Author Topic: (Solved) 0xc0000142 error (Read 26487 times)

bobothedragon · « **on:** October 03, 2014, 07:47:32 am »

Hello, I recently brought an HP Envy 15 that came with windows 8.1. I only remember downloading winzip/daemon tools from softpedia/cnet before errors like "cmd.exe Application error - The application was unable to start 0xc0000142". This applies to others like cscript.exe, shutdown.exe and probably many more I haven't discovered yet.

Here's list of things I've tried
- Malwarebytes and the McAfee Live Safe that came with the computer found nothing wrong with the computer
- Tried CCleaner but no help. It did clean some registry but didn't seem to solve the problem
- Ran a chkdsk /r using recovery manager, no problems were found but was unable to send to event log because of something 50
- only able to run offline version of sfc because whenever I try "sfc /scannow" it says there's something pending. Nevertheless it said there were no problems.
- I even did the recycle PC option but problem persists, which scares me.
- tried running cmd in safe mode but didn't work even with administrator mode.

- This laptop comes with an NVidia 850M and Geforce experience, I read somewhere it could clash?

I'm out of ideas and google links. Can't believe I messed up my computer so early...haha.

Thank you for your time and help
Edward

Boggin · « **Reply #1 on:** October 03, 2014, 09:03:08 am »

As softpedia/cnet aren't the safest of download sites, it's possible you have picked up something - although I would have expected MBAM to have found something if that was the case.

You could also give it a scan with MBAR which is an anti rootkit scanner http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/how-to-use-malwarebytes-anti-rootkit but first, try your restore points prior to the winzip download http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows-8/restore-refresh-reset-pc

The MBAR tutorial pre-dates its final release but the steps should be sound.

Shane · « **Reply #2 on:** October 03, 2014, 02:53:21 pm »

Have you tried running all the repairs in my windows repair yet?

Shane

bobothedragon · « **Reply #3 on:** October 03, 2014, 10:57:42 pm »

@Boggin - I selected the rootkit thing from mbam with the rootkit selected and also ran mbar but they said nothing was wrong. Thing is I fully recycled my PC once already back to factory settings but it didn't help. Would restoring to previous restore points be any different?

@Shane - I tried the all in one windows fix thing up thing, but couldn't actually run any of the fixes because they seem to require cmd. To be fair I haven't tried all of them yet but I assume they're all the same.

Shane · « **Reply #4 on:** October 03, 2014, 11:00:52 pm »

Ha! I feel silly for even asking, you would think the fact that cmd wont run for you would have made me realize you can run the repairs lol

Honestly I have never seen this error and wouldnt mind taking a look at it. If I can find why it is broken and I can automate the repair I can add it to the WR (Without using cmd of course)

I am pulling a all nighter working on the WR toolbox I am going to release, so if your up for it I can teamviewer into you.

If you interested just shoot me an email, shane at tweaking.com

Shane

Boggin · « **Reply #5 on:** October 05, 2014, 10:00:23 am »

Not sure if you've Teamviewered in and found the cause of the cmd.exe problem Shane, but wondering if the File Extension Type Association could have come adrift.

This article provides a fix to default some of those which includes that for .cmd and its script http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/8486-default-file-associations-restore-windows-8-a.html

Shane · « **Reply #6 on:** October 06, 2014, 02:07:47 pm »

I logged in and took a look at it, I found that it was crashing when accessing the ntdll.dll file. I checked and there is mismatched versions of files and things missing from the registry. Since sfc cant be ran I am unable to do that.

So later today I will try to connect back and take a look again and try a few things with the ntdll.dll file and any registry keys that have to do with it, using my good machine as a point of reference.

Shane

Boggin · « **Reply #7 on:** October 06, 2014, 02:36:41 pm »

Wonder why the factory reset didn't resolve that ?

Shane · « **Reply #8 on:** October 06, 2014, 02:38:42 pm »

Not sure about that either, but I used process monitor to watch it and as soon as it accesses ntdll.dll it crashes. I check his file versions and they where all different. There was 1.4 GB of windows updates to do, but of course they fail to install because of the cmd.exe not working. The factory reset didnt replace everything.

