Prince Of Persia 2008 Launcher Side By Side Error Verified »

When reinstalling Prince of Persia (2008) from original DVD or digital stores (GOG, Ubisoft Connect), note that:

If the error persists after Steps 1-4, the game's internal manifest is corrupted. You will need to edit the file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">
  <dependency>
    <dependentAssembly>
      <assemblyIdentity type="win32" name="Microsoft.VC80.CRT" version="8.0.50727.6195" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b" />
    </dependentAssembly>
  </dependency>
  <dependency>
    <dependentAssembly>
      <assemblyIdentity type="win32" name="Microsoft.VC80.ATL" version="8.0.50727.6195" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b" />
    </dependentAssembly>
  </dependency>
</assembly>

If you cannot install system-wide redistributables, copy the required DLLs into the game’s root folder. prince of persia 2008 launcher side by side error verified

Method:

This overrides the SxS lookup and forces local DLL loading. When reinstalling Prince of Persia (2008) from original

Go to the game’s install folder (e.g., C:\Program Files (x86)\Prince of Persia).
Find Prince of Persia.exe.manifest – rename it to Prince of Persia.exe.manifest.bak.
Launch the game directly from the .exe.

⚠️ This prevents the app from requesting a specific runtime version. Works fine for most users. If you cannot install system-wide redistributables, copy the

Product: Prince of Persia (2008) – Ubisoft
Issue: Launcher fails to start; error message: “This application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect.”
Status: Verified – Caused by missing/incorrect Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable (VC++ CRT) dependencies.

The standard C++ 2005 package often fails because Prince of Persia specifically requires the ATL (Active Template Library) security update. You need a specific hotfix.

Download KB973923 (Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Service Pack 1 Redistributable Package ATL Security Update). Install this after the base redistributable.

Verification: This is the step that 90% of online guides miss. Without this ATL update, the launcher will still throw the side-by-side error even after the standard install.