Error codes

Windows has taken the virtualisation extensions that Ancient needs, or they were never enabled.

1. Check that Intel VT-x or AMD SVM is enabled in BIOS.
2. In Windows, open Turn Windows features on or off and untick both Hyper-V and Virtual Machine Platform.
3. Turn off Core Isolation under Windows Security, Device security.
4. Open an administrator command prompt and run bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off.
5. Restart.

Do not delete hvix64.exe or hvax64.exe. You will find guides telling you to take ownership of those two files in System32 and remove them. Deleting them breaks Windows servicing and code integrity, it is awkward to undo, and the four steps above achieve the same thing.

Your CPU does not expose the AES instruction set, or it is switched off in BIOS. Look for AES or AES-NI under CPU Configuration and enable it.

If your CPU genuinely lacks AES, Ancient cannot run on that machine and no setting will change that.

Your Windows disk is using the legacy MBR partition scheme, or the BIOS is in Legacy rather than UEFI mode. Ancient needs UEFI and GPT.

Convert the disk first with the built in mbr2gpt tool, then switch the BIOS from Legacy to UEFI. Doing it the other way round leaves a machine that will not boot.

You may also see this spelled Unsupported Frimware. Same error, same fix. It is a typo on the vendor's side.

Turn off RAID and any virtual disks in BIOS, set the storage controller to AHCI, and disable Intel Rapid Storage Technology.

If the message stays, find every driver and service whose name begins with iaStor and disable those too.

If Windows was installed while the controller was in RAID or IRST mode, changing the BIOS setting alone will stop Windows booting. Switch modes properly, which means enabling safe mode with bcdedit /set safeboot minimal before you change the setting, then turning it off again afterwards.

Same cause and same fix as the entry above. Disable IRST, then disable any remaining iaStor drivers and services.

On a desktop, the graphics card is too old for what Ancient is trying to draw.

On a laptop, the integrated GPU is still active and Ancient is rendering through it. Disable the integrated GPU in BIOS so the discrete card is the only one available.

If neither applies, your overlay is not actually running. Go back to Overlay setup.

Turn the NVIDIA overlay off and back on, then inject again. See Overlay setup.

Press your Sonar shortcut, F7 by default, before injecting. Sonar's overlay is not active until the shortcut has been used once. See Overlay setup.

SteelSeries is capturing while you play. Open SteelSeries GG, then Settings, Moments, Capture and sound, and turn off Allow Moments to capture while gaming.

Reinject first. If the key still does nothing, restart your overlay app as administrator.

Two different problems share this symptom.

If the loader itself closes on launch, install vc_redist.x64.exe and restart. Do it even if you are sure you already have it, since a damaged install and a missing one look identical.

If the loader ran fine and the menu never appeared, the loader closing is normal and the problem is the overlay. Check that the overlay app is running as administrator, that AMD users pressed the Sonar shortcut, and that NVIDIA users are on the NVIDIA app rather than the old GeForce Experience.

Something is still intercepting the loader. Turn off real time protection, uninstall any third party antivirus rather than pausing it, and remove Riot Vanguard, FACEIT and ESEA. Restart, then try again.

If it persists with all of that gone, clean up your startup programs as described in the next entry.

1. Confirm you have 16 GB of RAM or more.
2. Restart. A driver that installed badly usually clears on a reboot.
3. Disable everything under Task Manager, Startup, then restart again.
4. Make sure the loader is on a local disk, not in OneDrive or any cloud synced folder.
5. If it continues, use Autoruns to disable everything under Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run, and nothing else. Save and restart.

If none of that helps, run the product immediately after booting, before anything else has started. Still failing after that points at the Windows install itself.

Reinject. This one is not a configuration problem.

Your connection could not reach the authentication server. Check that you are online, then turn your VPN off if you use one, since some endpoints are blocked.

If you are not using a VPN and it still fails, try one. Some ISPs filter this traffic. See VPN and region problems.

Uninstall Riot Vanguard and FACEIT properly, through Add or remove programs. Closing them is not enough, because both load a driver at boot.

If neither is installed, this message also appears when virtualisation is disabled. Enable Intel VT-x or AMD SVM in BIOS, usually under CPU Configuration or Advanced.

Open a command prompt as administrator and run these one at a time:

wmic diskdrive get Caption, SerialNumber
wmic baseboard get SerialNumber
getmac

If any of them returns an error rather than a value, Windows cannot read your hardware identifiers and the install is damaged. A reinstall is the fix.

If all three return values, your key is bound to different hardware. Request a reset, see HWID resets.

Three things cause this. Check them in order:

1. The subscription ran out. Your licence counts from the first time you loaded it, not from purchase, and it runs continuously.
2. Hardware changed, so the key no longer matches. See HWID resets.
3. The product is mid update. Check the status page.