On HP laptops with the built-in credential manager (fingerprint scanner) running with VMWare (server) running, lsass.exe will crash while logging in telling you that your computer will reboot in 60 seconds. As documented here, there are a couple of workarounds for this
- Disable the fingerprint scanner
- Set the VMWare services to Manual instead of Automatic (start | run | services.msc)
Because it's almost 2010 and I want Minority Report style eyeball scanning technology, I settled for number 2 and set following services to Manual. (they sounded important, and had a circular dependency on each other)
- VMWare Authorization Service [VMAuthdService]
- VMWare Registration Service [VMServerdWin32, RPC Service]
I left the other 3 services alone as they seemed innocent enough, and had no dependencies. They were
- VMWare DHCP Service [VMNetDHCP]
- VMWare NAT Service [VMWare NAT Service]
- VMWare Virtual Mount Manager Extended [vmount2]
Obviously, the services I stopped need to be running for the VMWare application to run, and they do not start without being told to (I was hoping that launching the application would trigger the loading of these). After verifying that I could start and stop these services from the command line, I added a batch file named VMWareServices to my "Startup" folder with the following commands:
net start vmauthdservice
net start vmserverdwin32
AND IT STILL FAILED
Next I tried reversing the order these were called in. This stopped the crash, but for whatever reason vmserverdwin32 did not start.
I then added a ping delay delay of 60 seconds. Still no good. I could get to the command prompt and type the net start command, and I received the message that the service didn't start in a timely fashion. Immediately try again and it fires up. Same results as 120 and 180 seconds.
@#$*&($*!#^)&%^*^#$^@
Out of frustration more than anything else, I set the services back to the original order with a 120 second delay and it worked. Knocked it down to 60 seconds, and it's still good.
SOLUTION
It's irritating, and it's far from optimal, and I'm not sure why I need the delay, but it does the job.
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 60
net start vmauthdservice
net start vmserverdwin32