next missing folder which I then created and so forth
- adding the exe to the list of allowed apps for "Controlled folder access" completely solved the issue.

The strange thing about it is, that usually, when access is denied, I would receive a notification and can then whitelist the app. In this case, however, there was no notification, and the app does not show up in the "Block history", which was the reason I did not expect this to be the cause.

This also does not explain the weird path that the error popup is showing, but at least it seems to be working for the moment.

Hope this helps

I think Avast Ransomwear Shield is protecting the MyDocuments folder from BG3, so I added an exception to see if it fixes it.

I posted on forum and trying to contact Larian support yesterday about this issue but I managed to fix it by running the game of administrator user but after the latest hotfix, I am facing savegame crash on main menu even when running on administrator user. Would there be a way to restore previous version of the game or any way to fix this because I can't play the game right now.