Hello, I am trying to install Audacity onto my older Win XP notebook from Toshiba, but without any success up to now.
When I am trying to install version 2.0.6 (which should work for XP), then during the installation everything seems okay, at least no error messages emerge. But right after the install routine and automatical start of the program, a code 14001 is coming. When I am starting once again, a message comes, that the application configuration is not correct.
When I am trying to install 2.1.3 (which also should run with XP), then after the start a message comes like: DecodePointer in the DLL kernel32.dll was not found.
I also tried to install a portable version 3.7.4 on a stick, but after I was starting this, nothing happend at all, no error, nothing.
What can I do to get a running Audacity on my XP?
If your XP machine has something like Revo Uninstaller or Wise Registry Cleaner installed, you could try running them to remove the rubbish that usually gets left behind after a normal uninstall. I don’t know which version of Audacity is the last officially supported version but the forum mods should know.
Hello, no I’ve got no tools like Revo Uninstaller or Wise Registry Cleaner. And trying to install these brought always the messages "it is not a real win32 application, although I took care that it was the 32bit version of the installers. Thank you, but my special application of this old machine is running (it is the M-Audio hardware), but the supplement of a good recording software seems to fail. There is just a very simple app on it as a recorder which is called Recorder.
You could try this to see if it works: https://www.ocenaudio.com/download?version=2
Yes, this works great! In fact I had to do the big action of installing SP1 and then SP3, but then the installation ocenaudio worked well. It is a simple tool, but for my purposes it is appropriate.
By the way Audacity still does not work, but I have it on newer notebooks.
I’m glad about that. 
This is a puzzle. I hope you solve the mystery soon. I use Ocenaudio on a Windows 7 laptop to capture recordings of LPs and cassettes which I save as WAV files. Then I copy them onto a desktop PC running Linux or Windows 10 and edit and export them in Audacity 3.7.4.
Mark B
Hello, by the way, I encountered the same problem when I try to install a different program, namely AOMei Backupper. Installation runs okay, but starting the program brings the message
In English it is meant:
This application could not ne started because the application configuration is not correct. To fix it you should install it once again.
But any re-installing does not solve the problem.
Because it is a problem of more than one program, it seems to be a systematic problem, not a specific in context with Audacity.
I am trying to get more results.
Best regards
Dieter
I don’t know if this is still your XP machine. Maybe it’s worth running system file checker to see if there are any missing files. It should be OK if you installed SP3.
BTW, the service packs are cumulative. If you have SP3 you didn’t need to install SP1 because SP3 has everything that was in SP1. That’s just in case you reinstall XP. 
Mark B
Nuja, ich hab nicht viel Ahnung von Windows - aber Programme gehören nicht auf den Schreibtisch. Und ich vermute mal, dass bei deinem Computer etliches am System verbogen ist, wenn du mit mehreren Programmen Probleme hast. Wenn du die Lösung dazu findest, wird vermutlich auch Audacity so funktionieren wie es sollte.
Ja, vielen Dank, das hilft wirklich weiter.
Mark, I did the sfc scannow procedure, but there were no messages after finishing the check. And I tried to re-install the version 2.0.6 of Audacity again with the same result, error as before.
I also thought that SP3 would include SP1, but when I tried to install SP3, it said at the end, that SP1 has to be installed first. So I did this, installing SP1 and then SP3. Maybe they were not “original” MS Service Packages, which are not available at Microsoft’s site anymore.
But: Finally I tried to install Audacity 1.2.6 – and this runs perfectly!
My intuition says to me, that some programs need to have something like C++ or visual C (i. e.) libraries, which could be missing in XP. Or my XP provides these libraries, but they are too old. And for 1.2.6 they aren’t too old. It is just a clue.
Dieter