Windows 8.1 Dell Laptop won’t open Audacity

After downloading Audacity, extracting everything, the program won’t open because api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll is missing. I’ve downloaded and updated the visual c++ 2015 redistributable package and still won’t work. I’ve even factory reset the dang thing, still nothing. What to do?

It worked on all my other computers. Should I slit my wrist now, or wait until tonight.

Heck, knowing my luck, I’d slit my wrist and then find out that I’ve won the lottery.

Yes you need to update the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable.
For the current version of Audacity you probably need “x86: vc_redist.x86.exe” from here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads-2647da03-1eea-4433-9aff-95f26a218cc0
This is an educated guess as I don’t have Windows 8.1

(Windows 8.1 reached the end of Mainstream Support on January 9, 2018)