Logon Process Initialization Failure

By koinonia
in Tips, Tweaks & Customization

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  • 1 year later...
Neowinian

PJPoon

Posted
Posted

Hello. I know this thread is super old, but I have not found a solution to this anywhere on the web, and I finally figured out how to solve this problem. Maybe somebody will find this useful.

Open up a command prompt from your recovery options and copy C:\Windows\System32\winevt\Logs\Application.evtx to an external disk. Get on another computer with Vista and open up Application.evtx with the Event Viewer. Find the error where SideBySide is the source in the event log and it should say something about an error in some manifest file. Now go back to your computer and replace that file on your C drive with a copy of that file from your recovery partition or recovery disk. Restart your computer and it should work.

  • 1 month later...
Neowinian

Daedalus Prime

Posted
Posted
  PJPoon said:
Open up a command prompt from your recovery options and copy C:\Windows\System32\winevt\Logs\Application.evtx to an external disk.

This worked perfectly for me! The one thing I did differently was to build a VistaPE CD abd booted from it. Makes it a little easier to deal with the monstrous file names!

Certainly saves alot of effort and money over Dell's recommendation to have a computer store back up the computer then re-install Vista!

  • 2 months later...
Neowinian

Mindless Automaton

Posted
Posted
  PJPoon said:
Hello. I know this thread is super old, but I have not found a solution to this anywhere on the web, and I finally figured out how to solve this problem. Maybe somebody will find this useful.

Thanks for the followup, I was googlin' all over for this answer.

-Mindless Automaton

Neowinian

max danger power

Posted
Posted

Is there any way to do this without another Vista machine? I've got this semi-old desktop with XP Pro x64 and a new laptop with Vista. I've tried system restore and wot. I really don't want to install windows all over again, but I suppose it's better than spending hundreds of dollars with some tech guy who will do the same.

  • 3 months later...
Neowinian

connectthedots

Posted
Posted

Many thanks to PJPoon for posting this fix! This problem began after uninstalling Kaspersky, which was blocking my internet access and then installing Avast!. Everything was working great until I rebooted, Interactive Logon Process Initialization Has Failed. I thought no, prob, system restore, copy over old registry hives from backreg folder, no problem. Nope! None of the Windows Repair options worked, tried them all. Typically I would try to look at the logs using Sysinternals ERD 2007, but its not compatible with Vista. There is an "unattach mode" which allows you to copy files, just can't use any of the tools or have access to the registry. So I copied the Application.evtx file to an external drive. I then attached it to another PC running Vista, copied the file to that PC and viewed the log. There were multiple Windows Logon Errors plus SidebySide errors. The SideBySide errors point to a file located in C:\windows\winsxs\manifests\x86_microsoft.windows.common(long string of numbers).manifest. I grabbed a copy of the file from the working Vista machine to the external drive. Went back to the broken machine and copied it, and presto! Logged In! I thought I was looking at a format. Thank you so much!!!!! But I think the machine may still have viruses...

  • 4 months later...
Neowinian

saildawg

Posted
Posted

Is there a way someone could give step by step instructions (for running command prompt), as in how to type the commands in DOS, and how to replace the file from the startup disk onto the c drive?

My computer just got this problem, and I am desperate not to have to reformat and loose some important files, I am just not very comfortable doing this process without a little more guidance. Any help is much appreciated.

  • 1 month later...
Neowinian

poeppie

Posted
Posted

Hi everyone!!!

I tried to do exactly what was explained by connectthedots. My lastest SideBySide errors (from the day that my computer started to have problems) was located in windows\system32\logonui.exe. I copied this file from a working vista computer... And nothing! I dont have the error msg 'interactive logon process failed' anymore but the boot stops at the same moment and I have a perfect black screen. I spent days trying to understand whats wrong but I have no answers. Can anyone help me please???

I would like to thank you guys for the help u already gave me. I m french and tried to find some help on french websites without succes. U are the only ones who helped me so far so Thanks!!!

Hope to read u soon!

  • 3 months later...
Neowinian

Met

Posted
Posted
  connectthedots said:
Many thanks to PJPoon for posting this fix! This problem began after uninstalling Kaspersky, which was blocking my internet access and then installing Avast!. Everything was working great until I rebooted, Interactive Logon Process Initialization Has Failed. I thought no, prob, system restore, copy over old registry hives from backreg folder, no problem. Nope! None of the Windows Repair options worked, tried them all. Typically I would try to look at the logs using Sysinternals ERD 2007, but its not compatible with Vista. There is an "unattach mode" which allows you to copy files, just can't use any of the tools or have access to the registry. So I copied the Application.evtx file to an external drive. I then attached it to another PC running Vista, copied the file to that PC and viewed the log. There were multiple Windows Logon Errors plus SidebySide errors. The SideBySide errors point to a file located in C:\windows\winsxs\manifests\x86_microsoft.windows.common(long string of numbers).manifest. I grabbed a copy of the file from the working Vista machine to the external drive. Went back to the broken machine and copied it, and presto! Logged In! I thought I was looking at a format. Thank you so much!!!!! But I think the machine may still have viruses...

Any way you can give step by step instructions on how to do this process?

  • 1 year later...
Neowinian

johnsan

Posted
Posted

Though this is a very old topic, I had the same problem today on a computer at work with Windows 7 Pro 64 bits.

I tried applying the solution described by PjPoon with no success as the Event log would not specify any manifest file in particular. I clearly had the SidebySide errors, but no mention of manifest whatsoever.

I still tried copying some x86_microsoft.windows.common* files to the faulty computer but again, not success.

In the end, I managed to simply perform a system restore from the last critical update and the computer runs again. I still don't get what went wrong with the machine :(

  • 1 year later...
Neowinian

cron-x-

Posted
Posted
  On 24/02/2011 at 00:24, johnsan said:

In the end, I managed to simply perform a system restore from the last critical update and the computer runs again. I still don't get what went wrong with the machine sad.gif

first time i had this problem was because i make a restore form one critical update.

  • 6 months later...
Neowinian

St8kout

Posted
Posted

This may be an old thread but:

 

The other day my computer stopped booting up but instead showed a dialog box ("Interactive logon process initialization has failed") but after googleling it on my iphone many others had this same problem. None of the suggested fixes worked.

So I went to repair it with the Windows 7 disc but suddenly my computer could no longer read my disc drive, even though I could hear the disc spinning and see the light flashing. So on the same day I could neither boot up nor repair. I tried F8 for options to repair (it found nothing to repair) and system restore (repeatedly said restore failed).

Luckily, I still had Windows 7 on an old hard drive and am using it to boot up, and with the original drive now as a slave I am back in business with access to all my programs.

Device Manager shows no problems with the disc drive. Googled that too and none of the suggested fixes for this worked either including Microsoft's page to delete upper and lower filters using regedit. Samsung's firmware updates did not work, as well as uninstalling the device and rebooting. The problem seems to be in software as the mechanical part of the drive is working.

Sure seems coincidental that suddenly my startup files and disc drive goes down together leaving me with no way to repair. Still waiting on my new disc drive from Amazon as I've run out of fixes to attempt. At least a basic dvd drive is cheap, but you sure are helpless without it. I'm new to my neighborhood so I can't exactly go next door and ask, "Excuse me, can I borrow a cup of sugar and your disc drive?"

From now on I'm keeping a cloned hard drive handy. Acronis cloner is free and works great.

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