Windows could not start WSUS service on local computer Error 193

Recently I installed cumulative update 4 on SCCM 2012 R2 SP1. While things were working fine, I got an error related to WSUS service. On my SCCM server the WSUS service failed to start. The error was Windows could not start WSUS service on local computer Error 193. I also noticed that the under Monitoring, SUP component status was critical. There were errors logged in wsyncmgr.log and wsusctrl.log files.

Windows could not start WSUS service on local computer Error 193

So upon starting the WSUS service from services console, I saw the below error. Nothing much can be understood from the error. The next step was to get into event viewer and look for right event.

In the event viewer, under log name System i found the event ID 7000. The error was The WSUS Service service failed to start due to the following error. WSUS service is not a valid Win32 application. There is nothing much you can understand from the given error.

So something was blocking the service from starting. In addition checking the C: drive on the server showed up a rogue file called Program.

Opening the file with notepad++ revealed that this file logged information about the client agent setup. I have no idea why this file was created on the C: drive. There was no information about who created the file.

The next step is to rename the file from program to something else. You could also delete the file if it’s not required. The main reason behind this issue is due to name of this file. When Windows Service Control Manager tries to start the Server service, it verifies two paths. SystemDrive\Program and Program Files\Common. The service starts up fine if no files with these names exists. Therefore if you find rogue files with these names, you will see the issues in starting up the service.

After renaming the rogue file to a different name, I was able to start the WSUS service. I hope this post helps when you encounter same issue.