"Side-by-side" error...?

[Redeemed]

Hey ya'll... trying to fix a customer's laptop and it's going over like a turd in a punch bowl so far. They have a GatewayFX running Vista HP x64.

At first the problem was they could not connect to any network- whether wired or wireless. If you hovered the cursor over the network connection icon at the lower right of the screen (on the task bar) it'd not display the usual "Network and Sharing Center" and "Connect to a Network" links. Instead it'd say it was unable to establish a connection due to the dependency service not being started... or something to that effect.

So, I updated the network adapter drivers and it seemed to connect to the network just fine. But anytime I go to run a program (or an executable in general) I now get this message:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\*Program Name\*Program.exe*

The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect. Please see the application event log for more details."

I've checked the event viewer for every application I've tried to run, and no events show up. If I look under the generic events for windows, I get a bunch of errors relating to "side-by-side"... but I have no idea what "side-by-side" is. I've tried scouring TechNet for answers, tried google... and I'm at a loss here.

Anybody have any suggestions?

Thx. :D

[grey_1]

I would go with the first error and restart whatever service is needed to meet that dependency.

On the "side by side" here you go for a start.
http://forums.techarena.in/vista-help/822028.htm

[Redeemed]

I would go with the first error and restart whatever service is needed to meet that dependency.

On the "side by side" here you go for a start.
http://forums.techarena.in/vista-help/822028.htm

The problem is, for the first service- I have no idea what one should be running. According to task manager, all necessary services were running. I even opened up services.msc to check there... I'm entirely stumped as to what service the system needed to have running. Is there a way for me to check? If you're thinking the event logs, they're about as helpful as a bullet to the head. :o :(

Anyhow, giving that link a good look over now. Thanks Grey. :D

[Redeemed]

sfc /scannow solved some errors, but not all. Hopeing chkdsk /f c: will correct the rest.

[grey_1]

The problem is, for the first service- I have no idea what one should be running. According to task manager, all necessary services were running. I even opened up services.msc to check there... I'm entirely stumped as to what service the system needed to have running. Is there a way for me to check? If you're thinking the event logs, they're about as helpful as a bullet to the head. :o :(

Anyhow, giving that link a good look over now. Thanks Grey. :D

open services, ( under admin tools) rt click network connections (or any service you want to check) and click properties, then the dependencies tab. This will list both what needs this service and what services this needs. Just do this with anything labeled network that is running. :)

[Redeemed]

open services, ( under admin tools) rt click network connections (or any service you want to check) and click properties, then the dependencies tab. This will list both what needs this service and what services this needs. Just do this with anything labeled network that is running. :)

Did what that link suggestion, didn't solve the problem.

Tried what you just mentioned... so far no go either.

BUT... I did what you mentioned with the updated driver. I'm going to attempt to roll back to the original driver, then do as you suggested above, and see if that remedies the problem. :D

Thank you for the assistance grey. If I cannot solve this before too much longer, I'm going to call the customer and suggest that I just back up his data and re install windows. He did say he was willing to pay for any additional services that might be necessary to get the system up and running.

[Redeemed]

Here's another interesting tid bit... IE7 x64 fires up without that error... but I get the "This Web Page Cannot be Displayed" error.

Am currently rolling back the drivers, and then will try what you suggested last grey.
UPDATE: Well, rolled back the driver and still no go. Here's the kicker though- I now get it to connect to our network here without issue. It just seems that anything relating to the internet won't fire up, because of it's "Side-by-Side Configuration"... (:wtf:)... so...

I opened cmd.exe (running as administrator) and notice something *very* odd, it lists the info for the Bluetooth Network Connection 2... okay, and lists the info for the "Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection" okay, lists the "Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection" okay, then it lists "Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 7", 11-36.

1.) What does the "*" indicate after the "Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection" indicate, I've not seen that before.

2.) What is it referring to in regards to the "Tunnel adapter"... WTH is a "Tunnel adapter"?

3.) Why are there so many "Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection" listed? For every one of them, the Media State is "Media disconnected" if that changes anything, and the only other info for each "Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection" is the "Connection-specific DNS Suffix"... which is blank.

Not sure if this info helps.

