Microsoft Pulls Buggy Update After ‘Blue Screen Of Death’ Reports

Microsoft on Friday withdrew one of its most recent Windows patches after users reported problems including system crashes (also known as the Blue Screen of Death, or BSOD), recommending users to uninstall the update.

The patch, designated MS14-045, is one of nine Microsoft released last week for its monthly Patch Tuesday update, and was intended to fix three security vulnerabilities, as detailed in the company’s technical description. However, users immediately began reporting problems on Microsoft’s support forums, including the “Stop 0x50” BSOD crash.

BSOD

“After rebooting everything worked fine,” one user wrote on Microsoft’s support forum. “But when I shut down my notebook and switched it on a little later it came up with a blue screen with a Stop 0x50 in Win32k.sys. I could not even boot into safe mode as Windows failed to start no matter which mode chosen.”

Microsoft acknowledged the Stop 0x50 error in a Knowledge Base article, adding that the same bug is also caused by three other updates, including two rollup updates and an update to support the new currency symbol for the Russian rouble. The update is also known to cause two other, less-serious flaws, Microsoft said, both affecting system fonts.

“Microsoft is investigating behaviour in which systems may crash with a 0x50 Stop error message (bugcheck) after (these) updates are installed,” the company stated in the support document. “Microsoft has removed the download links to these updates while these issues are being investigated.”

The company also updated its TechNet document on Friday to mention the crash reports. “Microsoft is investigating behaviour associated with the installation of this update, and will update this bulletin when more information becomes available,” the company stated. “Microsoft recommends that customers uninstall this update.”

Workaround

However, the issue is reported neither on the Security Response Centre blog nor on its Twitter account.

Microsoft has not yet distributed a fix for the issue. In the Knowledge Base article, the company describes a temporary workaround, which involves deleting a file and altering the Windows Registry.

This isn’t the first time that Microsoft has issued buggy updates. Last autumn the company experienced problems with several of its updates, including a Patch Tuesday fix, and updates to Office and Exchange.

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