its a tiny file installed at startup for me too - but if its taking more than 2 mins i think you can force-quit. If i tell windows not to allow changes, the game still runs so i think its supposed to be a one-off install that's coming back erroneously for me.

This is generally due to an error installing the required redistributable. You'll be able to manually install it by going to \Steam\steamapps\common\Chronicle\Chronicle_Data\Redist and running vc_redist executable in that directory. Should resolve it.

did that but it also hangs forever.
funny enough this also happened when i had to upgrade my runescape client and some other steam games.

don't you need to updated microsoft VR somethingsomething only once?

If it's occurring for other games as well, it's more than likely an issue with your system (rather than game specific).

The only time I've seen failures on manual installs is when the OS is not up to date, as some redists expect certain Windows updates to be present. To determine if thats the case for the install failure, you can check the redist install log. You can find this by typing %temp% into your Start Menu, and searching for a Visual C++ 2015 setup log. It should contain an error code to help determine the cause. Chances are it'll contain either 0x80080005 or "0x80070005: Failed to open WU service", which basically means your computer does not have the required Windows Updates (either you have updates turned off, or the Windows Update service has been disabled).

In which case, you'll need to install whatever OS updates are available / pending.

If that still fails, you can also see if there's any errors in Windows Event Viewer. Enter eventvwr.msc into the Start menu, and in Event Viewer, click on Windows Logs -> System. Any errors from install attempts should be showing there. Hopefully there should be something there to help determine what further action needs to be taken.