Event Log: Error 1501

ID: Q111720

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows NT Workstation versions 3.5, 3.51, 4.0
Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server, versions 3.1, 3.5, 3.51, 4.0

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.

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.

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.

Additional query words: prodnt

Keywords : kbtool
Version : winnt:3.5,3.51,4.0; :3.1,3.5,3.51,4.0
Platform : winnt
Issue type : kbprb