Shane

Boggin · « **Reply #9 on:** October 06, 2014, 02:49:00 pm »

Does Event Viewer give any info on the cause ?

Shane · « **Reply #10 on:** October 06, 2014, 02:51:04 pm »

Not what so ever. I did research on the error and it has to do with missing or wrong version files. Once I am able to connect back to him I have a few things I am going to try.

Shane

bobothedragon · « **Reply #11 on:** October 09, 2014, 12:22:22 am »

Shane had worked for a long time and he has solved the problem. cmd is now working again and the error no longer pops up. Seriously, thank you very much for that! It'd be best for him to explain the situation. Thank you to Boggin as well for looking into the problem and replying to this thread.

*as a side note,Initially i tried to reset my computer following the instructions here http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&lc=en&docname=c03546603#N89 , which was absolutely useless

Now HP has another option here http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&lc=en&docname=c03489643 which uses the HP recovery manager. It seems to do more than the method above and may actually work.

Boggin · « **Reply #12 on:** October 09, 2014, 01:28:25 am »

Glad Shane was able to sort it for you.

For me, I would be interested as to how that could have happened and why the Reset which is supposed to replace the OS, didn't.....

Shane · « **Reply #13 on:** October 09, 2014, 12:13:17 pm »

Only thing I can think of is when he tried to do the windows reset it would have needed cmd.exe to run, and so it failed to do it properly.

Here is the email I sent him on what I did, I had pulled a 36 hour programming session so I was rather out of it by the time I emailed him and he let me know it worked. lol

Quote

I have no idea which part of what I did fixed it LOL, I was on the thing for 4 hours.

Here is some things I did but got to busy to type them in the notepad.

Reset all permissions in the registry and file system, that let me register files that where getting access denied, you will be able to run my windows repair now to reset the permissions back.

I copied over 400 or 500+ dll files to the system32 folder. I basically took all the dlls from my system32 and then copied them over, only copying the ones you didn't have out of 2700 dlls you didnt have close to 500 of them. Of course I am on 8.1 pro so hard to tell.

I then did a trick after all that, I ran windows disk cleaner, in the there is an option to clean up windows updates. What that does is goes through the winsxs folder removing old updates and outdated files. That took way longer than I have seen it take before I am curious if it might have been the trick or not, or if it was everything I did combined.

Oh and of course I got rid of macfee which freaking fought me the whole time, even though it was uninstalled it was still freaking running and scanning every file.

OH and I also downloaded and ran ccleaner, not to clean the drive, just to run the registry scan to find any registry keys that point to things that are no longer there, it found 1170.

Shane

Boggin · « **Reply #14 on:** October 09, 2014, 01:05:07 pm »

Thanks Shane.

Perhaps the vendor factory reset would have been the one to run in this case.

Since a Windows Update Oct 2013, running Disk Cleanup as an admin in Win 7 has removed obsolete WUs, but wouldn't you have needed cmd.exe to have run that in Win 8.1 as well ?

I think if I'd put that sort of a shift in - I'd probably need a week off

Shane · « **Reply #15 on:** October 09, 2014, 01:09:31 pm »

The nice thing is that when you use the disk cleanup it doesnt use cmd.exe instead it makes a folder in the temp folder and copies all the dll and files it needs and then runs DismHost.exe from there, which does the work. So since it doesnt need cmd.exe it was able to run, which means it cleanup a lot of the files as well I bet, hard to tell exactly what it does, but it did run longer than I have seen it run before.

I copied the files from the temp folder so I can look at them, I want to see what options it has and see if it is something I can use in the windows repair

Shane

Boggin · « **Reply #16 on:** October 10, 2014, 07:51:10 am »

I suppose that's one of the differences between Win 7 and Win 8 where Disk Cleanup is concerned.

I don't recognise any of those DLLs but I'm not really into the innards of Windows and there's too many of them to Google for my purposes - but good luck