How to run OneShot on Windows XP

In this tutorial, I'll show you how to run OneShot on Windows XP

Note: The copy of OneShot I used had it's steam_api.dll file patched so it does not require Steam to run. You may also need to patch your copy.
Base OS: Windows XP SP3

Getting oneshot.exe working

Firstly, you need to patch the main executeable file of the game, because if you try to run it normally, you will just get a "is not a valid Win32 application error


To fix this, download Alky for Applications from here and install it. You do not need to bind it to a product key.

After installing it, reboot your computer

Now, go to the oneshot.exe file, right click on it and select "Patch and run Vista executeable..."

After the patching is done, you should get a error saying that vcruntime140.dll is missing.


To fix this, just download and install Visual C++ Runtime 2015 from here .

If done correctly, you should get a "Failed to initialize Steamworks API" error. This is normal, and in fact a good sign as this means that oneshot.exe is now working

Getting steamshim.exe working

To get steamshim.exe (the file that allows you to run OneShot) working, you firstly need to patch it in the same way as you did with oneshot.exe

After patching, you will get an error saying that the entry point inet_ntop is missing in WS2_32.dll


To fix this, download ws2_32.dll from here (a part of One-Core-Api) and save it to the same folder as OneShot.

If done correctly, you will get an error saying that ws2_base.dll is missing.


To fix this, download xpws2_base.dll from here (a part of One-Core-Api) and save it to the same folder as OneShot, then rename it to ws2_base.dll

After placing the two missing .dll files OneShot should run!


IMPORTANT: If fonts are missing, go into the Fonts folder inside the OneShot game folder, and copy all of the fonts to C:\Windows\Fonts

Note: you may get a Windows Firewall alert, you can safely press Keep Blocking

Getting _______.exe working

Now, to get the final file working, it may not seem important but it needs to work for the game to let you complete the last puzzle (also for one other thing at the end but I will not spoil)


Firstly, download UPX from here then put it on the Desktop, for example

Then, copy _______.exe to the same place as UPX

Now, you need to open a command prompt window and navigate to the same directory as UPX and _______.exe

Then, type upx -d _______.exe as shown in the image below


After that, download two things: HxD Hex Editor from here and shellxp.dll from here (part of XomPie.)

Install HxD and open the _______.exe file in it.

Now, go to Search > Find in HxD and search for shell32


It will find an occurence of shell32, replace the 32 with XP (do not erase any characters, type over them instead

If done correctly, it should look like this:


Now, save the file.

After this, put the shellxp.dll you downloaded and the modified _______.exe in the OneShot directory. Overwrite any files if asked.

If everything is done correctly, the _______.exe file will run.


The puzzle that involves this file has rendering issues, but it's still possible to complete it. See the issues here (image not embedded to prevent spoilers)