Article ID: 111720 - Last Review: October 31, 2006 - Revision: 4.1

Event Log: Error 1501

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This article was previously published under Q111720
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SYMPTOMS

When you start Event Viewer, the following error appears:
The Eventlog service on the local machine is not started.
Then, after you start the Eventlog service from the Services section of Control Panel the following error message appears:
Could not start the Eventlog service on \\<machine name>.
Error 1501: No event log file could be opened, so the event logging service did not start.
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CAUSE

This error only occurs when the Windows NT system drive is formatted for NTFS. When the Eventlog Service starts, it opens three log files in the %SYSTEMROOT%\SYSTEM32\CONFIG directory. If the system does not have the correct permissions, it cannot open and write the log files.
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RESOLUTION

For these files to be opened successfully, Read and Write permission in this directory must be granted to the Administrators group, the System account, or the Everyone group. Any one of these three enables the system to function normally.
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APPLIES TO
  • Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 3.5
  • Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 3.51
  • Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Developer Edition
  • Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server 3.1
  • Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.5
  • Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.51
  • Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server 3.1
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Keywords: 
kbprb KB111720
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