FAQShop.com : "Initialization of the dynamic link library C:\Windows\System32\User32.dll failed. The process is terminating abnormally" Error When Screensaver Starts

"Initialization of the dynamic link library C:\Windows\System32\User32.dll failed. The process is terminating abnormally" Error When Screensaver Starts

Contributed By: Cliff Hobbs [MVP SMS]
Thanks for Nick DeFelice for tipping me off about this one. It seems as though a problem exists in certain cases if your SMS Client running Remote Tools also has a screensaver configured. Users can see the following error message when the screensaver tries to start when a non-admin user is logged in:

ScreenSaverName - DLL initialization failure.
Initialization of the dynamic link library C:\Windows\System32\User32.dll failed. The process is terminating abnormally.

It seems that NT 4 clients are most prone but this can also occur on Windows 2000 and XP clients.

The problem seems to be caused by the Remote Tools Agent (WUSER32.EXE), not cleaning up desktop handles correctly.

There is a Hotfix for this as well as further details in Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 329079 "SMS: A User32.dll Initialization Error May Occur When a Screen Saver Starts".