Skip to content

Est. 2011·Microsoft Partner 7033487·Delivery under 3 min·Support 7 days a week

Your vault is empty.

Free Fix 0x426-0x0

Office Error Code 0x426-0x0: Apps Will Not Start After a Click-to-Run Fault

10 min read Updated October 4, 2026 Outlook & Office Applications

Fix it now

The 0x426 half of this code is Win32 1062, ERROR_SERVICE_NOT_ACTIVE, which Microsoft publishes as “The service has not been started”. A Click-to-Run installation cannot open a window without its service, so start the service and set it to start on its own.

Run these in an elevated PowerShell, in order

Get-Service -DisplayName "Microsoft Office Click-to-Run Service"
Start-Service -DisplayName "Microsoft Office Click-to-Run Service"
  1. If the service starts and Office opens, set it to start by itself: press Win+R, run services.msc, open Microsoft Office Click-to-Run Service and set Startup type to Automatic.
  2. Reboot once and open Office again without touching anything, so you know the setting held.
  3. If the service starts and then stops again on its own, stop restarting it. That is a damaged installation: run an online repair from Settings, Apps, Installed apps, your Office entry, Modify, then Online Repair.
  4. If the service is running and Office still fails, test with a second Windows account. Working there means the fault is in the original profile rather than in the installation.
  5. If the failure has changed to 0xc0000142 or 0xc0000135, look in your security product’s quarantine for an Office file it removed, then repair.

Find out what stopped the service before you close the ticket. Cleanup and optimiser tools disable it routinely, and so do hardening templates applied without an exception for Office, and both will do it again.

If Office opens and survives a reboot you are done. If not, the next section separates a stopped service from a damaged installation.

Why it happens

A Click-to-Run installation is not a conventional set of program files. The applications share a virtualised set of components, and a background service owns that arrangement: it presents the shared files, applies updates, and answers questions about the installation’s state. An application talks to that service before it draws anything. With the service stopped there is nothing to start against, so the process exits before a window appears.

That is why the code reads the way it does. The first half is a Windows status value, and 0x426 is decimal 1062, which Microsoft publishes as ERROR_SERVICE_NOT_ACTIVE, “The service has not been started”. The second half is the launcher’s own detail field, and it is zero because there is nothing further to report. Microsoft publishes no meaning for the paired form, so the digits either side of the dash are what you search on and the first half is what you act on.

The three codes that travel with it describe what happens when the service is running but the installation is damaged. 0xc0000135 is STATUS_DLL_NOT_FOUND, a required DLL could not be found on the system. 0xc0000142 is STATUS_DLL_INIT_FAILED, DLL initialisation failed at startup: the library was found, loaded, and then failed its own setup. 0x80070005 is Win32 5, plain access denied, on the program folders or on the registry keys holding the installation state.

The service is stopped or set to Disabled

You have this one if The service shows as Stopped or Disabled, and starting it by hand fixes the problem immediately.

  1. Set Startup type to Automatic and start the service.
  2. Find what disabled it. Cleaner and optimiser tools do this as a matter of course, and so do hardening baselines applied without an Office exception.
  3. If a policy disabled it, correct the policy. Otherwise the next refresh disables it again and the fault returns in a week.
  4. Reboot once and confirm the service comes up without help.

The service starts and immediately stops

You have this one if You start it, it reports running for a moment, then it is stopped again and Office still refuses to open.

  1. Read the System log for Service Control Manager entries about the service terminating, and the Application log for a crash of the service executable.
  2. Run an online repair. A service that will not stay up almost always means the installation is damaged, and restarting it is not going to change that.
  3. If the repair also fails, remove Office with the vendor’s own removal tooling and install it again cleanly.

An online repair needs the account the product was activated with and a working connection. Have both to hand, because the product is unusable until it finishes.

Permissions on the installation or its registry keys

You have this one if The failure carries 0x80070005, or Office starts for an administrator and not for a standard user.

  1. Compare an administrator account with a standard one. That single test tells you whether permissions are involved at all.
  2. Confirm the Office program folders under Program Files are readable by ordinary users, which is their default state.
  3. Where a hardening baseline or an inherited permission change has altered them, an online repair restores the expected permissions along with the files.
  4. Do not grant users write access to program folders as a workaround. Repair the installation instead.

Files are missing, quarantined or blocked

You have this one if The launcher reports 0xc0000135 or 0xc0000142, or the failure began the day a security product updated.

  1. Look in the security product’s quarantine and restore anything belonging to Office, adding an exclusion only if the vendor confirms a false detection.
  2. Check application control rules built around an older install path.
  3. Repair the installation to restore anything genuinely missing.

A damaged user profile

You have this one if A second Windows account on the same machine starts Office normally.

  1. Create a fresh Windows profile and confirm Office works in it.
  2. Move the user’s data to the new profile rather than trying to repair the old one, which is slower and less reliable.
  3. If the profile is roaming or synchronised, check that whatever manages it is not restoring the broken state at every logon.

