Virtual Standby failing with error: Illegal operation attempted on a registry key that has been marked for deletion (4039226)

Unknown WMI error: Illegal operation attempted on a registry key that has been marked for deletion. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800703FA)

This is a situation where the functionality of forcing the unload of the user profile may break an application if registry handles are not closed in the process.

To resolve this problem, use either of the following methods.

Method 1

Do not log on to the server for interactive sessions by using a service account.

Method 2

Disable the related Windows User Profile Service feature.

To do this, follow these steps:

1. Open the Group Policy editor (Gpedit.msc) on the affected server.
2. Open the UserProfiles folder in the following path:
   Computer Configuration | Administrative Templates | System | UserProfiles
3. Locate the Do not forcefully unload the user registry at user logoff setting.
4. Change the setting from Not Configured to Enabled, which will disable the new User Profile Service feature.

'DisableForceUnload' is the value added to the registry.

For more information, please refer to the following Microsoft articles:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-sg/kb/3114011

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/distributedservices/2009/11/06/a-com-application-may-stop-working-on-windows-server-2008-when-the-identity-user-logs-off/