What's New: Microsoft Patch Kills Windows

After Microsoft rolled out 13 updates yesterday via Windows Update, reports surfaced that one of the patches results in a dreaded "blue screen of death" STOP error and a PC that won't boot.

The offending update, listed as KB977165 in Windows Update, was initially reported as an issue with Windows XP, a few users running Windows Vista also reported similar symptoms. There are manual recovery steps that can be taken to uninstall the update, though it does require an installation disc. That may leave netbook users in the cold, since many netbooks do not include a CD/DVD drive. Microsoft has already acknowledged that on some PCs the update may install repeatedly even if the install appeared to be successful.

Although ITS recommends keeping up to date with security patches, we also don't recommend letting Windows automatically install them for just this reason. Clients on ITS TeamCare already have the update marked to not install, and the rest will be rolled out shortly once they pass our testing.

Thursday, Feb 11, 2010 10:35 am CST

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