All services on Windows Server 2003 box suddenly hang or stop

[Guest Chris Benton]

I'm running Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition SP1 on an HP ProLiant DL380

server with 4 GB of RAM and an array of four 72GB hard drives. About two

weeks ago, our server started randomly rebooting itself with the following

message: "This system is shutting down. Please save all work in progress and

log off.." etc. Shutdown initiated by NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM. The specific error

mentioned is: "Windows must now restart because the service services.svc

terminated unexpectedly." Sometimes, the server does not actually reboot, but

the services all abort, anyway. The only change to the server, apart from

regular system updates, was the installation of Office 2007.

 

When the above happens, I am unable to log in to the server at the console

or via RDP. It takes at least an hour for a login window to appear, and even

then, it does not allow me to log in. The only thing that seems to work is

powering off the server and powering it back on. The problem recurs a couple

of days later. I've been unable to find any viruses/malware, and the Security

log does not show any breaches. Any ideas what could be causing this? This is

our DC, so it's a serious problem.