AutoCAD 2015 Application Error (0xc0000142) + Autoruns for Windows

We have been getting some cases in which AutoCAD 2015 would not launch. The error is:

The application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000142).  Click OK to close the application.

To solve this problem, we needed to use an advanced Windows Sysinternals Tool called Autoruns for Windows:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

Launch the program and look for the following tab:  AppInit.  This will basically tell you if a dll is unsigned or digitally no longer valid on your computer.  All you have to do is rename each dll listed, one at a time and launch the product to determine the problematic dll.

With a bit of serendippity, we [Avto Chachava] also solved a (0xc0000005) error using the same process, in this case the problematic dll was:

nvinitx.dll

We have been using Procmon for ages, here is another tool in our troubleshooting arsenal.  Thanks to Kenny Chan for sharing this tip with the community.

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2011/10/general-systems-the-basics-of-using-process-monitor.html

Reference

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DLL_injection

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_signature

http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/The-application-was-unable-to-start-correctly-0xc0000142.html

Epilogue

This appears to be an issue with Adobe Acrobat 9.5.x Extended Web Capture module and this can be easily seen in AppInit tab of Autoruns for Windows.

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Installation-Licensing/AutoCAD-2015-0xc0000142-Error-occured/m-p/4923686/highlight/false#M84203

Epilogue II

Below is another vendor that has an unsigned dll.

 

Epilogue III

One of our technical gurus [Osamu Motoyama] was able to change a setting in the registry to solve this problem. You can try to change the value to default of 0 in the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows\LoadAppInit_DLLs

 

FYI, some of the offending 3rd party applications may change this value to 1 upon launching them.

Epilogue IV

Kaspersky 2011 AV is another problematic Appinit.

Reference

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/dd744762%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

 

Comments

[David Cohn]

I experienced the same problem and used Autoruns for Windows to identify the acapture32.dll (from Adobe Acrobat 9.5x Extended) as the culprit. Renaming that dll successfully solved the problem.

[Josh Lobel]

I had the same problem as well. The Autoruns solution worked as described (the culprit was same dll as listed in David's comment), however, I had to run Autoruns twice before AutoCAD finally launched. The first time I ran Autoruns the culprit was a dll in a program called Search Protect by Conduit.

[Damian Bree]

On my office desktop the offending file was ‘rxinput.dll’. When I renamed this to *.old Autocad 2015 opened OK. [dll file located at c:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\NvStreamSrv]

Later on my laptop home-use licence I had the same problem, but this time the first dll giving me problems was 'nvinitx.dll'. Renamed it to *.old.
When Autocad didn't open I ran Autoruns for Windows again and this time it noted a different file, 'acaptuser64.dll'. Renaming this and Autocad worked OK. These two files where in a different location on the C drive to the desktop, [C:\Windows\System32].
Out of curiosity I undid the renaming of 'nvinitx.dll' and Autocad still worked OK.

[David Lau]

You need to run "Autoruns for Windows" to determine the problematic dll. You can also try the 'registry' hack noted in the Epilogue III section.

[Bernard]

Epilogue III, Changing the value to 0 worked for me straight away.

[Helene Thibault]

AutoCAD 2015 Application Error
The application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000022)
and the application acad.exe runs only as an administrator

[Paco]

Thank you!!! Epilogue III Works for me

[Peter Avsec]

Thank's

Autoruns worked for me.
In my case the AMAZON toolbar for Firefox was the problem. Came on with PDFCreator.

Best regards.

Peter

[zz]

I tried Epilogue III but everytime I change it to 0 it doesn't work then I go check it again and it's 1

[David Lau]

Run Autoruns to see was dll is causing the issue.