0x000036D7: SXS manifest missing semicolon fix

You installed something, and now an app crashes on launch with 0x000036D7. Annoying, but the fix is straightforward once you know where to look.

The fix: find the broken manifest and patch the missing semicolon

What's actually happening here is that Windows' side-by-side (SxS) assembly loader is parsing an XML manifest file and hits a line like this:

&ltAssemblyIdentity name=&quotMyApp&quot version=&quot1.0.0.0&quot/

Notice the &quot — that's an XML entity for a double quote. XML entities always end with a semicolon. The correct version is ". If you're missing that semicolon, the parser throws ERROR_SXS_XML_E_MISSINGSEMICOLON.

1. Open Event Viewer (eventvwr.msc). Look under Windows Logs > Application for error source SideBySide. It tells you exactly which manifest file is broken, including the full path.
2. Open that manifest file in Notepad or VS Code. Don't use Word — it'll corrupt the encoding.
3. Search for lines containing & (ampersand followed by something). Common culprits: &quot, &apos, &lt, &gt, &amp. Each must end with ;.
4. Add the missing semicolon. Save the file as UTF-8 without BOM if possible.
5. Run sfc /scannow in an admin command prompt to re-register the manifest, or just restart the app.

The reason step 3 works is that the XML parser is strict: an entity reference must be terminated by a semicolon per the XML spec (section 4.1). Without it, the parser can't tell where the entity name ends and attribute text begins.

Why this happens in the first place

Most of the time, this isn't your fault. A developer or installer tool wrote a manifest file incorrectly — maybe they escaped a quote with &quot instead of ", or a hex editor accidentally truncated a byte. I've seen this happen with corrupted Visual C++ redistributable packages (2005–2022) and custom installer scripts that embed manifests manually.

If the manifest is inside a DLL or EXE as a resource (not a standalone .manifest file), you can't edit it directly. In that case, your only option is to reinstall the application or update its runtime (typically the VC++ redist).

Pro tip: If Event Viewer doesn't show a file path, enable SxS manifest logging via gpedit.msc under Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Side-by-side Assembly. Turn on Turning on side-by-side assembly logging.

Less common variations of the same error

• The semicolon is there but escaped wrong. Some misconfigured tools double-escape: " instead of ". The parser sees & as an entity for ampersand, then quot; as bare text, and fails.
• Non-ASCII character in manifest. If the file is saved as ANSI but contains a character like é, the XML parser can't decode it. You'll get a different error (usually ERROR_SXS_XML_E_INVALIDCHARACTER), but the root cause — broken encoding — overlaps. Fix: save as UTF-8.
• Manifest embedded in a resource — no file to edit. The EXE or DLL itself is corrupt. Run chkdsk on the drive, then re-download or reinstall the software. If it's a system file, use DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth.
• Virtual store shadow copy. On Windows 10/11, if you have a manifest in Program Files and a modified copy in %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore\Program Files\..., the system may load the wrong one. Delete the VirtualStore copy.

Prevention: stop the error from coming back

Three things keep this from recurring:

1. Always install VC++ redistributables from Microsoft's official site. Third-party repacks often produce broken manifests.
2. If you write custom manifests, validate them with mt.exe -validate from the Windows SDK before shipping.
3. Run a manifest integrity check monthly: use DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth to catch corrupted system manifests early.

That's it. One missing semicolon, one fix, and you're back to work.