ran into a problem i hadnt seen beforebasic problem is this:-windows 2008 enterprise (X64/SP2), on normal boot, system will start without error, but i'm unable to launch any application which requires administrative rights (app never errors, but window never opens, task manager shows no utilization issues, nothing is logged in event logs)some symptoms and history:-the networking tray icon shows disonnected (red X), but some networking works (outbound/inbound ping, dcdiag to dc is clean, local services like RDP not running, IE wont start)-in safe mode itIS possible to run the apps with adminstrative rights-problem first showed up after installing NLB via GUI tool. i couldnt remove NLB via GUI as it wont run in safe mode, and i couldnt get into admin mode in normal boot, but i was able to remove NLB via ocsetup in safe mode. even after removing NLB the problem remains-there are NO NON-MICROSOFT services running (the only thing installed on this system is exchange 2007 SP2 HT/CAS)-set all the exchange related services to manual startup and problem is still evidentthis posting looks like a similar issue, but it does not appear there was a root cause solution to the problem determinedhttp://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winservergen/thread/8a645427-e649-41de-9f8e-0366ade0d387

found this thread after postinghttp://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winservergen/thread/08bb58c1-6d88-45ff-a7f5-a32cc22401b1and sure enough...it was a 3rd party certificate which was the culpriti had imported a 3rd party cert (certificatesforexchange)BEFOREimporting the cert forthe intermediate CA (starfield) and this seems to have been the root cause issue hereonce i deleted the 3rd party cert for the machine (via MMC/Certificates) in safe mode, i was able to start the machine with all services workingreimporting the machine cert AFTER having imported the intermediate CA cert worked correctlysurprising that a cert imported for an app can have such an overall impact on the rest of the OSi will certainly be more careful in future when importing 3rd party certs

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