Error 193: 0xc1 – Weird but solved!

This is an oldie but a goodie… I’ve reposted this as I noticed it wasn’t appearing in search, but on my old blog, it was helping a significant amount of people – so I wanted to give it a new push here, in case it helps others.

 

Ok, this one took a while to sort out and I believe people will have different results…

 

In my case (but I don’t think it was even specific to MS SQL, just the result of it, an MSDE database (MSSQLSERVER) service failed to start. After much troubleshooting and only “Error 193: 0xc1” to work with (no event logs, nothing!), I managed to figure out that it was because there was a file called ‘program’ at the root of the D: (whatever drive impacts you). Not sure at this writing how it got there (no it wasn’t a virus, probably just bad code by somebody or a pipe) but that file wasn’t needed but the SQL Service was following that path instead of honouring the path it should have (as identified in the service path).

 

So, I renamed the file called ‘program’ to something else and voila, I was back in business.

 

I hope this helps someone, somewhere faster than I was able to help myself 🙂 Let me know about if it helped you – heck, buy me a beer

15 responses to “Error 193: 0xc1 – Weird but solved!

  1. This proved to be very useful in resolving a problem with Radiant Counterpoint v8.4. Located the program file (root of D:) and renamed it. Voila! Many thanks.

  2. Very helpful in solving the Error 193: 0xc1 issue. Two separate 3rd party programs running under Windows 2008 Server began failing with this error. The “program” file was in the root of the C: drive. I moved it to a temp folder and the programs began working. Thanks for the tip. I am now examining the file to try and determine how and why it got there. Thanks!!

  3. Hola, los saludo desde Colombia, tuve el mismo problema con un ISA Server 2004, pues los servicios de firewall del mismo dependen del servicio MSSQL$MSFW que no subía y daba error 193: 0xC1.

    Windows a su vez mostró una ventana de error diciendo que el archivo program, que en mi caso se encontraba en C: estaba corrupto bloqueando un programa, por lo tanto sugería renombrarlo a program1, luego de esto el servicio y sus dependencias subieron bien e ISA server volvió a funcionar.

  4. Hi Sean,

    Merry Christmas. Your blog saved me..

    The trick of renaming the program worked magic.

    Regards
    Pramod

  5. i love you man. lol. worked like a charm for Intels service called Intel Management & Security Application (2 of them- first was the user notification, the second was the local management service). it came up on a CCE.EXE (comodo antivirus) scan and it was repaired. i dont know if it was like that originally. i believe another found it too. yet, it was doing it before. last 7 days it failed 439 times. so it has been going on for a while, way before i scanned. thanks again. weird is right. i cut and pasted into folder on C: naming folder “this program renamed theProgram” and renamed it to “theProgram”. you save me from insanity. lol. they both started up and before neither service would start. i registered just to say thanks.

  6. i love you man. lol. worked like a charm for Intels service called Intel Management & Security Application (2 of them- first was the user notification, the second was the local management service). it came up on a CCE.EXE (comodo antivirus) scan and it was repaired. i dont know if it was like that originally. i believe another found it too. yet, it was doing it before. last 7 days it failed 439 times. so it has been going on for a while, way before i scanned. thanks again. weird is right. i cut and pasted into folder on C: naming folder “this program renamed theProgram” and renamed it to “theProgram”. you save me from insanity. lol. they both started up and before neither service would start. i registered just to say thanks.

  7. I really cannot understand what kind of mess was happening with this ‘program’ but it was creating havoc, not only with veritas/mssql but also with acronis. As soon as I renamed it everything started working…. Thanks!

  8. I have resolved the network time protocol service issue by deleting the progam file from the C: root folder. Thanks Sean!

  9. Sean you’re the best 🙂 Thank you VERY much! You’ve resolved my problem with 3rd party application.

  10. Thanks for the hint. My program created a file in C root folder called “Advanced”. After deleting it, the service started.

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