Windows 7 Black Screen of Death? (It's not as bad as it sounds)
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted December 1st 2009 11:31AM
posted December 1st 2009 11:31AM
Well, maybe it's not as bad as it sounds, but it's still not so good. As you're probably aware, over the last week or so Windows users of all stripes (not just Windows 7 users, as it turns out) have been complaining of a plain black screen that appears upon login -- at which point the systems lock up, and... that's it. Aside from some users getting an additional My Computer window (lucky devils) the system grinds to a halt. According to a Microsoft email that's making the rounds, the company is "investigating reports that its latest release of security updates is resulting in system issues for some customers." Until that time, what's a poor PC user to do? Prevx, a UK developer of anti-malware software, has surmised that a recent Windows security patch changed Access Control List (ACL) entries in the registry, preventing some software from running properly and prompting Engadget to whip up a Bergman-inspired graphic. If your machine should find itself afflicted, Prevx has put together a fix that it claims will do the trick. Keep in mind that we don't know these guys, so don't blame us if it blows up your computer -- or gives you the Bubonic plague. We'll let you know when we hear back from Microsoft on this one. Good luck!
Update: Microsoft says this isn't its fault, and that it's likely some nasty malware to blame.
That picture will give me nightmares for a while.
@metaesapuet why?? its no worse than that chick from the Palm Pre commercials....I mean his forehead is covered
@metaesapuet I think that's a picture of Steve Ballmer 2.0 and that's a major upgrade over the last one if you ask me
@metaesapuet yep.. the windows logo has this effect in me too...
@metaesapuet
kinda looks like steve ballamer's failed attempt at flashing
@Engadget: Can I get that in 1920 x 1080 wallpaper?
@One Love
hah i was just wondering about that 2!
Love the picture!
@Dapman02 Is Steve Ballamer a cousin of Steve Ballmer?
@metaesapuet
He reminds me of the grim reaper from Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, not so scary when you look at him that way.
@dicobalt
"How's it hangin', Death!"
@dicobalt
Well, yes, because Death in Bogus Journey is a direct homage to Death in The Seventh Seal.
Did you ever wonder why they ended up playing board games?
I have XP, Vista & 7 on various systems and havent received any Black Screens....**knocks on wood**
I have Windows XP, I've had it happen, I thought it was just my computer flaking out.
No problems here on the network I manage of about 80 systems, mostly XP and Vista, but with a few 7's trickled about. We push the updates to all systems over the weekend after patch Tuesday, so they should all have the latest.
I would guess there are probably just a few specific programs giving it trouble. I've got my money on some pointless bullshit auto-update program.
@(Unverified) You're probably not using the crap software that "conflicts."
@(Unverified)
I think it is just some silly crapware that causes this to happen.
Definitely not MS's fault. They can't predict the software configuration of every computer out there.
@(Unverified) I do home computer repair and some offices, i noticed that on two systems at an office that had malware and a couple of viruses along with the black screen. I knew it wasn't a problem with the system because the hard drive activity was normal just that there was a black screen. (both vista, tested the hardware)
After i scanned and clean them out then installed Nod32 it has never happened again. This was a week ago.
More malware shenanigans IMO
Listen up all you elitist non-Windows users before you act as though your choices are justified, the fact that a handful of people here don't have an issue must mean that it's a fine operating system and in fact that there's no problem at all. Let's unite and highly rank everyone who says they don't have a problem and imply those who do are idiots and that it's their fault.
I haven't updated my windows XP for years. I find that these updates screw up my computer more... If it ain't broke, don't mess with it.
Enjoy your gaping security holes.
@NeonCoyote Err but it is broke. XP SP1 is pretty shitty, and if you don't even have that I'm surprised it doesn't crash every day, let alone get hacked (unless you have a real firewall).
@MJGAMER 1991 XBL I have a pretty good anti-virus and i'm running SP2, media center edition. It runs pretty fast and I've never had a virus, cuz I don't look at pr0n. :P
@NeonCoyote
Yes because the only way you can get a virus is pr0n. And with that "pretty good" anti-virus software I'm sure everything is kept perfectly safe. Why that silly SP3 was just a bunch of hoopla come to think of it.
/s
@Slick *sigh* no sense of humor...
Okay. I don't:
Look at pr0n.
Go to warez sites.
Use torrents.
Use Limewire.
