Interactive logon process initialization has failed.

Question

Recently my Win 7 (pro 64bit) computer does not start-up properly and stops with the following warning on a black screen:

"Interactive logon process initialization has failed.

Please consult the event log for more details."

I have browsed the internet (for days now!) for solutions (including this site) but none will work. Most will not because I cannot get into the system at all to apply them. No Safe boot, no repair possible, cannot apply that hotfix (437977_intl_x64_zip.exe) and so on... Downloading the Apllication.evtx and viewing it on my Win10 laptop does not help me either; the failure refers to a GUID {DBE9B383-7CF3-4331-91CC-A3CB16A3B538} (??)

The only option seems to be a (clean?) (re)install. I've tried upgrading to Win10 from a USB-stick, because I have installed and activated (legitimate) Adobe programs on the win7 system. But I have to do that also from within the installed system.

It  looks like a dead end to me...

So three questions if I may.

1. Is there anything I can do through the command prompt on the recovery disk to solve this issue? Replace files? Anything?
2. Would an upgrade to Win10 overcome the issue?
3. If not, how can I upgrade to Win10 from a USB stick ONLY? Or is a clean install required then?

Thank you!

Dick Bos

Answer 1

A missing logonui.exe is the only thing I know about (at the moment) to recreate that error but there are probably other things so maybe somebody else will have some ideas - I think something is missing somewhere.

If winlogon.exe is missing you see see this even uglier error message:

STOP: c000021a {Fatal System Error}

The Windows Logon Process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0xc0000001 (0xc000034 0x000105c0).

The system has been shut down.

When those files are missing, they just don't go missing by themselves.

Describe your antivirus/antimalware environment.

If the system used to work properly what do you think happened to it since the last time it did work properly?

Well, we might at least know what it's NOT so maybe we can put on our thinking caps and figure out what it IS.

Answer 2

Missing winLogon.exe and LogonUI.exe were some of the solutions I found on the internet, I found quite a few and tried all of them, but none work. So that's why I think I will have to reinstall..

Thanks for trying ElderN!

Dick Bos

Answer 3

Hi,

Thank you for the update.

Kindly refer to the TechNet forum thread below and check if this helps.

Interactive logon process initialization has failed with upgrade from Vista to Windows 7

Answer 4

Hi,

Thanks for the link. However, as I have been trying to point out (see yesterday's post), I can NOT AT ALL get into the system. No boot to desktop, no safe boot, no repair, NOTHING works.

Regards, Dick

Answer 5

Hi,

Thank you for the update.

If nothing seems to work, you must contact the manufacturer for further help.