Not all Windows system errors end up in the now ubiquitous Blue Screen of Death, as some might simply leave the end user starring at a blank black screen and nothing else beyond that, not even the cryptic information displayed by the BSOD. Black screens of death can affect operating systems such as Windows 7, but it was Windows Vista which helped establish the moniker for a variety of scenarios such as the result of computers blocked when the company’s Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) antipiracy mechanism blocked pirated copies of the operating system, but also to severe issues that locked users out of the machine with no OS functionality available.

One of just such issues involves Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 that can stop responding entirely early in the startup process. The result of Vista’s unresponsiveness during boot is a black screen, the company informed. “When you start a computer that is running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008, it stops responding at a black screen early in the startup process,” Microsoft noted.

The software giant explained that the problems could affect Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1), Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2), Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2). “The issue occurs because of a deadlock between a thread in Windows NT File System driver (Ntfs.sys) and a thread in the Autochk.exe program,” Microsoft added. “This issue may occur sometimes or every time that you start the computer. If you can load Windows successfully, apply this hotfix. If the issue occurs every time when you start the computer, contact Microsoft Customer Service and Support.”

While an update is not currently being offered by Microsoft, a resolve is indeed available to take care of the black screen startup issue. The Redmond company underlines that the hotfix, which can be downloaded from Microsoft Support, is only designed to resolve the specific issue described in this article. Users that are not affected by the problem don’t need to deploy the hotfix.