Found Windows 7's credential vault today, in the context of storing credentials to automatically re-map a network (samba) drive between the gas machines and sc.starp after one of the gas machines reboots.

The question at the moment: with the sc credentials stored under "Windows Credentials" with "Persistence: Enterprise", will it in fact reconnect without need for manual intervention?  In Microsoft-speak, "Enterprise" is apparently an antonym for "Logon Session" and a synonym for "permanent".

Some indication from Microsoft tech fora is that it may be necessary to store the credentials under "Generic Credentials" rather than "Windows Credentials" in order to make it genuinely persistent.

Additional twist - apparently there is a domain group policy to prevent stored Windows credentials.  So can't really experiment with this much, but did try using "generic credentials" without success.