{"id":583,"date":"2011-03-27T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-27T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/cesardelatorre\/2011\/03\/27\/the-application-has-failed-to-start-because-its-side-by-side-configuration-is-incorrect-error-related-to-mmc-exe-programs-and-weird-cause-simple-solution\/"},"modified":"2011-03-27T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-03-27T14:00:00","slug":"the-application-has-failed-to-start-because-its-side-by-side-configuration-is-incorrect-error-related-to-mmc-exe-programs-and-weird-cause-simple-solution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/cesardelatorre\/the-application-has-failed-to-start-because-its-side-by-side-configuration-is-incorrect-error-related-to-mmc-exe-programs-and-weird-cause-simple-solution\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect\u2019 error related to MMC.EXE programs and weird cause & simple solution"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

I publish this error as its cause was really weird:<\/p>\n

I was getting an error when trying to start any Management Console related program (mmc.exe based admin tool), like Certificates, Event Viewer, etc.<\/p>\n

The error was:<\/p>\n

“The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect. Please see the application event log or use the command-line sxstrace.exe tool for more detail”<\/em><\/p>\n

Something like the following Message-box, but showing the specific path file I was trying to execute (and always based on the MMC.EXE).<\/em><\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But because of I couldn’t open the Event Viewer, I couldn’t see its related error…<\/p>\n

I searched in the internet for similar errors, and that error is very common when you don’t have the right Visual C++ Redistributable Package (x86 or x64), etc.<\/p>\n

I installed all 2008 & 2010 versions of the Visual C++ Redistributable Package, but I still was getting the same error…<\/p>\n

Then I tried using the sxstrace.exe tool<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

For running sxstrace.exe<\/em>, go to Visual Studio command prompt and type sxstrace.exe<\/em>. <\/p>\n

Usage is as follows: <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Before running your application, run sxstrace <\/code>in trace mode: <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \n

     sxstrace.exe<\/em> Trace -logfile:C:\\MySxSTrace.log<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

      \n
    1. Reproduce the error by starting your application <\/li>\n
    2. Now stop the trace by using the below command <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      \n

       sxstrace.exe<\/em> Parse -logfile:C:\\MySxSTrace.log -outfile:C:\\MySxSTrace.txt<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

        \n
      1. Open output file from C:\\MySxSTrace.txt<\/em> <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Then I could see the trace file, and at the end there was an error:<\/p>\n

        INFO: Parsing Application Config File C:\\Windows\\system32\\mmc.exe.Config.
            ERROR: Line 0: XML Syntax error.
        ERROR: Activation Context generation failed.
        End Activation Context Generation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

        Mmmm, weird, it seems a problem regarding the XML configuration file for the mmc.exe…, but I didn’t touch that config-file, still…, I opened and saw the following content…:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
        \n

        configuration>
           <runtime>
              <assemblyBinding xmlns=”urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1″>
               <dependentAssembly>
                 <assemblyIdentity name=”Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient”
                                   publicKeyToken=”31bf3856ad364e35″
                                   culture=”neutral” \/>
                 <bindingRedirect oldVersion=”1.0.0.0″
                                  newVersion=”1.1.0.0″\/>
               <\/dependentAssembly>
               <dependentAssembly>
                 <assemblyIdentity name=”Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient”
                                   publicKeyToken=”31bf3856ad364e35″
                                   culture=”neutral” \/>
                  <publisherPolicy apply=”no” \/>
               <\/dependentAssembly>
         
              <\/assemblyBinding>
           <\/runtime>
        <\/configuration><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

        Hey!, the first ‘<’ character is missing!!…, why?<\/p>\n

        Anyway, I just went ahead and put the right ‘<’ before “configuration>”<\/p>\n

        And there we go!, I can now start the mmc.exe or any other program based on the mmc.exe!! <\/p>\n

        It is strange…, why did that config file lose that character?. Maybe because of any program installation, but it was really weird.  \"Smile\"<\/p>\n

        BTW, this post regarding ‘Diagnosing SideBySide failures’ seems quite detailed. If my cause\/problem is different than yours, try the following procedure:<\/p>\n

        http:\/\/blogs.msdn.com\/b\/junfeng\/archive\/2006\/04\/14\/576314.aspx<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          I publish this error as its cause was really weird: I was getting an error when trying to start any Management Console related program (mmc.exe based admin tool), like Certificates, Event Viewer, etc. The error was: “The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect. Please see the application event log […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":362,"featured_media":12806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[116,120],"class_list":["post-583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cesardelatorre","tag-windows-7","tag-windows-server-2008"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

          I publish this error as its cause was really weird: I was getting an error when trying to start any Management Console related program (mmc.exe based admin tool), like Certificates, Event Viewer, etc. The error was: “The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect. Please see the application event log […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/cesardelatorre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/cesardelatorre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/cesardelatorre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/cesardelatorre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/362"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/cesardelatorre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/cesardelatorre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/cesardelatorre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/cesardelatorre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/cesardelatorre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/cesardelatorre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}