I had a functional installation of Windows XP SP2 running under Parallels Workstation beta 4 from April 18. I just uninstalled Parallels Workstation beta 4, rebooted, installed Parallels Desktop RC2, rebooted again, and then got my virtual windows PC runnnig again. All seemed well for a while, but now when I boot I get the following error dialogs: • services.exe: Application Error • The application failed to initialize properly (oxc0000005). Click on OK to terminate the application. • lsass.exe: Application Error • The application failed to initialize properly (oxc0000005). Click on OK to terminate the application. • services.exe: Application Error • The application failed to initialize properly (oxc0000005). Click on OK to terminate the application. • lsass.exe: Application Error • The application failed to initialize properly (oxc0000005). Click on OK to terminate the application. I get these four dialogs, in that order, then am presented with a plain desktop with no icons, task bar/tray, etc. Ctrl-Alt-Del does nothing; the virtual Windows PC is non-responsive. I did some regression testing, and it appears to be related to netoworking and/or Windows (automatic) updates. With networking completely disabled, I never seem to get these errors and the system is okay. With networking enabled, once Windows Update automatically downloads the 5 pending updates (whether I have set it to "Download updates for me, but let me choose when to install them" or "Notify me but don't automatically download or install them"), I get the services.exe and lsass.exe errors on the next reboot. I don't have any more time to fight with this now, but was wondering if anyone else has seen this? Its very frustrating.
I'm still seeing this issue with the release version of Parallels. I can revert to my last-good image, and virus/malware scans are all clean, yet installing the latest set of Windows Updates causes this "services.exe/lsass.exe failed to initialize" to be triggered again with 100% repeatability... I'd love to move full-time to Parallels, but until I can resolve this I'm having to stay with Boot Camp when I need to run Windows...
I tried updating my last working VM with the above problem using Parallels Desktop 2.5 beta 3 (build 3106). It booted fine and continued to work after updating Parallels Tools. I then ran Microsoft Update, which installed 43 updates totalling nearly 96 MB. The .NET Framework 2.0 installation failed (it really didn't explain why...), but all other installed fine and the VM was still okay after rebooting the VM! So it appears I was seeing some sort of obscure Parallels bug that has since been fixed. Good job, Parallels team!
