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."

Comments

Problem Solved!

[bravo_2_0]

Turns out it was just affecting a bunch of old people who kept forgetting to turn their monitors on.

Re:Problem Solved!

[Cassini2]

Turns out it was just affecting a bunch of old people who kept forgetting to turn their monitors on.

I just put a painting in front of the monitor, and then take it away before my kids come over. They think it is so cool I'm into computers.

Re:Problem Solved!

[Taibhsear]

Had a secretary at my first job with a similar problem. Reasons for "The computer is broken!":
1.) forgot to turn monitor on.
2.) didn't press power button on desktop
3.) kicked monitor plug near the power strip pulling it out of back of monitor.
4.) stepping on power strip rocker switch.
5.) somehow put the entire OS in dutch.

Re:Problem Solved!

[cixelsyd]

My lawn, get off it, whippersnapper!

Re:Problem Solved!

[sexconker]

At least you kept warm.. In my day the temperature never got above -10 Kelvin.

My home town nearly went to zero Kevins back in 1978.

It was a particularly cold winter, and we were already down to 3 Kevins (due to their low popularity at the time).

Kevin Thomas had flown out to be with his son's family for a wedding and got stuck in Boston for a whole week due to the weather. 2 Kevins left.

Kevin Lemmer was rushed to the hospital during my shift. I still remember the call from the EMTs as the ambulance was rushing toward us. "It's Lemmer. He's in bad shape. Drove right into the fucking ditch." We called the time of death at 6:15 PM.

At 6:16, all eyes turned to room 2217. Kevin Spencer was 82 and on his death bed with leukemia. His family being Catholic, he had already been given his last rights. If he couldn't hold out until Kevin Thomas returned, we would be at zero Kevins. Sure, we had 4 perfectly healthy Calvins, but they're just not the same.

It was 7:15 when Carla Brooks and her husband James burst through the main entrance. "She's not due for 2 weeks!", James exclaimed. As the staff bustled around getting the Brookses settled, they exchanged darting glances with each other. This was their first child, and they wanted to keep the baby's sex a secret. Of course, in a small town, secrets don't get kept. Nearly all of the hospital staff new that the child about to rip open Mrs. Brooks was indeed a boy.

The delivery was routine, and Kevin Brooks was born healthy, if a tad underweight, at 10:52 PM. Kevin Spencer was pronounced dead at 10:54.

It was, as they say, a close one. Kevin Thomas arrived two days later, the weather having finally cleared up. To this day, we still rib him about it.

Cedar Falls is currently at 5 Kevins.

Re:Problem Solved!

[vegiVamp]

> 5.) somehow put the entire OS in dutch.

Perfect leesbaar, toch ?

Re:Problem Solved!

[kregg]

sudo killall whipersnapper

BSOD

[klwood911]

I guess they don't have to change the acronym then. Saves on Apple and Microsoft's marketing budgets next year! First Post!

Heh, simple. Don't update.

[Finallyjoined!!!]

Securing windows is like pushing water uphill with a sharp stick.

Firewall the bugger & leave it be. Works for me :-) No updates since 2003, system just stays up.

Re:Heh, simple. Don't update.

[Shagg]

He might not do much with it, but the botnet it's on has plenty of uses.

Re:Heh, simple. Don't update.

[eln]

Of course your machine stays up, you have the administrators of at least 3 different botnets making sure of it!

Re:Heh, simple. Don't update.

[ClayJar]

Securing windows is like pushing water uphill with a sharp stick.

So, if I follow what you're saying, securing windows is much easier when it freezes?

Re:Heh, simple. Don't update.

[HockeyPuck]

Let me just start by saying... You are soooo cool. You're running an Operating System from 2003. I hope you're not in IT. I can imagine you telling your management, "we're running Solaris 8/9 and have never applied any patches." I also hope you're not a developer that has made updates/fixes to your products so you can say to your customers, "How come you've never applied any of my updates? I've slaved over this code for the past seven years!"

And since this is /., where everyone brags about their personal machine in their basement, I hope you've never run apt-get update and still run firefox 1.x/2.x (or whatever version was around in 2003).

Or do you think that all fixes in linux/firefox are better than even service packs in winXP...

I also hope you've never fixed your car or a leaky faucet..

Because that would make you a hypocrite.

Re:Heh, simple. Don't update.

[Lord Ender]

Lookeee here, guys! Someone who claims to be a senior IT security "technician" who has never heard of defense in depth!

He even thinks server-side virus-scan can catch as much malware as the client-side stuff does. Guess he's never heard of behavior-based virus detection, either? And his grand security architecture posture is simply "don't use much of the internet." There's sophistication for you.

But then, he's extrapolated his advice based on a single poorly-measured datapoint. Who are we to question him?

Nice of them to change the color

[alen]

i was getting tired of the blue screen

Re:Nice of them to change the color

[melikamp]

Screenshot here.

Re:Nice of them to change the color

[srussia]

I believe the change was implemented in order to prevent phosphor burn-in on older CRT monitors.

Actually, blue was chosen deliberately because zinc sulfide silver (blue phosphor in CRTs) is more resistant to burnout than the other phosphors, thus ensuring more even color rendition over time. It was a feature, not a bug :-). With no burnout problems in LCD panels, they went with black.

Henry Gates Ford:

[Tablizer]

"You can have any screen of death color you want, as long as it's black"

Finally...

[natehoy]

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.

Headline is misleading

[ericthughes]

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

Re:Headline is misleading

[PincushionMan]

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.

Re:Headline is misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Happened to me on a Server 2003 box

[gazuga]

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.

patches may make Win 7 not genuine

[svendsen]

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.

Re:Optical problem

[JustOK]

I looked into my suitcase

And much to my surprise

I realized I couldn't see a thing

If I closed my eyes.