A computer that is running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 stops responding and hangs at the "Applying User Settings" stage of the logon process

Catch-22!!

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2379016

In the dump file, the service control manager is trying to start up the HTTP.sys while the HTTP.sys is actually waiting on the Cryptographic service. But this Cryptographic service has not started up yet. So Cryptographic service is trying to start up to handle to request from http.sys.

But as the service control manager is starting up the http.sys and can’t handle the startup request from Cryptographic service, this cause a deadlock.

Resolution

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So this issue can be resolved by add dependency for the http.sys to make sure this http.sys will only try to start up itself when the Cryptographic service is up.

Step as below:

1.Locate and then click the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\HTTP

2.On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click Multi-string Value.

3.Type DependOnService, and then press ENTER.

4.Right-click DependOnService, and then click Modify.

5.In the Value data box, type CRYPTSVC, and then click OK.

6.Restart the computer.

Note: The reason why we used the last known good and the server was fine may because in the last known good, the Cryptographic service somehow started up earlier than usual. But we still need to take the action plan above since we never known if sometimes the Cryptographic service will start up later than http.sys again.