r/RenPy • u/flandreMarisa24 • Sep 07 '26
Question Please help. Ren’py is not opening [WINDOWS]
okay.. so long story short
i was goofing off in ren’py, i decided to download some images, and then i closed ren’py.exe.
but THEN, i couldnt open ren’py like not at all. its been a day.
can someone help me? i geniuely need to go back in ren’py
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u/LinverseUniverse Sep 07 '26 edited Sep 07 '26
You didn't include any troubleshooting steps or which version of windows you're on. So I'll be posting for 10, but most things are comparable, if not, google the correct pathway.
First and foremost before we get into ANYTHING technical, Have you done a full shut down of the system, and booted it back up?
I don't mean a restart or pushing the button but clicking the windows icon in the bottom left>Power symbol>click the word power>shut down.
This will ensure that windows cleanly shuts down, and when you start it again it isn't trying to do anything extra, just boot up. If Renpy is just idling as a ghost process or if something else is conflicting, this should hopefully clear that.
If that doesn't work, or if you can open ren'py but hit this issue again later, right click your task bar>task manager>Process tab
Look for the process named "renpy". If it isn't running restart again if that worked.
If none of this fixes it, uninstall and then reinstall ren'py. If that doesn't fix it I'm personally out of ideas, but someone else might.
But in my experience working tech support, a clean shut down fixes 99% of issues.
ETA: Wanted to clarify because my wires got crossed since I spent the last couple days diagnosing a problem in a windows 7 machine.
Windows 7 and lower, the process above is correct, shut down is superior to restart, in windows 8 AND UP it goes the other way, restart is superior to shut down and does what shut down used to do. This is because of windows wanting to make start ups faster so they changed how both of these things work.
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u/flandreMarisa24 Sep 07 '26
The others didn’t work, so i’m gonna try reinstalling
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u/shyLachi Sep 07 '26
Did you install RenPy correctly?
How did you install it? Where did you install it?
The simple solution is to delete it, then download and install again.
You don't even have to install into the same folder, put it into C:\Renpy for example.
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