I work for an organisation as an IT administrator, and we have come across a very serious problem with one of our servers. We can access the server by RDP but every time we try to open any kind of application we get the following error message: Application error : The application was unable to start correctly (0x0000142). Click OK to close the application. When I say any, I mean ANY application. We can't open cmd, regedit, services, restore or msconfig. We can't look at the logs, we can't even reboot the server, NO features will open without the same result. It is currently running Windows Server 2008 R2 and is in a remote location, so manual reboot at the current time is not ideal as downtime will be huge. It is worth noting that we also cannot access the command prompt using remote tools like psexec, we get the response "Access denied" when we are sure the credentials are correct. The same happens if a user attempts to log in for us at the remote site and use any applications. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Please see if following works for you... Log on to the server as local admin From elevated cmd (run as administrator ) run the command sfc /scannow I do not represent the organisation I work for, all the opinions expressed here are my own. This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees and confers no rights.

I work for an organisation as an IT administrator, and we have come across a very serious problem with one of our servers. We can access the server by RDP but every time we try to open any kind of application we get the following error message: Application error : The application was unable to start correctly (0x0000142). Click OK to close the application. When I say any, I mean ANY application. We can't open cmd, regedit, services, restore or msconfig. We can't look at the logs, we can't even reboot the server, NO features will open without the same result. It is currently running Windows Server 2008 R2 and is in a remote location, so manual reboot at the current time is not ideal as downtime will be huge. It is worth noting that we also cannot access the command prompt using remote tools like psexec, we get the response "Access denied" when we are sure the credentials are correct. The same happens if a user attempts to log in for us at the remote site and use any applications. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Hello, Since you can do nothing on the server, I hope that you have a backup so that you can restore it from it. Anyway, the other option for me is to re-install the server. This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees , and confers no rights. Microsoft Student Partner 2010 / 2011 Microsoft Certified Professional Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator: Security Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer: Security Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuration Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure, Configuration Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure, Configuration Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Windows 7, Configuring Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Designing and Providing Volume Licensing Solutions to Large Organizations Microsoft Certified IT Professional: Enterprise Administrator Microsoft Certified IT Professional: Server Administrator Microsoft Certified Trainer

Hi Guys, Thanks for the replies. We have external and on site backups so if we should have to rebuild its not the end of the world. We were hoping however with the site being so far away there would be an alternate fix. Santosh - thanks for your reply, however for security reasons the Local admin account is disabled and we cant re-enable it without getting an application error (I guess this is exactly why people leave it on).

As an last option, you might want to try In-Place Upgrade if its a feasible option How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 & Windows Server 2008 R2 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2255099 Thanks I do not represent the organisation I work for, all the opinions expressed here are my own. This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees and confers no rights.

Hi again, One of us went over to the site and forced shut down and the server came back up with no problems.. a resource issue maybe? Lucky as we were planning to rebuild the server if Santosh's ideas didn't work. Thanks anyway!