XP Updates- The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000142)

[Bloom]

I am using Windows XP Pro since a year now. Yesterday night I ran windows update and installed few important ones including MS security patches. Everything went fine, there was no error during this process. I thought to do the same on my laptop that is running with the same XP Pro. This is not set to Auto Update hence I downloaded and installed on those security updates manually.

But after rebooting the laptop, I noticed that no programs are able to run and along with the same I received an error message saying “The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000142), Click on OK to terminate the application.”

Somebody please provide some working solution.

[Toby-Martin]

Hello Bloom, just a few days ago experienced exactly the same problem on my XP desktop. After troubleshooting it lot, finally I managed to fix it. This is what I did.

First I did a hard shurtdown. Restarted the computer again. As soon as it came back, I got an error from Firewall saying something like “iexplorer required permission to execute.” Well I allowed it required permission and everything started working normal as before.

Though I don’t got to know what was the exact cause of the problem but I managed to fix it this way. Just see if this is the cause in your case as well.

[Bloom]

Hey friend, can you please confirm whether it was the default windows firewall or any third party? If it it was some third party firewall please mention the name.

Thank you.

[Toby-Martin]

Nope, it wasn’t default xp one. Mine is Zone Alarm - part of ZoneAlarm security suite version 7.0.337.000