What we get for helping... Status Code 1073741819.

Problem: On boot up, 30 seconds after reaching desktop my XP pro SP2 laptop gives windows red X error message from NT Authority System that PC will shutdown in 60 seconds due to: Windows\System32\services.exe terminating unexpectedly. Status Code 1073741819. History: I was helping a friend remove a virus from his Desktop. We needed to generate the rescue CD. So I downloaded and installed Bit Defender v10 on my laptop, in order to create a Rescue CD to help resolve his virus problem, AND GUESS WHAT!! - the BD installation hung up on my laptop and after waiting 10 minutes with no screen or disk activity I was forced to reboot the laptop. Of course, naturually it now has the above problem. I think windows update was doing the recent (this week) security updates on my laptop as well - so there could have been two installs going on at the same time. So I'm wondering if this error is because one or more programs aren't completely uninstalled/installed?? It was sort of messy. Anyway… I googled the error, and it looks like it happens alot, but also like there is more than one cause? I can only run in safe mode. I have run CounterSpy, and the Rustbfix rootkit detector (in safe mode) but found nothing. Does this smell like a virus, perhaps there is corruption somewhere? Should I reboot in last known good and see what happens? Should I try to run windows update in safe mode (is that possible?) to fix possible services corruption? Help please if you can, Thanks. -Tom

please delete this post. I have reposted with more meaningful title, and accurate date, etc. thank you.