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Microsoft Investigates Windows 7 "Black Screen of Death"
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."
Turns out it was just affecting a bunch of old people who kept forgetting to turn their monitors on.
I AM A SEXY SHOELESS GOD OF WAR!!!
I guess they don't have to change the acronym then. Saves on Apple and Microsoft's marketing budgets next year! First Post!
Securing windows is like pushing water uphill with a sharp stick.
:-) No updates since 2003, system just stays up.
Firewall the bugger & leave it be. Works for me
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
i was getting tired of the blue screen
"You can have any screen of death color you want, as long as it's black"
Table-ized A.I.
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.
The headline should read "Microsoft finds way to make an Operating System 100% secure".
Once the Black (screen of) Death Security Pack is installed, the computer locks up after login, meaning the user will not be able to surf to dangerous pages, will not be the victim of even the most clever social engineering hacks, and best of all won't see any spam any more, ever.
Users protected by the BsoDSP can feel free to emerge from their basements and experience RealWorld 1.0. It's like a MMORPG, but with real sex.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
After hundreds of hours of diagnostics I realized that my eyes were closed.
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
On my MSI Wind netbook running Windows 7, I once woke the system from sleep and got a black screen. The machine was still working, the mouse cursor was on screen and moved with the touchpad, there was disk activity, it connected to the wireless network, caps lock/num lock were still responsive, but nothing else appeared on the screen and nothing I did made it work. I had to manually power the system off. I was able to wake the system from sleep many times before and after without any problems.
I didn't notice any updates that the problem could have been correlated with.
I had this happen a year or so ago on a Server 2003 box and never could find the actual cause. I don't know if the fix is the same in this case, but in my case it was simple:
Check out [HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Colors] - if everything is set to [0 0 0], modify those values to something other than black. The easiest thing to do, actually, is to export that key from another box that's good, then import on the box that's got the problem.
"I turn away with fright and horror from the lamentable evil of functions which do not have derivatives."
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.
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
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
first was while playing a game online, and I though it was the game that crashed. Black screen, nothing worked, but the background music from the game kept playing. I waited longer than 5 minutes to see if the game would exit. When it did not I got suspicios since protected memory in 7 should not have allowed the gamr to crash the kernel. NOTHIGN was in the error logs related to it (other than the obligitory "you did not shut down properly" errors after I hit the reset button on the tower.
Next day, I had just turned it on about 20 minutes earlier, and the only thing running was Opera. Same deal, complete lock up.
7 has been running great on this machine since the day it hit my MAPS dowload queue and I installed it. Not one crash prior except an issue installing HP's printer system first time around (second try, it worked flawlessly).
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
I can't wait to get the red screen of life !
Hello IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again? ... OK, well, the button on the side. Is it glowing? ... Yeah, you need to turn it on. Err, the button turns it on. Yeah, you do know how a button works, don't you? No, not on clothes. No, there you go, I just heard it come on. No, that's the music you hear when it comes on. No, that's the music you hear when... I'm sorry, are you from the past?
I think this is a great example of creativity. Microsoft managed to completely change up the dated blue screen, while keeping the acronym that we all know and love from becoming obsolete. Though I do suppose that the text should be a different color than the background...
The Internet has given stupid people the resources of intelligent people.
It's no bug, it's a feature. Windows saves power by reducing the monitor contrast and brightness to 0. Furthermore, it turns off the Video Card and unplugs the monitor from the power socket. Then blinds you.
...I just had a chat with Steve, he said "you're lucky we didn't implement the population control routine; we couldn't figure out whether we should use inherent OS radiation or the hammer summoning algorythm on your testicles".
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
> 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."
"We know those reports are inaccurate because we already knew about this before releasing the November updates and so it couldn't possibly be related to the November updates. It is an issue that we are having considerable difficulties fixing hence not being fixed in the November updates and hoped that nobody would have commented about it so soon."