Full reference

Reading the four codes

Code Published meaning Where the fault sits
0x426-0x0 0x426 is Win32 1062, ERROR_SERVICE_NOT_ACTIVE, “The service has not been started” The Click-to-Run service
0xc0000135 STATUS_DLL_NOT_FOUND: a required DLL could not be found on the system Files missing, quarantined or blocked
0xc0000142 STATUS_DLL_INIT_FAILED: DLL initialisation failed at startup The library loaded and then failed its own setup
0x80070005 Win32 5, ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED, “Access is denied” Permissions on the install or its registry state

Which situation you are in

What you observe Where the fault is
The service is stopped and starts cleanly by hand Something stopped or disabled it; the fix holds once it is Automatic
The service starts and stops again on its own A damaged installation. Repair rather than restart
The service is running but the app still fails Missing or blocked files, or permissions on the install
Only one Windows account is affected The user profile, not the installation
Every Office app fails and the machine was recently cleaned up An optimiser or a policy disabled the service

Identifying the service without guessing at its short name

Service display names are stable and are what the Services console shows you; short names are not always what people assume. Every command in this article addresses the service by its display name, Microsoft Office Click-to-Run Service, so it works whatever the short name happens to be on that build. If you want the short name for a script, open the service’s properties in services.msc and read the Service name field at the top.

Task Command
Read its state Get-Service -DisplayName "Microsoft Office Click-to-Run Service"
Start it Start-Service -DisplayName "Microsoft Office Click-to-Run Service"
See its start type Get-Service -DisplayName "Microsoft Office Click-to-Run Service" | Select-Object Name, Status, StartType
Set it to start automatically Open services.msc, open the service, set Startup type to Automatic

Neighbouring service codes worth recognising

If the service will not start at all, the error you get back names a different situation, and it is worth telling them apart before you decide to repair.

Code Published meaning
1053 (0x41d) The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion
1058 (0x422) The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it
1062 (0x426) The service has not been started
1067 (0x42b) The process terminated unexpectedly

1058 means somebody set it to Disabled and you can fix that in the console. 1067 means the service process died on start, which is the damaged-installation case and needs the repair. 1053 usually means the machine is under heavy load or the installation is slow to respond, and is worth retrying once before you conclude anything.

Changing permissions on Office’s program folders or its registry keys by hand can leave the installation in a state that only a full removal will fix. Export any registry branch before altering it, and prefer an online repair, which restores both files and permissions to their intended state.

Every code this article covers

Code What it points at Source
0x426-0x0 The 0x426 half is Win32 1062, ERROR_SERVICE_NOT_ACTIVE, “The service has not been started”. The trailing -0x0 is the launcher’s own detail field and carries no published meaning Microsoft Learn
0xc0000142 STATUS_DLL_INIT_FAILED: DLL initialisation failed at startup, so the process exited Microsoft Learn
0x80070005 Win32 5, ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED: access is denied, on the installation folders or on the registry keys holding its state Microsoft Learn
0xc0000135 STATUS_DLL_NOT_FOUND: a required DLL could not be found on the system Microsoft Learn

Confirm the fix worked

  1. Get-Service -DisplayName "Microsoft Office Click-to-Run Service" reports Running.
  2. The same command shows StartType as Automatic, so nothing has to be done by hand next time.
  3. Two different Office applications both reach a usable window.
  4. Reboot and open Office again without starting any service by hand.
  5. Check File, Account inside the application and confirm the product and update channel are reported normally.

Questions people ask about this

Is this an activation or licensing problem?

No, and it costs nothing to fix. An unlicensed installation opens and tells you it is unlicensed; it does not fail to launch with a service error. This is a service and installation fault.

Can I disable the Click-to-Run service to save resources?

No. Applications from a Click-to-Run installation depend on it, and disabling it is one of the common ways people arrive at this error. Leave it on Automatic.

Will an online repair remove my documents or my settings?

Documents are untouched. The repair replaces program files and may reset some application-level settings. Budget the time and make sure you can sign in with the account the product was activated with.

It came back a week later. Why?

Something is disabling the service again. Look for an optimiser tool, a scheduled cleanup task or a policy applied at logon, and take the service out of whatever it is targeting.

What does the -0x0 part mean?

It is the launcher’s detail field, and zero means it has nothing further to add. Microsoft publishes no meaning for the paired form, so the useful half is 0x426. Do search on the whole string though, because that is how the error is reported.

Related error codes

Was this article helpful?

Your feedback helps us improve our documentation.

Related articles

Free Fix Outlook 0x80040119 and 0x80040600: Damaged PST or OST Data File Needs Repair Free Fix Word could not create the work file: Fix a Broken Temp Path and Cache Location Free Fix SMTP Protocol Errors 0x800CCC60 and 0x800CCC6F: Server Returns an Unexpected Reply Free Fix Office Crash on Launch: Event ID 1000 and 0xc0000005 Access Violation Explained
← Back to Knowledge Base