I'm running Windows 7 Ult x64 with SP1rc installed the day it became available. My system is a dual Dell i7 with 12 GB of DDR3 RAM (a Studio XPS Desktop 435MT). Video card: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series (4850), most recent drivers installed, reinstalled, etc., ad nauseum. Beginning Monday, November 8, 2010, after I installed a definition update for MS Security Essentials (1.93.1441.0), all attempts to reboot result in the dreaded Black Screen of Death following login. The only work-around has been to power cycle, enter safe mode, and do a system restore. I did the customary edit of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell when in safe mode. I've applied the http://www.prevx.com/blog/140/Black-Screen-woes-could-affect-millions-on-Windows--Vista-and-XP.html fix--all of this to no avail. Scans with Security Essentials and Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware disclose no problems. I suppose the real solution in a new install, but on this box, it is going to be painful--discomfiting in the earlier sense of the word. M A Reeds PhD

Hi, First, boot the computer in safe mode and from Device Manager, expand Display adapters, right-click on your adapter and choose Properties, select the Driver tab and (if possible) click Roll Back Driver. If Roll Back Driver is not selectable, it means no driver is available for roll back. Please visit your video card manufacturer’s website to download the latest available driver for your video card to see if it will correct the problem. If the above steps does not solve the issue, please test this issue in Clean Boot to determine the possible cause. If it works fine in Clean Boot, the root cause can be the third party software. If the issue reoccurs in Clean Boot, as works fine in Safe Mode, the cause can be the incompatible hardware drivers. You may narrow down the causes in Device Clean Boot. Device Clean Boot ================= 1. Click Start, type "devmgmt.msc" (without quotation marks) in the Search bar and press Enter. 2. Expand "Sound, video and game controllers". 3. Right click on your sound card and then click "Properties. 4. In the dropdown menu of Device Usage, please choose "Do not use this device (disable)" and click OK. 5. Please use the same method to disable other dubious hardware such as: internal modem, network card and CD-R drive. Please note some devices such as video adapter are not available to be disabled. Regards, Sabrina TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.comThis posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees, and confers no rights. |Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi, How are you? I would appreciate it if you could drop me a note to let me know the status of the issue. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to let me know. I am happy to be of further assistance. :) Regards, Sabrina TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.comThis posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees, and confers no rights. |Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi, As this thread has been quiet for a while, we assume that the issue has been resolved. At this time, we will mark it as ‘Answered’ as the previous steps should be helpful for many similar scenarios. If the issue still persists, please feel free to reply this post directly so we will be notified to follow it up. You can also choose to unmark the answer as you wish. BTW, we’d love to hear your feedback about the solution. By sharing your experience you can help other community members facing similar problems. Thanks for your understanding and efforts. Best Regards, Sabrina TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.comThis posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees, and confers no rights. |Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi, Today, after automatically applying a critical update for Windows Defender, I got the same black screen in my ThinkPad W510. Even without the shell, I still can press the blue button and get ThinkVantage, which allows me (after some tricks) access to Control Panel and, after that, to REGEDIT or any other tool. I tried several options: First I attempted a system restore which failed reading its database / image... My graphics card is one NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M, so I uninstalled it, downloaded the latest version and installed it again (each restart using the power button...). Now I have the latest driver, but the same black screen. Then I found the trick about modifying "shell" with a copy of EXPLORER.EXE but it didn't worked. Now I ran MSCONFIG for a Clean Boot, but I got the same black screen. If this issue was created by Microsoft Defender... uninstalling it could be a solution. I'll try that now. Best Regards, David

Hi, Today, after automatically applying a critical update for Windows Defender, I got the same black screen in my ThinkPad W510. Even without the shell, I still can press the blue button and get ThinkVantage, which allows me (after some tricks) access to Control Panel and, after that, to REGEDIT or any other tool. I tried several options: First I attempted a system restore which failed reading its database / image... My graphics card is one NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M, so I uninstalled it, downloaded the latest version and installed it again (each restart using the power button...). Now I have the latest driver, but the same black screen. Then I found the trick about modifying "shell" with a copy of EXPLORER.EXE but it didn't worked. Now I ran MSCONFIG for a Clean Boot, but I got the same black screen. If this issue was created by Microsoft Defender... uninstalling it could be a solution. I'll try that now. Best Regards, David ------------------------------------- I use Safe Mode for disabling Clean Boot, running MSCONFIG and activating several boot logs. I also restored my shell to EXPLORER.EXE and disabled Windows Defender service... BLACK SCREEN... again By the way, my ThinkPad is using Windows 7 Ultimate x64 and it has a lot of hardware, but it is its factory configuration. I added a USB 3.0 external hard drive (Seagate) which was working for several weeks. Today I added an older USB 2.0 external hard drive which is now disconnected. Using Lenovo ThinkVantage I ran a full system diagnostic and everything was OK. I've System Mechanic Pro 10 working in AutoCare... recovering unused space, fixing the registry, ... I'll run it now looking for any suspicious change.

Finally! Winlogon process was being blocked by ESET Smart Security 4.2.67.10... As I never had a virus in my computers for more than 15 years, I was reluctant to do a manual scan looking for a non-existent virus. But after everything failed, I decided to run ESET GUI for scanning the PC and the first message it sent was about unblocking Winlogon... I accepted and made it permanent. After restarting, everything is working... Thanks, DavidDavid Izada R Apollo Security