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Session3 Initialization Failed Error

Ok, after countless hours searching and sleuthing for this issue, I could not find a resolution...until now. This is my first post ever on a technical forum, so be gentle to me. I will probably never reference this form, so you if this helped you, please let me know by sending me comments to my email at:

Technical Symptoms:
Blue Screen (BSOD)
Session 3 Initialization Failed (Session3_Initialization_Failed)
STOP 0x0000006F (0xc0000034)
This BSOD would load for both normal and safe mode.
The operating system in question was Windows XP Home SP2.

Reason: The issue occurred after I ran a virus scan using a PE boot disk that deleted the C:\windows\system32\smss.exe system file.

Resolution: By using the "dir smss*.* /s" at a DOS prompt from the PE boot disk, I was able to search the whole computer for any available files and it found a clean version in a directory. So to fix the issue I copied C:\windows\$ServicepackUninstall$\smss.exe to C:\windows\system32\ using a PE boot disk.

Acknowledgements: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/153742 , this link gave me a hint that it may be smss.exe (even though it references win2000). Upon looking at the antivirus logs, sure enough the smss.exe was found to be infected and deleted it as it could not disinfect it. I'm assuming if I did not have a virus free smss.exe file on the C: drive in another folder, I may have to pull it from a CD or find it online.


Source : www.techsupportforum.com

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