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XP SP3 and Vista SP1 Black Screens of Death
Fix available from Microsoft
By Marius Oiaga, Technology News Editor
8th of April 2008, 10:40 GMT
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Windows XP - Windows Vista
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A new issue affecting both Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows XP
Service Pack 3 is causing the two operating systems to display Black
Screens of Death to end users. Critical system errors are no strangers
to the Windows operating system, and neither Windows XP nor Windows
Vista makes exception to this rule. Generally marked with the
reference Blue Screen of Death, the stop errors causing the operating
system
to shut down, or restart the machine in order to prevent damage, and
the critical system errors in Windows have reached a status of
ubiquity and even managed to spawn derivations such as the Black
Screen of Death.
Used in reference with the Reduced Functionality Mode introduced in
Windows Vista as a direct result of the Windows Genuine Advantage
mechanism detecting a non-genuine copy of the operating system, the
Black Screen of Death is in fact a multifaceted labeled which can
successfully be used for both Vista SP1 and XP SP3. According to
Microsoft, both Vista and XP, updated with SP1 and SP3 respectively,
are susceptible under the right configuration to enter into a coma and
prevent any access from the end user.
"Consider the following scenario, you have a multiprocessor computer
that is running Windows Vista or Windows XP, the computer has exactly
32 processors and you resume the computer from hibernation (S4),"
Microsoft said. The Redmond company revealed that, in this case,
either XP SP3 or Vista SP1 running on multiprocessor machines will
stop responding and present the user with a black screen. The Black
Screen of Death is displayed upon the resume from hibernation action.
Such a process will successfully block Vista SP1 and XP SP3, the
operating systems requiring a restart in order to regain
functionality.
According to Microsoft, a range of platform versions are affected
including Windows Vista Business, Enterprise, Home Basic, Home
Premium, Starter, Ultimate, Windows Vista Service Pack 1, Microsoft
Windows XP Home Edition, XP Professional and XP Service Pack 3. Both
the 32-bit and the 64-bit editions of the operating systems enumerated
above are impacted by the glitch. At this point in time, Microsoft has
a hotfix available.
"A supported hotfix is now available from Microsoft. However, this
hotfix is intended to correct only the problem that is described in
the KB951126 article. Apply this hotfix only to systems that are
experiencing this specific problem. This hotfix might receive
additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by
this problem, we recommend that you wait for the next Windows Vista
service pack that contains this hotfix. To resolve this problem,
submit a request to Microsoft Online Customer Services to obtain the
hotfix," Microsoft recommended.
Richard P.
> Yes, me too. I had to set my bios to the 'emergency default' to get it to
> work.
>
> On a related note, after installing that update, the system did a check disk
> on the very next
> boot, but then after a power outage, it gave me the blank screen.
> Subject: [CGUYS] MS emerg security update - anyone notice monitor
> problems afterward?
>
>
> It's probably a coincidence but most of our XP SP3 machines are not set
> to automatically install. In this case they all did and in the morning
> the machines were shut down. Okay.
>
> But on three machines in the subsequent startup there was a problem with
> the monitor blanking out? Anyone else have this experience?
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