Tried pinging google.com, and appropriately the system could not find the host (you have to accept a "Terms of use" before you can use in-store Wi-Fi, and since I've yet to get the internet to connect, I've not been able to agree to said terms on this laptop). So I ping our router, and it says "Destination host unreachable".

To further complicate things the network activity icon in the taskbar (lower right) shows the computer is now connected to the internet, and opening IE7 x64 (the only browser that will even open) will return either "This Web Page Cannot be displayed" or "The address is not valid"- even if the address is valid such as "www . google . com" (without spaces). After typing in "www . google . com" (without spaces) into the address bar, it'll act like it's loading the page, but then the address changes to "http:///" and I get the "The address is not valid" message.

Might this be a virus?

Anyhow, my shift is up so I get to go home now, will have to try and resolve this tomorrow I guess... but please- if any of you have any suggestion post them!

[Bearclaw]

Redeemed - Coincidence or not - I JUST got the 'Side-By-Side' Error trying to start GTA4.

I can't get this f*cking thing to work.

[grey_1]

Here's another interesting tid bit... IE7 x64 fires up without that error... but I get the "This Web Page Cannot be Displayed" error.

Am currently rolling back the drivers, and then will try what you suggested last grey.

Eh, sorry that didn't work. Is device manager showing any error?

EDIT: found this, it may help
http://www.vistax64.com/vista-general/93778-side-side-error.html

[grey_1]

Redeemed - Coincidence or not - I JUST got the 'Side-By-Side' Error trying to start GTA4.

I can't get this f*cking thing to work.

I've never even seen this error, but most of the google hits I'm seeing suggest a corrupted file which should be repairable. Check that link I just posted.

[nekrosoft13]

run the file checker app from Grey link

side-by-side is something new in windows NT6.0 (vista, win7) is part of that winsxs folder in windows folder

sometimes side-by-side errors are caused by bad programing, some nero apps suffer from that. GTA4 shouldn't suffer from bad programing since you are the first to mention side-by-side and GTA4 in same sentence, you might have files corrupted

[Redeemed]

Eh, sorry that didn't work. Is device manager showing any error?

EDIT: found this, it may help
http://www.vistax64.com/vista-general/93778-side-side-error.html
Thanks Grey. :D No, not any problems in device manager. But I'm reading over that last link of yours now. :)

[Redeemed]

Well... sfc /scannow didn't fix everything, and I went to open up the CBS.log file in notepad and... wow, it's like near 40MB in size. I'd be here till the end of next week if I were to try and read that. :o :(

Think it's time to recommend a data backup and OS re-install... :p

[JoyfulC]

I'm also looking around today, trying to figure out what the heck a "side by side configuration" error is. My friend's system was acting up, and I checked it out over the weekend, thinking she might have picked up a bug again. (No chance of that since she was running THREE security programs -- Norton, Avira and CA -- sheesh!). I checked Events and found massive "side by side" errors.

Her problems included programs not opening properly. For example, in Firefox, her nav bar was missing. We were unable to load any new software onto the system, getting a configuration error message when we tried, and many Windows tools would not work at all. Scans showed no viruses or malware.

I set it back to a restore point in October, and that seems to have fixed the problem for the moment. I also removed two of the security packages off her system. For the time being, this seems to have done the trick, but I still have no idea what happened.

[jcrox]

I'm also looking around today, trying to figure out what the heck a "side by side configuration" error is. My friend's system was acting up, and I checked it out over the weekend, thinking she might have picked up a bug again. (No chance of that since she was running THREE security programs -- Norton, Avira and CA -- sheesh!). I checked Events and found massive "side by side" errors.

Her problems included programs not opening properly. For example, in Firefox, her nav bar was missing. We were unable to load any new software onto the system, getting a configuration error message when we tried, and many Windows tools would not work at all. Scans showed no viruses or malware.

I set it back to a restore point in October, and that seems to have fixed the problem for the moment. I also removed two of the security packages off her system. For the time being, this seems to have done the trick, but I still have no idea what happened.

If it happens again try uninstalling Microsoft Visual C++, reboot, and reinstall it. In a lot of cases I have found this fixes the problem.