Microsoft security patch brings misery for XP users

February 12, 2010

One of Microsoft’s “Patch Tuesday” security fixes is triggering a widespread “Blue Screen of Death” problem.  The cause is not the update itself, but an existing infection.  So far, reports suggest that this problem affects Windows XP and Windows Vista.

While Microsoft says it is investigating the cause of the issue, the problem has been narrowed down to update KB977165, described by Microsoft as "MS10-015: Vulnerabilities in Windows kernel could allow elevation of privilege".

The patch was intended to address a 17-year-old kernel bug present in all 32-bit versions of Windows, which was first noticed by a Google engineer last month.

Among the solutions suggested, you can take the following step to fix.

  1. Boot from your Windows XP CD or DVD and start the recovery console (Microsoft have an article to help with this step)
  2. Type this command: CHDIR $NtUninstallKB977165$\spuninst
  3. Type this command: BATCH spuninst.txt
  4. When complete, type this command: exit

WARNING: N2N Solutions take no responsibility for any damage caused if you seek to rectify this issue by following the advice above.  If you do not feel confident in fixing the issue, contact us and we can help.