New 'black screen of death' prompts investigation by Microsoft

A number of users have apparently encountered a strange new error after the last Patch Tuesday in November. Called Black Screen of Death, this is not to be confused with the "Blue Screen of Death" or BSOD that typically results from driver or hardware errors.

The problem seems capable of afflicting various Windows operating system ranging from the latest Windows 7 and Windows W2K8 all the way to Windows NT. Users logging into affected systems are presented with a black screen and a single File Explorer window.

The problem appears to stem from some changes made to the Access Control List that not all applications are aware of. The result is applications that stop working, especially Security-related software--resulting in the above symptom.

Microsoft told CNET News that "Based on our investigation so far we can say that we're not seeing this as an issue from our support organization...The issues as described also do not match any known issues that have been documented in the security bulletins or (knowledge base) articles."

However, it did concede in the same statement that, "Microsoft is investigating reports that its latest release of security updates is resulting in system issues for some customers." In the meantime, security company Prevx has released a patch that it says will correct the problematic registry settings. You can download the fix here.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at CNET News
- check out this article at Ars Technica