Unable to start VSCode; suggestions for debugging?

I'm working on a disconnected network, so some options are a bit limited. Also, we have SAs who handle stuff like system updates (so, for instance, it is possible that there was a system update in there that I know nothing about).

However, I had 1.33.1, then 1.34.0, then 1.38 versions of VSCode working on my (Windows 10) machine. One day, for no apparent reason (I hadn't just installed something, for instance), 1.38 stopped working. It wouldn't even start up. Running 'Code --verbose' from the command line produced no output (the mouse cursor turned briefly to a spinner, but nothing even showed up in Task Manager, let alone something like a splash screen).

I did get an error message in the Application log, which included the lines (more or less; remember, no cut-n-paste possible): Faulting Application Code.exe, version: 1.38.0 Faulting module ntdll.dll, version 10.0.16299.936 Exception code: 0xc0000374 Faulting Application path: c:\Program Files\Microsoft VS Code\Code.exe Faulting module path: c:\Windows\System32\ntdll.dll

Re-installing VS Code (with or without system restart after uninstall) did nothing. Removing all extensions (we have a bunch) did nothing Installing 1.39.2 did nothing

The only good thing is that I can still run 1.34.0, if I reinstall that (did not try 1.33.1, and I don't have any in-between versions from 1.34 to 1.38 to try). So at least I'm not completely shut out.

I also tried deleting basically all of workspaceStorage, to no effect. Nor did renaming my storage.json.

The biggest weirdness, to me, is that the path to ntdll.dll is in System32, rather than in SysWOW64 (is there some way to force usage of the latter?). Second, why did 1.38.0 work just fine for a while, and then stop.

So, I'm curious if anyone else has seen this problem, and/or if anyone has any idea what else could be done to get more insight into what's causing this.

(edit: I plan to file bug for VSCode, but been waiting on confirmation email to finish creating my github acct for some time now. sigh)

I've had exactly the same problem twice. I'd been running the application since June 2019 and then in March of this year, Yep! Exact same problem as you encountered. A simple reinstall fixed that, but I've had the same problem again today and after some investigation, Windows 10 was telling me that I didn't have the right permissions to access the item (this is using the Owner's account!). Attempting to reinstall failed, with errors stating that the file / directory all ready existed and couldn't be overwritten or renamed. Attempting to un-install the application was only partially successful with the executable code.exe still remaining afterwards. The only way I managed fix it this time was to reinstall to a directory with a different name. Surprisingly though, all the existing workspaces, projects and extensions even were intact and the application opened where I had left off as though nothing had happened. This is a little worrying I have to say! But that's how I fixed it this time.