What does Windows error code 14001 (ERROR_SXS_CANT_GEN_ACTCTX) mean?

Status / error code:		Category:

Constant name:
Source:		Operating System:
Description: Windows could not create the application's side-by-side activation context.

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ERROR_SXS_SECTION_NOT_FOUND	ERROR_SXS_INVALID_ACTCTXDATA_FORMAT

ERROR_SXS_CANT_GEN_ACTCTX

ERROR_SXS_CANT_GEN_ACTCTX means that Windows could not create the activation context required to start or load the application. The generic message does not identify the broken dependency by itself; it can result from a malformed manifest, an unavailable assembly, an identity mismatch, or an invalid policy file.

How to investigate

Record a SideBySide trace with sxstrace trace, reproduce the failure, then convert it with sxstrace parse.
Use the trace and the SideBySide event log entry to identify the exact manifest, dependency identity, and failing line.
Install or repair only the runtime named by that evidence; do not replace unrelated DLL files in the application directory.

This error is a starting point for tracing, not a diagnosis that a particular Visual C++ redistributable is always missing.

Microsoft: sxstrace

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