We all remember the famous Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) back in the Win 95 days, but its back. If you were one of the unlucky users who applied the Microsoft patch earlier this week to fix vulnerability in its virtual DOS machine may result in boot problems on some systems.

The Blue Screen of Death will occur when a user performs a system restart in Windows XP.

The patch is no longer being distributed via the automatic update function. Microsoft is instead advising users to use its fix-it tool to provisionally fix the vulnerability. Microsoft is currently investigating the problem.

How to Fix Blue Screen of Death

Users can uninstall the update KB977165 in order to get Windows XP back up and running. The following steps are required to remove the problem patch:

  1. Boot from your CD or DVD and start the recovery console
  2. Switch to the folder containing the update: CHDIR $NtUninstallKB977165$\spuninst
  3. Uninstall the update: BATCH spuninst.txt
  4. Enter: systemroot
  5. Exit the console: exit
  6. and restart

This should get your computer operating normal. The patch has been removed from Microsoft’s automatic update system, there is no need to worry about it being reinstalled.