Remove Update (KB977165) Causing PC to Crash

Microsoft has halted distribution of one of the XP patches released on February Patch Tuesday, which happened earlier this week. The company wants to investigate reports of the dreaded Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) as a result of the patch.

The issue is that when the system attempts to reboot, it will halt with a BSOD. At their support forums, the thread has a temporary answer from Microsoft for those experiencing the BSOD:

instructions on how to uninstall the particular Windows update (KB977165) which is causing the BSOD.

1. Boot from your Windows XP CD or DVD and start the recovery console (see this Microsoft article for help with this step)

Once you are in the Repair Screen …

2. Type this command: CHDIR $NtUninstallKB977165$\spuninst

3. Type this command: BATCH spuninst.txt

4. When complete, type this command: exit

This isn’t the first time a Microsoft update has caused issues. It’s also not a “feature” limited to Windows updates alone.

Auto Update Crashes PC

Microsoft has removed one group of patches it released as part of this week’s Patch Tuesday — MS10-015 (KB977165) – from its Windows Update service until it can investigate reports by some users that it is causing havoc with their PCs.

Microsoft provided an update on the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) blog on February 11 about its actions, after a day of reports by users with problems, including some XP users claiming blue-screen-of-death (BSOD) issues seemingly resulting from application of the KB977165 patch.

Microsoft claimed the number of users experiencing problems as a result of the path were “limited.” More from the blog post by Jerry Bryant, Senior Security Communications Manager Lead:

“(W)e have not confirmed that the issue is specific to MS10-015 or if it is an interoperability problem with another component or third-party software. Our teams are working to resolve this as quickly as possible. We also stopped offering this update through Windows Update as soon as we discovered the restart issues. However, those using enterprise deployment systems such as SMS or WSUS will still see and be able to deploy these packages.”

Microsoft is advising customers to apply the other patches it released this week, as there have been no reported problems with them, according to Bryant.

You can find more about this on ZD Net News