Flawed Windows 7 Service Patch – kb 2839011
Microsoft today urged Windows 7 users to uninstall a patch shipped earlier this week that has crashed customer’s PCs and crippled the machines with endless reboots.
The patch, which was originally issued Tuesday, April 9th, and has been pulled from Microsoft’s Windows Update service.
But the company told users who had already installed it — or had it installed for them by Windows’ Automatic Updates — to remove it as soon as possible. "Microsoft recommends that customers uninstall this update," the company said
Microsoft yanked the patch in response to widespread reports that it was generating the notorious "Blue Screen of Death" (BSOD) error message and by rebooting repeatedly, making the PCs useless.
Early reports of problems originated from Brazilian customers running Windows 7, but others outside that country noted that they received error messages pointing to software from Russian antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab as a contributing factor.
"The problems we have experienced were on machines with Kaspersky Endpoint Security 8 for Windows," said Jim Bulger of VirtualAdministration, an IT support vendor in the Washington, D.C. area, in a message to the PatchManagement.org mailing list Friday.
Greg Hoppes of the University of Colorado also reported that the patch caused PCs to demand a CHKDSK diagnosis of the hard drive each time the machine was booted.
Microsoft, however was vague about the causes of the BSODs and endless reboots, saying only that, "We’ve determined that the update, when paired with certain third-party software, can cause system errors."
MS13-036, the security update that included the guilty patch, addressed four different vulnerabilities in the Windows kernel-mode driver, and was part of a nine-bulletin Patch Tuesday on April 9.
Microsoft published instructions on removing the patch. Users who have received the MS13-036 update should, if possible, not reboot the PC before uninstalling the faulty fix.
-Bryan