The story gets a little fuzzy here, but involves a Best Buy employee mentioning the PC had "crashed out our system 3 times" before it was sent off to Gateway for some hardware replacement (or maybe the warranty stipulated it had to be sent off). The customer received an email that the PC was ready, but was told they "still need to load the system" before she could pick it up. Just over two weeks after being dropped off, the system was finally ready to be picked up.

While I was on site for another task, the customer asked me to migrate her programs and documents to the repaired Gateway PC. (She had already migrated to an alternate system while the one was away for repair.) Most everything loaded properly, but I did have trouble loading drivers for two USB to serial (RS232) adapters. They reported a strange message about the drivers not being able to verify whether or not they were signed by Microsoft. The devices seemed to show up fine in Device Manager (even though they did display a bit differently than normal).

I did not think much about the driver message until a few days later when the customer called about her timeclock software not being able to detect the clock. After digging around, I discovered that Windows update consistently failed to operate properly and there are repetitive messages in the event log mentioning "Cryptographic Services" failing.

Every blog and forum I found while researching "Cryptographic Services" ended up with someone reloading Windows as the fix. I assumed a technician at Best Buy must have loaded something wrong or somehow corrupted Windows while loading the machine. I didn't figure it was Gateway since the PC had a load of Best Buy software on it and I'd never had trouble with a freshly imaged system from any manufacturer. I offered to reload the system using the provided recovery CDs in the handy little "Geek Squad" packet.

Immediately after reimaging the system from the provided Best Buy CDs, the system failed to open Windows Update. My new assumption was that Best Buy had taken an image of a machine that was corrupt and was distributing the corrupt image. I returned the PC to the customer and recommended she take it to Best Buy for repair since it was obviously not working 100% when it was given back to her.

A few days later I found out Best Buy was demanding $200 to look at the PC. They said something about how it had been changed since "another technician" (me!) had done work on it (I only recovered it with the CDs they provided). They also told her that she needed to bring all the peripherals and cables with her and that they wouldn't be able to figure out the trouble without them (all they had to do was plug the box in and try opening Windows Updates). They instructed the customer to "take the PC" with her and "bring it back" with the peripherals. The customer said "if I take this out of here, I'm not bringing it back."

I was shocked that she had so much grief over such a simple customer service issue. I can't remember how many times I appologized for all the trouble and assured her that I would be able to take care of everything for her. We then ordered a set of recovery CDs directly from Gateway (after arguing with them that the PC is in Texas and not New Jersey).

The Gateway restore felt like it was going to work. It stepped through 5 different disks and looked like Windows 7 was loading and configuring as it went along. Unfortunately, the desktop looked exactly the same and the system had the exact same event log issues. The Gateway restore CDs put all the Best Buy and Norton Antivirus software on there just the same. Windows Updates failed to open and refused to do anything else.

I called Gateway tech support (1-800-Gateway) thinking this has to be a "known issue" and would probably be a quick fix since it's broken right off the recovery CDs. Instead of talking with a technician, the idiot who picked up repeatedly tried to explain to me how software isn't covered under the "limited warranty" of the machine. I tried to explain how that after a "complete factory recovery" the system is in essence "brand new" and any "brand new" machine should be completely covered by warranty. Our conversation was not fruitful.

The only option suggested by Gateway was to purchase a $150 tech support "package" to cover up to 5 computers. Under this "package" they would be able to correct this "simple issue" that we are having with the PC.

I told him that I suspected the trouble was all the add-on "crap" software (mainly Best Buy stuff) and asked if I could simply get a copy of Windows 7 to load to eliminate the possibility of software conflicts. He said I could buy one for $200+

Out of frustration, I decided to uninstall all software from the PC. Uninstall, reboot.. uninstall a few .. reboot again .. everything is uninstalled .. discover the Windows Update icon is next to the clock. Look in the event log and the errors are gone. Curious...

Through "trial and error" I was able to reload the system a few more times and determine the "Intel Matrix Storage Manager" was causing the trouble. After removing it, everything is working properly.

The failing Application Event Log entry was for Source: CAPI2 and Event ID: 257. It's description states "The Cryptographic Services service failed to initialize the Catalog Database. The ESENT error was: -583."

Another failing Event Log entry listed under System was for Service Control Manager and Event ID: 7000. It's description is:
The Windows Update service failed to start due to the following error:
The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.