Microsoft: Black Screen of Death Not Our Fault
It wasn't us, said Microsoft.
Last month, reports from security vendors claim that Microsoft's latest round of patches was causing software problems that lead to the "Black Screen of Death."
Apparently, patches that affect Windows 7, Vista and XP made changes to the Access Control List that have caused installed applications to cough up the Black Screen of Death.
Security firm Prevx believed that Microsoft's patches for Windows 7, Vista and XP made changes to the Access Control List that have caused installed applications to cough up the Black Screen of Death. Prevx offered users a free patch that supposedly fixed things.
Microsoft, however, held back to investigate the supposed problem and now says that whatever is causing the Black Screen of Death isn't its fault.
"We’ve investigated these reports and found that our November Security Updates are not making changes to the system that these reports say are responsible for these issues," Microsoft wrote on it Security Response Center blog.
Reports claimed that Microsoft's updates security updates made permission changes in the registry to the value for the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell key.
Microsoft responded, "We’ve conducted a comprehensive review of the November Security Updates, the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool, and the non-security updates we released through Windows Update in November. That investigation has shown that none of these updates make any changes to the permissions in the registry. Thus, we don’t believe the updates are related to the 'black screen' behavior described in these reports."
Microsoft added that its worldwide Customer Service and Support organization is not seeing "black screen" behavior as a broad customer issue, but does know that such behavior is associated with some malware families such as Daonol.
Have you been hit by the Black Screen of Death? If so, was it malware and were you able to get rid of it?
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Yes, I was hit by the KSOD (blacK Screen Of Death) on Vista a few months ago, definitely before the latest patches. After lots of searching around on the web I found a solution and made a summary of it on my blog:
http://www.nuonsoft.com/blog/2009/ [...] ows-vista/
No problems here whatsoever. One Win7 box, one Vista box, and two XP Boxes of my own that have been working flawlessly, not to mention the couple virtual XP machines I'm running and the myriad of other XP systems I maintain.
Just had a customer today with a black screen problem on his Lenovo notebook, but it was malware related, I just took out the HD, did a scan for malware on my workstation with NOD32 and malwarebytes, and problem was solved,
Typical: A "Blue" or "Black Screen of Death", "Guru Meditation Error" or whatever makes your OS stop working is always the fault of the OS. Either by it's own code, or by failing to enforce an architecture that denies applications/drivers to tear down the OS.
So, in the end it looks like it is malware related; as I said yesterday in the other article comments, the "security firm" that came up with the story regarding the widespread problem of KSOD is M.I.A., invalidating that claim.
Sorry, Marcus, it didn't work out for ya this time
Windows 7 Pro: Black screen of death, however I do not believe it was M$ since it has yet to do it again. Mine locked up and got a black screen when trying to bring up the task manager to shut down what I thought was the offending program. In short I believe it was related to my Creative sound card cause it did lock again, but no black screen and that's when I noticed the sound had disappeared. Something to do with Creative .dll's seemed to be the issue.
I've received it several times while running Vista. It just happens occasionally, and doesn't necessarily need anything to provoke it.
If you get one, all you have to do is hit CTRL+ALT+DEL, end the explorer.exe process, and relaunch explorer again from Run.
No problems here on either of my machines (one XP and one Win7 64-bit); how did the rumor get started that MS updates were causing these problems?
Typical: A "Blue" or "Black Screen of Death", "Guru Meditation Error" or whatever makes your OS stop working is always the fault of the OS. Either by it's own code, or by failing to enforce an architecture that denies applications/drivers to tear down the OS.
That's like saying that if someone made a shitty application for Mac, it's Apple's fault for the app not working right.
Just as it's not Windows' fault if you get malware on your computer, this isn't any different.
No BSOD for me after downloading and installing the latest MS patches and fixes.
I installed every update and patch MS throwed at me since I have Win7 and I never had any problem so far.
I haven't had any issues... but then again I'm using the RC edition.
That's like saying that if someone made a shitty application for Mac, it's Apple's fault for the app not working right.Just as it's not Windows' fault if you get malware on your computer, this isn't any different.
He means that if someone made a shitty application for Mac, it's Apple's fault that the app made the whole OS crash. A shitty app can crash, but it shouldn't take the OS down with it. Tehn again, I don,t care much one way or the other. These things are bound to happen sometimes.
Typical: A "Blue" or "Black Screen of Death", "Guru Meditation Error" or whatever makes your OS stop working is always the fault of the OS. Either by it's own code, or by failing to enforce an architecture that denies applications/drivers to tear down the OS.
wow what an idiot. you can get a black screen of death if your hard drive is corrupted.
The only Windows error I ever get these days is rot. My grandmother's 1.6GHZ celeron XP box currently runs better than my 3.6 Wolfdale with Vista. And yes, duckman is right, I used to bluescreen because my audio card was shorting out.
osx is better.
