Question Black screen of death after installing Windows update.

[MancPete]

Hi:

The above occurred earlier this evening on my laptop.

I did create a system restore point BEFORE installing the updates, but as I have nothing but a black screen I can't get to System Restore!

By keying-in F8 whilst booting-up I can get into Advanced Options / Troubleshoot & then System Restore. But then I get an error box: "To use System Restore, you must specify which Windows installation to restore. Restart this computer, select an OS, and then select System Restore". That just takes me back to the Troubleshoot option. If I restart the computer I just get a black screen anyway.

If instead of System Restore I go into System Repair, it does a "diagnosis" and then tells me it can't repair the PC & directs me back to Advanced Options / Troubleshoot.

If I try Uninstall Updates / Quality Update, it just takes me back to the Troubleshoot option. If I try Uninstall Feature Updates instead, it says it cannot uninstall then suggests Troubleshoot / Reset PC, but I can't see a Reset option.

I haven't tried any other Options (UEFI Firmware / Cmd prompt, etc), as I am not familiar with them and don't want to make the problem worse.

So I know what the problem is - it's the Windows Updates I installed, of which there were 2, possibly "drivers". How can I uninstall them? When the laptop boots up (which it does, making the usual booting-up "noise"), instead of the PIN screen appearing, I'm faced with a black screen, with no way of getting to the system restore point.

The black screen occurred AFTER I had downloaded the updates. Looking back now on the Updates page on the laptop I am using to type this, I see that it was an Optional update - "Driver Updates(1) - Intel Corporation - Bluetooth - 23.70.0.2." I left it 5 mins or so after it restarted.

Can you assist?

 

[MancPete]

Further to the above: I linked the laptop to my TV with a HDMI cable and was able to get back to System Restore. All OK. I then uploaded Windows Updates MINUS the Optionals - and the laptop fell over again. So, I repeated the HDMI procedure and all was OK.

This means that the cause of the problem was one (or more!) of the supposedly "safe" Windows Updates. So the question is: how am I to know which of the supposedly "safe" updates was responsible - there were a LOT of them. Surely, trial-and-error cannot be the answer here? How is ANYONE to know which Updates are "safe" and which not? Is it best to just ignore Windows Updates altogether?

I'd appreciate some advice here!

 

[blazorthon]

What model laptop is this and what version of Windows? When was the last time it ran updates before this happened? How many updates were there?

 

[MancPete]

Thanks for your response, blazorthon.

Model: 3XS Vengeance 4090, 240Hz, QHD, 16.9, 16Gb, NVIDIA RTX 4090, Intel Core i9, 1490HX, 64GB DDR5, 2TB SSD, Windows 11, 7X1RO.
(I don't know what half of that means, I've just copied it out).

The last time the laptop ran updates was a few weeks back when there were Windows 11 updates to be run. This time, there were more updates than usual (5-6), including one "cumulative" one.

The laptop is working OK now, thanks to the procedure followed above at 08:56 this morning. The Windows Update screen is advising "Up to Date". I'm now wary of going near the damn thing in case it installs something and everything falls over again. Had I not created a System Restore point just prior to installing the updates, I'd have been stumped.

I'm all for keeping up-to-date, but at what cost?

 

[blazorthon]

That's a pretty new and high-end laptop.

It's always possible for a Windows update to do something like this, but it's pretty rare and once it happens, the bad update is usually removed from the update system pretty quickly. If your laptop is working now and it says it is up to date, the bad update was probably already pulled. If it only says up to date because you haven't run a check for updates since the system restore, I would give it a week or so before running updates again. The bad update, if it wasn't pulled yet, almost certainly would be pulled by them. You might even be able to lookup the update numbers online if you can find the numbers for the ones that were present when this happened and find if anyone has reported on it.

 

[bill001g]

This happened to me on a desktop machine and took forever to fix. What we need to do is find the management guys that think auto force update is a good idea and make them fly out and fix people machines when this happens. They just don't care.

What I found after this happened is fairly hidden option that lets you disable update of drivers. Even after the black screen I found it attempting to install video drivers that had known bugs for the games I was using. I really hate that I have to go check that this option is disabled since microsoft has turned it back on after some major updates in the past.

 

[MancPete]

Thanks again, blazorthon.

TBH, I'm wary of going anywhere near the System Updates until the next lot are in a few weeks or so.

Your reassurances are appreciated!

 

[MancPete]

bill001g: I share your frustration. To have a computer malfunction because of the owner doing the very thing which is supposed to protect it and prevent it from malfunctioning is . . . . well, words fail me.

As a matter of interest, how do you prevent disable the update of drivers? I'd be interested to know.

The only reservation I would have about taking what is, let's face it, a pretty drastic step, is that by doing so I may be asking for even more trouble than the dodgy updates can cause.

What is the correct balance here between risk / security? Anyone know?