kernel - Killing wininit.exe shuts down Windows

When I kill wininit.exe, Windows 7 suddenly shuts down. Can someone explain this using Windows mechanics?

I feel like this might because the process provides something important, or this might be a security feature.

Answer

From Windows Internals, Part 1

Windows Initialization Process (Wininit.exe)

• Marks itself critical so that if it exits prematurely and the system is booted in debugging mode it will break into the debugger (if not, the system will crash).


• Initalizes the user-mode scheduling infrastructure.


• Creates the %windir%\temp folder


• Creates a window station (Winsta0) and two desktops (Winlogon and Default) for processes to run in session 0.


• Creates Services.exe (Service Control Manager or SCM).


• Starts Lsass.exe (Local Security Authentication Subsystem Server).


• Starts Lsm.exe (Local Session Manager).


• Waits forever for system shutdown.