Latest security patch triggers BSOD in some Windows PCs

It appears that one of the updates in this month's Patch Tuesday is triggering a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) on a limited number of computers. So far, the culprit has been narrowed down to update MS10-015, better described as "Vulnerabilities in Windows kernel could allow elevation of privilege."

The symptom for those affected shows up as a BSOD once the computer is restarted following an update. Selection of other boot options, including Safe Mode also results in BSOD, making rectification impossible without going into the recovery console.

Those affected by this issue so far are running on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista. Of course, it might well be that affected users on other versions of Windows have not managed to contact Microsoft. Microsoft has issued a statement late on Thursday that the company is aware of the BSOD reports, and engineers are currently investigating.

So far, administrators patching corporate systems have reported few issues. Of course, corporate workstations tend to come in fairly standard configurations, and may not be impacted by the problem at all. Ultimately, it is hard to tell exactly where the fault is pending more information from Microsoft's investigation.

Susan Bradley, a Microsoft MVP and IT administrator, summed up the situation, "Microsoft does test patches but with the vast/huge/large/ecosystem of machines out here they cannot be perfect. Right now it looks consumerish and not enterprise impacting."

For more on this story:
- check out this article at Ars Technica
- check out this article at SearchSecurity.com 

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