Microsoft investigates Windows 7 'screen of death'

No problems here, but then, I know hoe to build a working PC . . . . :p :D

/hides :D

Face it, the media hate windows. They will report every single 1-in-million bug and report it like every one gets it. How many people will experience this in that form? Most users arent even aware that the monitor is on power save mode . . . .
 
I'm not sure if i've just suffered this problem. last night the pc was running fine (Win 7 Ultimate 64), I didn't install ought or play with anything, just a spot of browsing.

Turned the pc on this morning and got a BSOD upon starting windows, tried all the startup fixes to get it going and no joy. Even tried the repair on the install disc and got a message saying "windows cannot fix this fault please send a error report blah blah".

So i've just had to reformat and reinstall.
 
I read about this at work and when i got home i turned my rig on and after putting my password in it sat on a black screen for about 30/40 seconds.

Its never done it before and has not done it again. spooky!!
 
Certain security software causes this by blocking system dlls from running properly when the desktop loads up. Some of the major UK banks have free software they want you to install for security for your online banking but it can & does cause this happened to me until I uninstalled it in safe mode then its all fine again!
 
AWPC said:
Certain security software causes this by blocking system dlls from running properly when the desktop loads up. Some of the major UK banks have free software they want you to install for security for your online banking but it can & does cause this happened to me until I uninstalled it in safe mode then its all fine again!
Click to expand...

There may be multiple causes - I've had it do it on a fresh install, first login no less.
 
heres BBC's source for their article

http://www.prevx.com/blog/140/Black-Screen-woes-could-affect-millions-on-Windows--Vista-and-XP.html

Interestingly the people who "found" the problem appear to be a company peddling antivirus / antimalware software.

Vested intererest much ? But it does tally up with what the BBC are reporting. They do alledge that windows XP and vista are effected. I have been using these two operating systems for longer than i care to remember (must be nearly 8 years or something stupid now) and have never once had this issue. Just a shame that the BBC doesnt do any investigating and just goes peddling some unknown software companys rumours.

and Hurrah ! the people who found it have developed a fix for it

How nice of them !!

/sarcasm.
 
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Latest news that MS has found that it wasnt due by security update as it was Windows OS itself that seem cause problems in W7/Vista/XP and trying to find out and update other fix patch also could be with any anti-virus you using - i havent problems as I used KIS 2010 with update critical patch with "a" on it with 736 version.
 
http://www.prevx.com/blog/141/Windows-Black-Screen-Root-Cause.html

"the shell will no longer load properly, resulting in the infamous Black Screen"

What is this company smoking? "Infamous"? Erm no. The blue screen of death is infamous. A black screen of death is something new.

Maybe it's just me but a REG_SZ has always required null termination. That is what the "Z" means. And it has been this way since Windows 95.

You'd have to be modifying the registry at a low-level for it to accept a non null-terminated string. So I would like to place a bet that this turns out to be some side affect of a malware infection or security product (surely not PrevX themselves?! ;)).
 
I think I may have this black screen of death, perhaps someone can help? The machine is a few years old now (Intel E6420, Gigabyte DS3, ATI X1800XT, 6Gb RAM, Audigy 2ZS) and I only installed Win 7HP just after the release date. The issue occurs whenever I'm using the machine then switch the screen off for a while, to have dinner say. Come back to the machine an hour later and the screen is in Standby and there is no display. The only way to get back to the deskptop is to reset it. Its like a powersaving feature fails to startup again.

Any ideas?
 
My girlfriend's cousin dropped off a laptop (vista) with this problem - it does seem to be very common and is all over the internet and in most cases without possibility of repair. You get the loading bar then a black screen with the mouse pointer. In my case the ctrl alt delete related fix failed to achieve anything.
 
If, as PrevX believes, this is simply a case of the Explorer shell not starting up due to what is effectively a corrupt registry entry. Then a temporary solution is to press CTRL+ALT+ESCAPE. This will spawn a Task Manager window, on which you can then goto File->New Task and type in "explorer" then press OK.

And a permanent fix would be along the lines of loading up Regedit, browsing to where the corrupt key is and then overwriting it with a manually typed in new value.
 
I've had this on a Vista PC and even posted on here to see if there was a solution, had to rebuild the PC in the end. I've also seen others post here with the same problem. When I had this problem I googled and found hundreds of people who also had this with Vista but nobody had a solution.

I've also had the odd Windows 7 looks like it's booting and then nothing but a black screen but a reboot normally fixes it.
 
NathanE said:
If, as PrevX believes, this is simply a case of the Explorer shell not starting up due to what is effectively a corrupt registry entry. Then a temporary solution is to press CTRL+ALT+ESCAPE. This will spawn a Task Manager window, on which you can then goto File->New Task and type in "explorer" then press OK.

And a permanent fix would be along the lines of loading up Regedit, browsing to where the corrupt key is and then overwriting it with a manually typed in new value.
Click to expand...

When I had this problem in Vista, I could press CTRL-ALT-DEL to get Task Manager and start explorer but after 5-10 minutes you'd end up with a black screen again and would then have to repeat the above to get another 5-10 minutes worth.
 
IAmATeaf said:
When I had this problem in Vista, I could press CTRL-ALT-DEL to get Task Manager and start explorer but after 5-10 minutes you'd end up with a black screen again and would then have to repeat the above to get another 5-10 minutes worth.
Click to expand...

That would mean explorer is crashing and you need to spawn a new instance most likely.
 
im on W7 pro 64 fully up to date with no problems, just thought a simple thing to try would be to turn off aero and see if the problem persists
 
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