I have XP Media Center Edition 2005 and the rollup update screwed up my Media Center program. It took a very long time for it to index my music and videos, so I just system restored because removing it wasn't enough for it to regain it's previous state. I don't use Xbox360 anyways (I'm a Sony fanboy when it comes to gaming consoles), so why even update? I never installed SP3 because I did it on my other XP SP2 and it stopped booting. When I fixed it, I had to reinstall drivers again. Too much hassle...
Why spend time on unnecessary updates when you can just use a decent browser like Firefox and have decent antivirus, antimalware, antispyware, and firewall that monitors all of your ports? O.o
/facepalm
@NeonCoyote yes neo.... i mean as we could totally live with SP2 they put out SP3 for the sake of it. meh its your choice, O.o wondered why your other computer would stop working though... mine booted just fine
Would have been nice to have had this info LAST MONTH when I had to fix my wife's HP notebook after running into this problem. Ended up rolling back to a recent restore point, waste of a couple hours of my time, thanks MS I owe you a swift kick.
@smarf So THAT'S why my Windows 7 wouldn't boot! I just remembered. lol
I used Jaunty Ubuntu to recover my stuff, though.
@smarf
If it happened to you last month then it was a different issue. This problem is related to a recent MS security update.
@FitFan It was a Wednesday morning, the box was set up to auto-install patches and restart as needed; it was dead after patching. Can I prove that it was related to the MS patches from the night before? No... but it sure sounds like a duck.
@FitFan
Technically anything before today was 'last month'.
@smarf
This just shows that you have no patience for what is probably a 1 off thing.
I got the so called black screen of death for all of about 1 minute. I just let my laptop be and it resumed normal login in.
People these days just love to get hysterical and worked up over nothing. Geez!
It was about a month ago. Black screen on the notebook, the cursor was visible but nothing else. CAD did nothing. Left it for perhaps an hour, no change (this was after my wife let me know it was going on.) Rebooted, left it, same - just sat at the black screen with cursor visible.
Hysterical? I brave the WoW forums and can answer civilly there, I think I can handle your fake taunt. :)
@smarf
What fake taunt?
I stated a factual experience I had with windows 7 on my 3 year old Toshiba laptop.
If facts are taunts then I'm an unrepentant troll.
@smarf
You said it, about a month ago, so it's irrelevant to the discussion about the current issue, which happened in the past few days.
@smarf Yep, I spent hours fixing my GF's parent's HP laptop that had this problem. I ended up completely restoring Vista since there were no restore points set, and recovery didn't work.
And now there's a new problem where AVG won't update and MS Defender won't automatically startup.
Nicely done. Bergman works surprisingly well: 'Through a Glass Darkly' almost works
http://i47.tinypic.com/2z8s3eu.jpg
So far my windows 7 hasnt even crashed once....the people who experiece this black screen could either be hardware related or compatibility issues...
@(Unverified) Way to read the article before you jump in to field your own anecdotal evidence that windows 7 is so great and these people must be having hardware issues.
It quite clearly stated that MS pushed out a security "Fix" that changed some ACLs and prevented machines from booting correctly.
Again MS makes the case to turn _OFF_ automatic security updates and only allow them to be installed once validated.
That is a seriously cool graphic.
I haven't experienced this at all on the 5 computers I have running Windows 7 (starter 32bit to ultimate 64bit).
@jin and guice
Problem only occurs on legal versions of W7 you are saying? That's a relief :)
I have it happen twice in the last three days on my Windows 7 Pro machine. :(
@jin and guice
I've been getting this somewhat recently myself with Windows 7 Pro. I do not have any Prevx software installed, so I doubt their fix is a one size fits all solution. I did not have the problem with the beta or RC of Windows 7, nor can I attest to having it happen while in XP or Vista on the same computer with pretty much the same software/hardware environment.
I just reboot and the problem is solved - it tends to happen after logging back into an account once it has been locked, but it rarely happens. I never did think to relaunch explorer.exe to resolve the issue - I guess I'll try that if I ever see it again...
At least Microsoft changed the color
@(Unverified)
Dear windows, I was tired of the blue screen of death. thank you for changing it. Just goes to show, Windows 7 was my idea
@(Unverified) Now if they kept the text...
@(Unverified) At least we can still call it BSOD , no new names to learn ;)
Prevx has come up with a fix for this problem. It can be found on there website. http://www.prevx.com/blog/140/Black-Screen-woes-could-affect-millions-on-Windows--Vista-and-XP.html
@natecomp
They know, they posted it...