A friend of mines is trying to lauch zbrush 3 but it won’t allow him. He would get an error message “The application has failed to start because it side-by-side configuration is incorrect. Please see application event log for more details”. 
I told him to reboot his computer and try lauching zbrush again, but nothing happens the same msg pops up. I also told him to uninstall then reinstall zbrush, he tried that several times and still the same message pop up. He’s starting to lose hope and is thinking that the only to fix it is to start over his computer. I told him not to do that yet because I still have hope he could fix somehow. So if anyone can help me out I would very much appreciate it.
Some files that ZBrush needs were not installed during the installation process. You can install these files yourself by running vcredist_86.exe which you can find in the ZBrush3/TroubleShoot Help folder.
Thanks for the help w/ the troubleshooting problem. It did install some programs. However, the side by side application conflict pop up again. I check his event log manager and this is what it displayed.
Event Log:
Activation context generation failed for “C:\Program Files\Pixologic\ZBrush3\ZBrush3.exe”. Dependent Assembly Microsoft.VC80.OpenMP,processorArchitecture=“x86”,publicKeyToken=“1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b”,type=“win32”,version=“8.0.50608.0” could not be found. Please use sxstrace.exe for detailed diagnosis.
Thanks for the help w/ the troubleshooting problem. It did install some programs. However, the side by side application conflict pop up again. I check his event log manager and this is what it displayed.
Event Log:
Activation context generation failed for “C:\Program Files\Pixologic\ZBrush3\ZBrush3.exe”. Dependent Assembly Microsoft.VC80.OpenMP,processorArchitecture=“x86”,publicKeyToken=“1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b”,type=“win32”,version=“8.0.50608.0” could not be found. Please use sxstrace.exe for detailed diagnosis.