A hotfix is available from Microsoft

Apr 15, 2010 07:35 GMT  ·  By

Customers running the latest versions of Windows client and server on UEFI-enabled machines have reported issues during startup that prevented the computer from booting properly. Microsoft confirmed that, in certain scenarios, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 on UEFI-enabled machines would not boot, but instead freeze, displaying nothing more than a black screen to end users. Per the ingenuity of Windows users, these types of errors are often dubbed Black Screens of Death, after the infamous Blue Screens (also of Death - BSOD) errors.

However, it’s not that, with every boot, the machines will get stuck at a black screen and not complete the startup process. According to Microsoft, customers need to perform certain actions, specifically, one of the following events needs to occur during boot:

“- You press F8 to open the Advanced Boot Options menu, and then you press ESC to cancel. - You start the computer from the Windows installation DVD, and then you click the Repair your computer option to start Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE). - A recoverable error occurs when Winload.efi or Winresume.efi is loaded, and then Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) is started,” Microsoft stated. “In the scenario, the startup process may stop at a black screen.”

Microsoft is already offering customers a fix for this issue. A hotfix can be downloaded from Microsoft Support, and will be integrated into the first service pack for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. The software giant notes that customers having already deployed the KB980598 hotfix - “Windows Server 2008 R2 cannot be installed or started on a UEFI-enabled computer that has 1 TB or more of RAM” - have a greater chance at getting black screens during startup.

“This issue occurs because one of the following applications does not clean up all the page table entries for the pages that were freed: the Windows Operating System Loader (Winload.efi) application; the Windows Resume Loader (Winresume.efi) application. When the Bootmgfw.efi application tries to clean up these page table entries, this application accesses an invalid memory address and causes an access violation exception,” the Redmond company added.