ESENT errors

This listing is a product of frustration and speculation. Frustration, because the error codes generated in Windows Live programs that follow the pattern 0x8E5EXXXX are not documented anywhere, so we have to guess what they mean. Speculation, because it seems likely that these codes represent faults in one or more of the ESE databases that Windows Live Mail, for example, uses to store data.

While several different codes like this have been reported, especially on starting the program, only one error message is returned: Your calendar contains corrupt data … While this may be true in some cases, it certainly doesn’t apply in many others. Error 0x8E5E0247, for example, often arises after the user has replaced a hard drive with a larger one.

Not all of these errors will arise, and I take no responsibility if my conversion from WL error to JET error is wrong. The list of JET errors used to compile this listing was extracted from Microsoft’s jet_err.cs file as reproduced at the ManagedESENT CodePlex site.