No problems what so ever, I will note that I am one who keeps Automatic updates OFF.
My mentality is Why Fix what isn't broken. I install updates ONLY when I have an issue.
MS is saying that it isn't the fault of the patch that the registry key changed. I think the OS should provide protection for any registry key changes that are critical to the system, however there are registry keys that provide for user customization, and MS can't prevent a user from shooting themselves in the foot.
Also it doesn't seem as if the OS stops, since the workaround is to hit C-A-D to bring up task manager. Rather it sounds like explorer.exe stops working. However I'll readily grant the point that for many users failure of a common/important part of the OS is indistinguishable from the entire OS stopping.
Forgot to mention.
I use XP-Home X32 on work laptop and Windows7 X64 Premium on Desktop unfortunately as I miss my XP64
Windows 7 Professional 64 bit
All updates available are installed daily.
No black screens or blue screens (well blue screens due to overclocking adjustments, but that's a known cause).a
Typical: A "Blue" or "Black Screen of Death", "Guru Meditation Error" or whatever makes your OS stop working is always the fault of the OS. Either by it's own code, or by failing to enforce an architecture that denies applications/drivers to tear down the OS.
Voted down or not, quite valid. My Amiga had quite a few Gurus back in the day, and if the processes had been managed better they'd have been a lot less frequent...
Windows 7 Professional 64 bit
All updates available are installed daily.
No black screens or blue screens (well blue screens due to overclocking adjustments, but that's a known cause).
As we know most malware and crapware ( proven in recent research but who needed that kinda proof.. ) are created from AV v companies themselves in order to make you feel that you need their products. Noone that I know of ( i use windows 7 x64 and manually update PCs if not daily, at least every other day )has had a BSoD or anythign of the short except a Blue on an XP system from a faulty peripheral hooked on the PC which caused it.
All I can do is call BS on Prevx and also have reasons to assume they are part of the purposly caused problem. Other than that I can care less since there is no actual issue.
The store I work in we had about 40 systems come in on Nov with the black screen issue. Most of them were from Malware once cleaned it was like magic the problem went away. Malware,Virues & spyware are designed to do many things but all will do things to annoy the end user some worse than others. There were also system that came in with this problem that had hardware issues EG: bad sectors on hard drive or poorly installed drivers or worse a system loaded down with so many free app's from the internet that they were crashing on top of each other. I had 1 system come in with 5 Antivirus programs running & the customer could not undestand why her system crashed & would not show the desktop any longer & before it crashed it was running very slow & she blamed Windows as the problem & said she was tired of Microsoft windows acting up & was thinking of going over to a Apple because they just work out of the box. I had to tell her that Windows was not at fault here but having 5 Antivirus programs running was the issue & that a system should only have one installed at a time. I also told her that her HP laptop should have never been sold with only 512MB & windows Vista Home prem on it & she should think about adding more memory to it if she wanted to have a system that would be fast & stable she declined the memory upgrade * told me to work my magic & make it fast with what was there to work with.
I got that system as fast as I could & she was happy but some people do not understand things sometimes when you try to explain to them what their problem is & how to fix it.
I own 7 computers at home 6 are Windows 7 & one XP machine none of them have had the black screen problem & yes all of them have the most resent updates from microsoft. None of them have any antivirus or antispyware software installed & none of them have any problems with spyware or viruses & all of them are on the internet. I guess if you know what to avoid the internet is a pretty safe place to go & do whatever you need to get done.
I never seen any of these Black Screens of Death on any of my 5 installs of Windows 7. I have had a black (very dark gray) screen of death on my Macbook when I installed 4GB of ram into it, because it was designed to only recognize 2GB.
Typical: A "Blue" or "Black Screen of Death", "Guru Meditation Error" or whatever makes your OS stop working is always the fault of the OS. Either by it's own code, or by failing to enforce an architecture that denies applications/drivers to tear down the OS.
Windows tried to implement that with UAC. If you take that to the extreme, Windows can just ask you every time anything occurs. Then Windows will protect you from everything but you may have to click "Allow" every second. Until computers have the brain to distinguish what's "good" or "bad" for the system, we'll have to live with it.
I believe that these problems are affecting those sers who "upgraded" instead of fresh installing. I haven't had the Black Screen on any of my 4 Win 7 Pro x64 builds or even on the build still running the RC.
Never had this at all with my Win 7 install, if it's malware then only the user could have done it but like everyone else they blame Windows because they don't know what they are doing.
But I'm not complaining, that's how tech people like myself make money.
I'm back to XP now, but the time I had Windows 7 I had no BSODs.
Ya I thought I had the problem...
The solution: had to turn my monitor on.
Yeah, I've started getting these problems too. I'm playing a game. Sneaking up behind the enemy. On for a perfect headshot. And wham, everything goes black.