server updates workstation then "workstation" service fails to start

I am having a problem with about 10 workstations out of 2000. I recently
setup WSUS and pushed out the settings with group policy. This could be
completly unrelated but now those 10 computers are unable to access our
servers. They can connect to the internet and any website but nothing
through netbios. The computers are all having problems starting the
"workstation" service which means all the dependancies fail. when i try to
start the service manually i get an error "The Workstation service
terminated with service-specific error 2250". Another strange thing is even
though the user account i am logging in with has full control of
"c:\winnt\system32\drivers" it gives me an access denied when i try to open
the folder. once i take ownership of the folder it lets me in but still can
not read the files properly and screws up the network card. so it will not
pull an IP. I dont know what this could be as i couldnt find anything on it
when i was googleing. Thanks for any help.

 

I would say this has something to do with your GPOs and NTFS permissions.
WSUS wouldn't have anything to do with being able to access folders on the
client.

 

I was thinking more along the lines of maybe an update is failing half way
through the install and is causing the problems.

 

You would need to take a look at the problem client's WindowsUpdate.log file.
However, I do not see a failed update would cause the permissions issue you
are experiencing. Rather, I think it may have to do with your GPO. When you
take ownership of the folder, it retains that ownership until about 20
minutes pass when the GPO is applied again and the ownership is removed. At
least that is my limited diagnosis of this from the limited amount of
information I have on your issue.

 

If you're having problems starting up the /Workstation/ service.. the
problem goes a lot deeper than anything WSUS or the WUA deals with.

Yes, it is possible that a defective update installation caused this -- can
you correlate a scheduled update installation with the appearance of the
failure?

I'd be more inclined to agree with Patrick's assessment..
Either there are "additional" settings configured in your WSUS GPO that
have negatively impacted the client systems, or something/somebody has
mucked with filesystem permissions -- though rarely does that impact the
startup of the Workstation service. The Workstation service has no
dependencies, and should be configured to Log On with the Local System
account, giving it unrestricted permissions to the entire system.

Start by removing the GPO from that system (use security filtering to set
the Computer account to /deny/ access to the GPO), and see if the system
returns to normal operation. If so, it's a flaw in the GPO applied to that
system.

If removing the GPO has no affect, then you might also seriously consider
some sort of malware infection, since it seems it's affected the core of the
OS and driver library.

Beyond that, the appropriate resource to continue with your diagnostics is
with an OS expert in an OS forum. It's really beyond the scope of WSUS
diagnostics if the /Workstation/ service won't start up. And a whole host of
failures will occur as a result of losing that service, the least of which
is Automatic Updates.

In fact, AU doesn't even have a dependency on the Workstation service. AU
ought to keep on truckin' even if the Workstation service is shut down,
because AU uses anonymous permissions to access the WSUS server, and it does
not use any of the services that are dependent on the Workstation service.

You might also check these KB articles for additional considerations:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;841570
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;887416