In the News
Microsoft said on Monday that it is investigating complaints
from customers that a software update delivered on November 25 causes
the desktop on various Windows systems to switch to a blank black screen
and display only a single Windows Explorer window. The issue, dubbed the
"Black Screen of Death" as an homage of sorts to the unrelated "Blue
Screen of Death" system crash screen, can apparently occur on Windows
NT, 2000, Server 2003, XP, Vista, Server 2008, or Windows 7.
"Microsoft is investigating reports that its latest release of security
updates is resulting in system issues for some customers," a Microsoft
representative said Monday. "Once we complete our investigation, we will
provide detailed guidance on how to prevent or address these
issues."
The Black Screen of Death was first reported by Prevx, a British
security firm. The company has also issued a download and separate
workaround that may fix the problem, though they note that neither
will fix all Black Screen issues.
"The cause of Black Screen appears to be a change in the Windows
operating system's lockdown of Registry keys," a note from Dave
Kennerley of Prevx Support reads. "This change has the effect of
invalidating several key Registry entries if they are updated without
consideration of the new ACL [which stands for access control list and
not anterior cruciate ligament as you might expect—Paul] rules
being applied ... In researching this issue we have identified at least
10 different scenarios which will trigger the same Black Screen
conditions."
That sounds serious. But less than 24 hours into its investigation,
Microsoft provided an unprecedented update that suggests the Black
Screen of Death may be overblown as a problem. "Based on our
investigation so far we can say that we're not seeing this as an issue
from our support organization," a Microsoft representative noted. "The
issues as described also do not match any known issues that have been
documented in the security bulletins or KB [Knowledge Base]
articles."
More news as it develops.
|
ADVERTISEMENT
Deep
Dive into VMware vSphere
Presented by John Savill on December 10, 2009. Join us to explore the
major functionality capabilities of the vSphere virtualization platform,
including identification of the changes from ESX 3.5. We will look at
the right ways to use vSphere and its major functionality areas. Register
Today!
|
Announcements
Announcing
the Winners of Our 2009 Editors' Best and Community Choice
Awards!
Windows IT Pro's 2009 Editors' Best and Community Choice awards
recognize the products in your industry that our editors, contributors,
and readers believe are worthy of the highest recognition. The Editors
Best awards highlight those products that have most impressed our staff
over the past year, and the Community Choice awards brought you fully
into the process this year: For the first time, we completely opened up
the nomination and voting processes to the guys and gals in the
trenches. So dive in to our
results, check out all our winners, and let us know what you
think!
|
Additional Resources
|
|
|
Online
Version 
