Misleading report on Black Screen of Death.

I would like to bring your attention to inaccurate stories following a report by a British company claiming that customers who deployed the Windows 7 November Security updates have experienced the so-called “Black Screens” that would render the system unbootable and unusable due to changes in the registry.

Here’s the background for your reference:

• Microsoft has found these reports to be inaccurate. Comprehensive investigation has shown that none of the recently released updates are related to the behavior described in the reports. Microsoft’s support organization is also not seeing this as an issue. The claims also do not match any known issues that have been documented in our security bulletins.
• On December 1, Prevx, the company which issued the report, posted an apology to Microsoft which stated the following:

“Since more specifically narrowing down the cause we have been able to exonerate these patches from being a contributory factor.”

• According to Microsoft’s blog post, the real culprit is a piece of malware that clears desktops and produces a black screen on infected PCs; various security vendors have tools for removing this malware. There is no fix or update necessary for this, but customers should keep their anti-virus software up-to-date as a preventative measure. So far, Microsoft is not seeing a massive occurrence of this particular issue in our support channels. If customers do encounter an issue with a security update, contact our Customer Service and Support group for no-charge assistance at http://support.microsoft.com/security.

• The protection and well-being of our customers’ PCs through the deployment of Security Updates is the ultimate goal of the Microsoft Security Response Center. Because of this, we continually work with our Customer Service and Support teams to keep a close eye for issues that may impact customers’ deployment of security updates.

• Consumers can also download Microsoft Security Essentials provided free

You may use the following statement if asked by your customers and we encourage you to use this as an opportunity to educate customers on the importance of keeping up to date with security patches:

“The reports on the so called “Black Screens” was investigated by Microsoft and found to be inaccurate. The company which issued the report has apologized and made a full retraction. Windows 7 security updates was not the cause of the black screens. There is no fix or update necessary for this, but customers should keep their anti-virus software up-to-date as a preventative measure. So far, Microsoft is not seeing an occurrence of this particular issue in our support channels locally.