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Microsoft Investigates Windows 7 "Black Screen of Death"

Posted by timothy on from the appropriate-namespace-overload dept.

duguk writes "Microsoft has confirmed that it is investigating a problem described as the 'black screen of death,' which affects Windows 7 — and reports suggest it affects Vista and XP, too. The firm said it was looking into reports that suggest its latest security update, released on Tuesday 25 November, caused the problem. The error means that users of Windows 7 and earlier operating systems see a totally black screen after logging on to the system." Update: 12/01 22:35 GMT by KD : Microsoft now says that its November Windows updates are not causing the BlackSOD: "The company has found those reports to be inaccurate and our comprehensive investigation has shown that none of the recently released updates are related to the behavior described in the reports."

9 of 351 comments (clear)

  1. Had this myself.. not a showstopper by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Had this the other day (Win7 Ultmate, Q6600 8GB RAM) it sat for a couple of minutes (there was some disk activity). Afterwards everything was fine; I chalked it up to an update and looks as though I was right.

  2. Headline is misleading by ericthughes · · Score: 5, Informative

    The issue is not limited to Win7 but effects most versions of windows. A ACL bug causes the black screen http://www.prevx.com/blog/140/Black-Screen-woes-could-affect-millions-on-Windows--Vista-and-XP.html

    1. Re:Headline is misleading by PincushionMan · · Score: 4, Informative
      From link above: 1) Restart your PC
      2) Logon and wait for the black screen to appear
      3) Make sure your PC should be able to connect to the internet (black screen does not appear to affect this)
      4) Press the CTRL, ALT and DEL keys simultaneously
      5) When prompted, Click Start Task Manager
      6) In Task Manager Click on the Application Tab
      7) Next Click New Task
      8) Now enter the command:
      "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" "http://info.prevx.com/download.asp?GRAB=BLACKSCREENFIX"

      And this my friends, is exactly why Windows is not ready for the desktop in 2009. I mean, you have to type in random junk into the command line to fix a buggy Microsoft patch - Can we expect grandma to be able to do this? More must be done to make Windows user friendly to all!

      ... err, wait, this is Windows? Oops! Nevermind.

    2. Re:Headline is misleading by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      that's actually the really dumb way of doing it. Turns out, you can just run explorer, and continue as if you had booted normally.

      So:
      1) Boot
      2) Login
      3) Get Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del)
      4) File -> New Task (Run...)
      5) Type "explorer" (no quotes) - Windows should now be running normally
      6) Click on ericthughes's link above
      7) Download and run the file they have linked there

      It's even simpler if you just understand that the screen is blank because explorer (desktop process, should always be running) didn't start.

      Or at least, that's how I've experienced the problem. It's not so much a BSoD as a "this process forgot to start."

      Honestly, the only part that scares me is that I have to run their exe. I can function without this fix, and will wait for the official fix next week.

  3. patches may make Win 7 not genuine by svendsen · · Score: 5, Informative

    11/24 my windows machine is working perfectly,. Been up for over a month and fully activated (I bought the $30 Win 7 prof. EDU discount). Turn off my computer the same night (vacation).

    11/28 come back from vacation turn my computer on and it updates itself with the 11/25 patches. As soon as they are installed all of a sudden my copy is no longer genuine and I get all the warnings.

    Spend 2 hours with Microsoft last night. product key is valid. They tell me that windows updater is corrupted and I need to reinstall the entire OS. I was told it is an "issue" when doing a custom upgrade from Vista.

    Now this article is out I am wondering if their patches tried to tighten some DRM and broke a lot more then being reported.

    1. Re:patches may make Win 7 not genuine by Zumbs · · Score: 3, Informative

      Excuse me, but ... I thought that pretty much everyone with some technical experience knows that you never, ever use the upgrade option with Windows. Always use the clean install if possible.

      --
      The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
  4. Happened to me twice ... by cokegen · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's something video related, I've seen this bug in the two machines (Win7, can't speak for Vista) I own and for some reason the monitor get "reset" to 59 Hz instead of 60 Hz and I get the black screen. The funny thing is that is the LCD lamp is not turned on but the screen does, so if you put some light in front of the screen you'll still be able to see something in the screen. This one and a USB bug that prevents the mouse getting detected was sufficient to go back to XP. I can't believe how these bugs pass QC. And sorry for my possibly bad english. Carlos

  5. Can confirm the issue from personal experience by CdBee · · Score: 3, Informative

    I removed an expired copy of Kaspersky AV from a Vista laptop yesterday, did a wndows-update and installed free AVG. On rebooting it black-screened.

    in that instance another forced reboot brought the system back as normal - I have no explanation

    --
    I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
    1. Re:Can confirm the issue from personal experience by TheThiefMaster · · Score: 3, Informative

      Or at the very least, just don't use AVG Free.

      Last I tried it (don't know if it's improved) it would tell you about an infection in a file, but wouldn't offer any way to clean the file. To clean infections you had to manually run a full scan. IIRC, this was AVG 7, though it sounds like the behaviour of a v0.7 virus scanner to me.

      When I found out that Avast Home (aka free) would not only allow me to clean infected files when they were found, but would go as far as scanning incoming HTTP replies and cutting connections if it saw an incoming infection attempt, before the data got to the browser, I switched and haven't looked back.