Running Network Applications on Windows 7

Like many developers, I like using Windows Virtual PC for testing applications. Today I needed to test running Stonefield Query from a network share, so I started a virtual machine (VM), connected it to the drive on my host system, ran the Stonefield Query workstation installer to install just required runtime files on the VM, and then ran SFQuery.exe from the “server”. I immediately got a “The application failed to initialize properly (0xc000000F)” error. At first I thought something wasn’t installed properly, but a search found this Microsoft KnowledgeBase article:

Error message when you try to open a network-shared application on a client computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2: 0xc000000f

Apparently this is a known issue and you can request a hotfix to resolve it. After installing it, all was well.