interactive logon process initialization has failed

A customer brought a pretty new Dell laptop w/Vista Home Premium into the
shop that is getting this error on bootup. Same error in Safe Mode & Last
Known Good Config. I tried taking the system repair option from the F8 boot
menu and did a system restore to the day before the problem occurred but get
the same error.

I then ran Startup Repair instead of system restore and Startup Repair did
not detect any problems.

Any ideas on how to fix this, short of a wipe and reinstall?

You should advise the customer to contact Dell for free support. However, I
found this off the wall suggestion in Help that might apply: Open Ease of
Access center in Control Panel and click on Change Administrative Settings
and uncheck Apply to all Logon.... Ease of access used to be called
Accessibility Options. It sounds like the user inadvertently started one of
those processes and I would go through them all to make sure.

They do not want to lose their data - the daughter is using this machine for
college course work and has not backed up recently.

Based on my past experience working with Dell tech support, they aren't
going to know how to solve this problem - they follow their script, which
eventually arrives at wipe & reinstall. Since it is a Dell, Microsoft won't
talk to us/them unless we pay them to help us fix their bug.

Your suggestion will not work unless you can logon to the system - the
problem I am reporting prevents that.

I don't have the answer, but you should just back up the daughter's data
now. Either boot with Knoppix or a Bart's PE with an external usb drive
connected for target or pull the laptop drive and put it in an
enclosure/slave-adapter and use one of your working Windows machines.

Once the data is off and safely burned to CD/DVD-R, you can go forward
with either talking to Dell tech support or do a reinstall.

It's probably coming to that. In XP, a repair reinstall would fix this, but
there isn't that option in Vista (step backwards, in my opinion). This is my
first encounter with Windows Vista Cratered Edition, and I am suspecting it
won't be the last.

I did run chkdsk /r from the command prompt available in System Recovery
Options and it found and fixed a slew of errors. Still got the error, so am
running it a second time. I am betting that the hard drive doesn't have a
mechanical problem in its first few months of usage. If chkdsk doesn't fix
it, it is W&R time. Dell tech support is usually useless.

FWIW, the original problem was that she started getting SideBySide errors
whenever she tried to run an Office 2007 app, so she tried a reinstall of
Office 2007, worked with Dell tech support, and then the support techs at the
college got their hands on it and reportedly tried installing Office 2003!
While I could see that causing big problems (if it did not do the proper
checks and abort), I wouldn't expect it to kill the user logon process.
Indeed, she was able to logon to the machine up until this morning.

[Mindless Automaton]

I know its an old topic, but it was 1st on google so I figured I'd pay it forward here.

I ran across the here:

Basically I booted up with Knoppix & emailed the Application event log to myself.
Used another Vista machine to view the log & see the error.
Burnt a copy of the bad manifest to a CD & booted up my Vista DVD to the command prompt and overwrote the old file.

Restarted & everything was good again. ANother hat tip to PJPoon over at Neowin.

Hope this helps somebody..

[kirby444]

I had this exact problem about a week ago, and thought I had lost everything-- turns out the problem was EASY to solve:

I contacted Dell Customer Support. They initially told me they couldn't help, but then changed their minds. After an exchange of several emails they agreed to send me a replacedment "Operating System" CD (the CD also said things like, "Already Installed on Your Computer" and "Reinstallation DVD"). I started up my computer, pressed F12 to set my computer to boot from the CD/ DVD drive, and just followed the instructions from there. Nothing was lost, and I have had no problems since.

I had lost my original reinstallantion DVD, but Dell was more than happy to help me out with sending me a new one. My computer was still under warranty, so that may have made my case easier. Once they agreed to mail me the DVD, it arrived within 24 hours! This ended up being a FAST and EAST solution to what appeared to be an intractable problem! DO IT! GOOD LUCK!

Many thanks to Mindless Automation 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...


--
connectthedots

Men created technologgies to make life and work easier. But in return it
gives headace and problems too like here in the world of computing. I
was given this my LG laptop as a birthday gift and has been my life for
1 year and 3 months, till now. In the intial stage I used XP and was
working off quite well there. But the moment I started using Vista my
life has been in hell. The moment I got that error message I was
freaking out, "What the hell!!!!". I reinstalled again loosing some of
my favorite software sacrifying my loose. But Again it happened. No
matter it will be ok for the rich people to reboot with their original
software but think of those people who must have bought the used up,
racked up computer and loved it like their own kids. Some of them can't
even go for the original software disc, which maybe by one reason for
the word called PIRACY, ok! suppose we bought the original disc and we
are facing this problem there goes again we have to pay again for the
consultation once the time is up for free consultation. Money,
Money......its a headace. If they want money for each consultation than
it will be better of for Bill Gates to reduce the price of the original
copies. I think Linux is better off than Microsft. The only problem is
that its functionalsare less but are coming up and one fineday maybe
Bill Gates will say give Xp, Vista for free as Linux does.
Its really a hell when people who are honest and faces such problem.
Thank God I am not honest. Thanks to hackers and PIRACY yet still the
owners dont understand why such thing happens and dont see their fault.