WampServer

<EDIT> - had this all typed up in a desperate plea for help then finally SOLVED IT (spoiler alert)
- posting here in case this saves someone else the HOURS OF FRUSTRATION I just went through
</EDIT>


- has been installed and working fine for months until my computer crashed this morning
System:
- Windows 7 Professional 64bit
- Wampserver 2.0i with
mysqlVersion = "5.1.36"
phpVersion = "5.3.0"
apacheVersion = "2.2.11"
- NO IIS or skype or anything else competing for port 80 (did Apache port test to confirm = clear)
- now get yellow wampserver icon - have confirmed that MySql is starting fine


- Apache will not start via Wampserver icon or by going into control panel->services and attempting manual start.
- with manual start, get message "Windows could not start the wampapache on Local Computer. For more information, review the System Event Log..(BLAH BLAH).. refer to service-specific code 1."
- so I did that and found the following error ("Friendly View"

- System

- Provider

[ Name] Service Control Manager
[ Guid] {555908d1-a6d7-4695-8e1e-26931d2012f4}
[ EventSourceName] Service Control Manager

- EventID 7024

[ Qualifiers] 49152

Version 0

Level 2

Task 0

Opcode 0

Keywords 0x8080000000000000

- TimeCreated

[ SystemTime] 2010-04-28T18:24:49.815728300Z

EventRecordID 20244

Correlation

- Execution

[ ProcessID] 548
[ ThreadID] 3108

Channel System

Computer SB-PC

Security


- EventData

param1 wampapache
param2 %%1

- I have no idea how to troubleshoot that one

Other log files (apache_error.log, access.log) show nothing at all.

The EXTREMELY PERPLEXING detail is that I have actually fully restored my system drive C:
and have also restored a known working backup of E:\WAMP and I'm still getting the same results.
I also re-installed a new copy overtop of the exisiting install -same result.

SOLUTION:
Full uninstall and manual removal of leftover files - reinstall and verifiy that Apache would start. One by one, started replacing my pre-existing files and restarting until Apache failed.

The culprit ? A SINGLE ALIAS FILE ("remote.conf" that pointed to the exact same folder it always had - I STILL DON'T KNOW WHY this file blocked Apache from starting NOR why there wouldn't be some sort of clue in the log files! Anyone ??

I triple verified that when it's included in the alias folder, she no go - take it out and it's my reliable server back again. There you go - hope this saves someone a lot of headache.