Black Screen of Death *Fix*

Many XP, Vista and Windows 7 users reported a Black Screen of Death (BSOD) after installing the latest Microsoft updates.
Prevx, a provider of antimalware, has released a fix for this BSOD.

First, Prevx suspected that Microsoft was repsonsible for the BSOD, but have now officially apologized for that:

“We apologise to Microsoft for any inconvenience our blog may have caused. This has been a challenging issue to identify. Users who have the black screen issue referred to can still safely use our free fix tool to restore their desktop icons and task bar.”

Black Screen of Death Fix

If you are having problems with a BSOD on your machine, you can fix it by following the instructions below (Source: prevx.com).

• Restart
• Logon, wait for the black screen
• Make sure to have a internet connection
• Hold down CTRL, ALT and DEL keys
• Click on “Start Task Manager”
• Next, click on the “Application Tab” and click on “New Task”

Enter the command:

• “C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe” “http://info.prevx.com/download.asp?GRAB=BLACKSCREENFIX”

If you are using Firefox or Opera, adjust your path!

• After clicking “Ok”, the browser should begin the download process
• When prompted for the download Click run, that’s how it will automatically apply the BSOD patch
• Restart

Is Microsoft responsible?

Prevx confirmed that the Windows patches including KB976098 and KB915597 are not a cause for the BSOD and they are now further investigating, but is that really the truth?  It almost looks like Microsoft paid Prevx to avoid bad publicity or was it just a coincidence? We simply don’t know.

On Prevx’s Blog, a user was complaing about black screens after an MCAffee update, so there could be loads of other causes for a BSOD.