Topic: solution: "vmbus.sys" missing or corrupt at windows 7 halted boot (0xc0000221)

[devnullius]

I first had a Windows 7 machine that halted boot with 0xc000000e.

I couldn't get it solved with the usual suspects (bios: AHCI vs IDE) (MSDaRT chkdsk, bootrec, and failing sfc because the machine needed a reboot), so I finally got the machine partially fixed with Macrium Reflect Recovery Repair Disc (v6.1, Windows 10). While it makes no sense (as far as I can tell it didn't do anything I didn't tried manually), I took the results nonetheless.

Because after that error and fixing it, I got a new error: "vmbus.sys" is missing or corrupt. Again, nothing I could do, not even command prompt. Sigh.

I found that NeoSmart Easy Recovery Pro for Windows 7 could fix this specific error. Instead, I found that it undid the work done by Macrium and rendered the system even less bootable than it was (just a black screen; nothing happened).

So after re-running Acrium, and re-creating vmbus.sys problem, I just went to another (luckily identical) machine and put the file from that c:\windows\system32\drivers\vmbus.sys on a USB drive. I then ran MSDaRT recovery console once more, copied the file to the failing system and hold and beyond, the system booted once more 

Very strange though. For an offline check disk did not find *any* problems. The filesize on the failing system was identical. It just doesn't make any sense why this system suddenly stopped booting. Once I replaced the file, Windows continued installing updates that were still awaiting a successful reboot. Nothing went wrong this time.

Sigh. But: yeay! Problem solved and posted here because Google did not show any relevant results for this specific query.

Download vmbus.sys for Windows 7 here: https://app.box.com/s/ptzt3ga9x6oe005gl7q4fjes7ttwud60

Peace!

Devnullius