Lazybit

It has been reported that in certain circumstances the system will shutdown instead of rebooting itself when the user restarts it while Private Disk is running and an encrypted disk is mounted.

This was a problem difficult to trace; while it repeats itself 10/10 times on a "problematic" machine, on "non-problematic" ones everything is working correctly and it is impossible to simulate the problem.

This is what makes it of reason to make an educated guess that this is caused by a third-party component present on the system, which somehow alters the standard behaviour of Windows. The tough part is that even when you think you have disabled all the non-standard programs, there is a myriad of low-level components that one can't see with the naked eye.

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If you're looking for a way to re-install the smart card service on Windows XP, this story is your new best friend!

Summary

1. Prepare a Windows XP installation disc
2. Download WinXP-scardsvr-install.zip
3. Read the included readme.txt
4. Examine install.bat in order to see what it does
5. Run the BAT file

Steps 3 and 4 are optional, but if you're someone who tinkers with the service, I'm sure you want to know what's in there.

Explanations

• First of all you should make sure the service is completely removed. sc delete scardsvr is the standard and official way to remove the service (it is interesting that Microsoft provides a way to remove a service, but there is no known mechanism to re-install one).
• Copy scardsvr.inf to %windir%\inf
• Run sysocmgr.exe /i:caller.inf, this will invoke a wizard that will use the data inside scardsvr.inf to perform various actions (such as modifying registry keys, and copying files)

• Uncheck Smart card service and press Next to remove the files and registry entries
• Run the command again, the same window will be shown, check Smart card service and press Next (you will be asked to insert the Windows XP installation CD)
• Perform a system restart, after checking the service manager (by running services.msc) and making sure the Smart card service startup is set to Automatic

If you examine scardsvr.inf you will see that it contains references to a list of files and registry keys. These actions could be performed manually, the effect would be the same; but using an .inf file is much easier.