I was having trouble running Confluence as a service. It failed with the following unhelpful error:

C:\confluence\confluence-2.7-std\bin>net start

Confluence The Apache Tomcat Confluence service is starting.

The Apache Tomcat Confluence service could not be started.

A service specific error occurred: 0.

More help is available by typing NET HELPMSG 3547.

Support responded with a suggestion that I review this thread in the Java Forums. And turns out that was my problem too. Copying msvcr71.dll into \windows\system32 has done the trick. I presume this is a bug in the JDK installer.

I was also able to set the service to run as NetworkService which is nicer than hardcoding my credentials, or letting it run as SYSTEM.