If you encounter a W2K8 server hang after a reboot, either due to automatic services not starting up or hangs at "Applying computer setting" do the followings:
Set Cryptsvc as DependOnService on HTTP driver.  Go to the registry under:

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Serivces\HTTP and create following value.

Name: DependOnService
Value: Mult_sz

Click DepenOnService
Set CryptSvc on the value.

Then reboot the server. This will resolve the issue of automatic services are not starting up.
Basically starting from W2K8 onwards, windows won't wait on automatic services startup to load explorer.exe.  Automatic Services startup process carried over in the background while user logon process continues so we get to the desktop quickly. In our problem, Windows is waiting for http.sys driver to load but nothing happened.  According to Microsoft,  they knew about this issue and have a fix in place for Windows 7 and 2008 R2.  As for W2K8 before R2, we'll need to follow the above workaround and they are not going to resolve this with any patch.