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Document information

Document ID:	1567
Subject:	The application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000005)
Creation date:	11/3/10 8:43 AM
Last modified on:	12/14/18 11:54 AM

WinSQL won't start. Error (0xc0000005)

You get an error that says: When running WinSQL.

Root cause

This error only appears on Windows 7 machine that has a product from Symantec installed on the machine. So far we have only found Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) that causes this problem. There could be other products that use the same DLL.

When you run any application on this machine, SEP loads its own DLL in the same memory space as WinSQL. The actual error occurs in SYSFER.DLL, not WinSQL. This DLL should be located in your %WINDIR%\System32\ folder.

Technical details

SEP loads its own DLLs with every application that you run on your machine. Our analysis shows that SEP tries to register several hooks in the OS and generates this error during the process. Since the DLL is loaded in the same memory space of the actual application (WinSQL in this case), it appears that WinSQL is generating the error.

How can we be so sure?

We used a third party application called Dependency Walker (http://www.dependencywalker.com/) that shows a list of DLLs that are loaded by an application. The following images show screen shots taken from two machines. One with SEP installed and the other without it.

With SEP installed	Without SEP
When SEP is installed on the machine, it loads SYSFER.DLL and SECHOST.DLL along with WinSQL.exe. SECHOST.DLL is provided by Microsoft and does not seem to cause any problem. SYSFER.DLL, however, is provided by Symantec. You should be able to confirm this by checking the properties for C:\Windows\System32\Sysfer.dll file.	When SEP is not installed WinSQL.exe loads by itself. After WinSQL.exe starts running, it loads other DLLs provided by the operating system. These DLLs are displayed when you click the plus sign next to WinSQL.exe

Which applications are affected

This problem occurs with any application that is written in Borland C++ Builder 2006. We have created a very small application that displays just one small windows on the screen. You can use this application to recreate this problem on your end. Click here to download this application with source code.

Work-around

Unfortunately, since the root cause of the problem is not in WinSQL, we cannot suggest anything but ask you to contact Symantec's support department. You can also ask them to download the test application mentioned above so that they can reproduce the problem on their end.

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