Cryptographic Services won't start

[The Remover]

Hey guys need some urgent help regarding my Windows XP SP2 running on Compaq laptop. Since yesterday am getting this error whenever I start my laptop:

“Could not start the Cryptographic Services service on Local Computer.
Error 193: 0xc1”

Tried to search Microsoft knowledge base as well Symantec forums but found nothing working. One more problem am facing is while running windows updates, system is not able to install Windows Installer 3.1 & Update KB898461.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Mr.Walter]

As far as I know Crypto Services is related to RPC service and will not start unless RPC is running. Did you checked whether RPC service is running? If not, do it now by typing services.msc in RUN box.

[The Remover]

Thanks a lot for the quick reply Walter. Yeah, I did check services and RPC is running.

But I found that thought Error Reporting and Cryptographic services are set to Automatic, they are disabled. I tried starting them manually but they wont start.

What now?

[Landon]

I have been struggling with this error couple of months ago. After searching lot finally I came through a website that has many solutions for disabled Cryptographic Services and one of them worked for me. I think you should check the same here, hope your problem will be solved.

[enternamehere]

Dude! I get the EXACT same error message when trying to start cryptographic service, have you sorted this? if so how? any help is much appreciated

[docstone]

i was facing the same problem and managed to fix it before getting to this thread. i found a KB article with Solution for exactly the same problem. I followed the steps and problem gone. You can get the same here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/838428