Comments on: Fix for Windows Vista Black Screen of Death, aka KSOD

By: Genius?

Genius? — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 20:58:57 +0000

FTR there are several different types of KSOD.
It sounds like you have a faulty motherboard or display, or for some other reasons your computer does not power on, (think battery/power supply failure).

The type of KSOD described here does not result in a completely black screen, rather it results in a black screen with a mouse cursor, which is almost always a software windows registry related issue, but can also be linked to a failing HDD etc.

By: SteveO

SteveO — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 21:41:20 +0000

OMFG! THANK YOU! i cant belive ive been working on this problem for so flong and its a @!*#ing permission issue??? made total sense after reading it too because the issue started after taking control of the drive on another machine to remove a prety bad infection. tested it out and sho nuff, problem solved. why does it ALLWAYS have to be an ID10T error??

By: Nick

Nick — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 22:52:44 +0000

I have the KSOD on my Toshiba A135 laptop, on Vista Home Basic, and I went into the registry and that, and the ObjectName file already was NT AUTHORITY\NetworkService, but I still keep getting it.

By: Nick67

Nick67 — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 23:45:06 +0000

Hi.
As this site is in the top ten Google hits for “KSOD,” I will post my successful resolution of a KSOD here. I hope that you can edit your original post to reflect some of the evolution of the KSOD since you first encountered it.

I had two machines with KSOD. One occurred before the login, the other after login. The one that had the ‘early KSOD’ gave me no joy. I mounted up the drive in a second system.
I ran chkdsk /f — no joy.
The winlogon value was explorer.exe — no joy
The RpsSc value was the correct network one — no joy
No restore points were available.
Safe mode was not available
Msconfig cannot be run from the recovery environment
Sticky Keys and CTRL-ALT-DEL -> taskmanager do not work.
I reworked the registry from the RegBack directory.
I renamed the winevt logs.
No Joy.
I copied off the important data and reformatted.
If there is a cure for ‘early KSOD’ I don’t know it.
Neither does MS Product Support, who I called for only the third time in a decade as an IT professional.

The ‘late KSOD’ unit is a different and more joyful outcome.
CTRL-ALT-DEL -> taskmanager DOES work.
Safe mode worked.
Then things got tough.
SFC wouldn’t run
Explorer wouldn’t run
msconfig wouldn’t run.

But cmd would run
AND Regedit would!

Disable UAC -> regedit
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
Key EnableLUA give it a value of 0

Enable the administrator account.
You might have to reboot after disabling UAC to get a cmd prompt that will work (sufficient permissions)
At the cmd prompt –> net user administrator /Active:yes

Now we’re starting to cook with gas.

Boot up into normal mode.
Try logging on as administrator.
My first attempt didn’t play…BUT

Logging into safe mode ->msconfig ->diagnostic start

got things going.

Lots of errors it says. Check C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log
Searched for ‘failed’
Lots of files!
Almost all in c:\windows\softwaredistribution

Bingo!

That’s the windowsupdate files.
I am in diagnostic mode, so I can rename SoftwareDistribution to SoftwareDistributionOld.
For good measure I rename C:\Windows\System32\winevt\Logs to LogsOld and create a new Logs folder.

Boot up in normal mode.
WindowsUpdate won’t play
Error 80072EFD — firewall issues
But Windows Firewall is off…hmm

cmd -> netsh winhttp reset proxy.

Windows Update now works.
So does IE

This unit was only SP1 — so I downloaded the full SP2 package.
Installed it
And then every other myriad update it didn’t have.

Turn on UAC
Turned off the administrator
cmd -> net user administrator /active:no

Logged into the original profile
Installed Flash 10.1

All good.

Call to MS Product Support — $59 (waived as a Windows Update issue)
Fixing a KSOD — priceless

Nick67

By: Simon

Simon — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:00:03 +0000

Sick of this now, tried everything. I’m gonna boot up a Linux distro to copy files an just reinstall the whole thing.

By: Bob Alabaster

Bob Alabaster — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 15:06:26 +0000

Hi All,

My Dell Mini Inspiron Netbook just experience KSOD yesterday. Just a moment ago it is fixed alreadyy applying the instruction I got from this exchanges. Had i not got the instruction from this blog, I would have had paid a lot of money from the shop. My netbook is fixed with the old files intact.
Thank you for sharing.

Alabaster

By: A man

A man — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 01:01:38 +0000

All this did for me was make the system BLUE screen of death before even reaching the KSOD (after the windows loading bar that is).

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:46:15 +0000

Working on a clients computer, tried everything (and I mean everything) mentioned here and nothing has fixed it. I’m considering just backing up all their data (by opening regedit and selecting import so I can access the files on the computer).

Unless someone can come up with another solution?

Also, Kick967, It’s not a watch battery it’s a Lithium battery and it’s used so that even when the computer is turned off, the BIOS has some power so it can retain its settings (time, date etc)

By: max

max — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 05:01:21 +0000

man i did all of this and it changed nothign please help me

By: Kyle Andrew

Kyle Andrew — Wed, 26 May 2010 10:35:06 +0000

this is it… it worked for me… thanks a lot… I have opened task manager and opened “iexplore.exe” to search online for a solution… never thought it was so simple… to open “explorer” instead… anyway, thanks a lot, again, u solved it for me, at least for now… hope it stays this way…