Here’s a weird thing that’s keeping people from enjoying Grand Theft Auto V on PC.
Rockstar has found an issue where people who have “weird” characters in their Windows usernames cannot install or play its latest open-world crime game, which launches on PC today. You may see an error that reads “The Rockstar update service is unavailable (code 1)” or the download may get stuck. If you experience either one of these issues, you might want to check that you didn’t get too creative with the name you chose when you registered your Windows account.
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Basically, you need to cool it with all the l337 speak and start spelling things like a grownup. Rockstar included a list of supported characters, and it only promises that names with letters and numbers will work. No question marks, no asterisks, and no underscores.
And don’t even try a hyphen.
If you wanna go through the process of changing your Windows name, here’s how to do it on Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8/8.1.
If you plan on playing Grand Theft Auto V tonight, you’ll probably want to change your name immediately because it can take quite a while to download the 50-plus gigabytes of data required to drive around the streets of Los Santos.