I'm a big fan of developing in virtualized environments. While the details on why is out of scope for this entry, suffice to say I was quite thrilled when my team lead suggested setting up a VM for my current project.
The first thing I did was fire up Virtual Server and began creating the image. After awhile, I needed to reboot my host (hey, it happens, especially with Windows). Afterwards, I was unable to start Virtual Server! The error message:
Error 1075: The dependency service does not exist or was marked for deletion.
Crap. I switched to VPC 2007, but that was just an all around bad experience. So I did some reading on that Virtual Server error, and finally got the answer I was looking for. Turns out when the network service account has too much access (like being a member of the administrators group), Virtual Server no longer starts. So if you are seeing this error, check the members of your Administrators group (easiest way is to right click My Computer | Choose Local Users and Groups | Click Groups | Double click Administrators | Click the Members Tab [XP only]) and if Network Service or NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE shows up in the list, select that user and click "Remove".
Thanks to Andre Akkerman for the KB link!