SCOM R2 Console fails to start with error ‘Application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect’

Bumped into this error at a customers location. The SCOM R2 Console didn’t want to start on a SCOM R2 Management Server anymore. This error was thrown:

Time for some investigation. This is what the Application Log of this server told me: ‘…Activation context generation failed for "D:\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager 2007\Microsoft.MOM.UI.Console.exe".Error in manifest or policy file "~:\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager 2007\Microsoft.MOM.UI.Console.exe.Config" on line 0. Invalid Xml syntax….’

Hmm. Strange. Never heard of that file (Microsoft.MOM.UI.Console.exe.Config) before. But the file was really present on that server. Checked other SCOM R2 Management Server and there the file wasn’t present at all.

So I renamed that file to Microsoft.MOM.UI.Console.exe.Config.OLD and tried to start the SCOM R2 Console again. And now the SCOM R2 Console started just fine without any error at all. No one knew how that file came to be. Checked its contents and it referred to Putty?!

Since I was too busy for further investigation I left at that. But still it puzzles me. After all, files don’t get created out of thin air…