According to Microsoft, Windows 7 customers that deploy the RTM version of Service Pack 1 can be affected by an issue which impacted users installing SP2 RTM on top of Windows Vista back in 2009.
Essentially, following the installation of SP1 RTM, Windows 7 machines can freeze or be thrown into a black screen of death loop by restarting.
The software giant
explained that after reboot, Windows 7, now with SP1 RTM, will present the following error message on a black screen: “!! 0xc0000034 !! 142/53007 (_0000000000000000.cdf-ms).”
Restarting the operating system again will do no good since Windows 7 SP1 RTM users will end up at the same black screen with the same 0xc0000034 error message.
The Redmond company does not offer any details on the cause of the problems described above, but it does detail manual workarounds.
Users need to get their machines back at a bootable state, but in order to do so will need to restore their copy of Windows 7 to a point when SP1 hadn’t yet been installed.
One way to solve this problem is to turn to System Restore. Affected customers should restart the Windows 7 SP1 RTM computer and press F8 in the early stages of the boot process, before they see the Windows logo.
From the menu that is displayed, under the Advanced Boot Options area, users need to select the Repair your Computer option, select the Windows 7 installation that they need repairing, and enter the info required.
When they get to System Recovery Options they have to select System Restore, and choose the restore point for Windows 7 Service Pack 1 or one that precedes it.
“In the Confirm your restore point window, click Finish, and then click Yes when you are prompted. When you are prompted that System Restore completed successfully, click Restart,” Microsoft notes.
“If you see the black screen and the same error message or a similar error message, you may have to repeat these steps and restore your computer to an earlier date.”
There is a second method to resolve the perpetual Windows 7 SP1 RTM black screens of death, and it involves deleting the poqexec entry from the SetupExecute value.
Since this requires the Windows registry to be altered, only advanced users should try it, and only after they back up the registry.
Customers still need to restart the Windows 7 SP1 RTM machine and press F8, following the same steps as described above for the first recovery method, in order to get to the System Recovery Options.
However, here they will not repair their Windows 7 installation, but instead launch Command Prompt.
Microsoft reveals that users need to write the following commands and hit Enter after each one:
Reg load HKLM\BaseSystem C:\Windows\System32\config\SYSTEM
Reg Delete "HKLM\BaseSystem\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager" /v SetupExecute
Reg add "HKLM\BaseSystem\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager" /v SetupExecute /t REG_MULTI_SZ
Reg unload HKLM\BaseSystem
When the last command has been executed, write exit in the cmd and hit Enter, then restart the computer, and the Black Screen of Death loop 0xc0000034 should no longer be an issue.
The software giant does advise customers that were impacted by error 0xc0000034 to still try and upgrade to Windows 7 SP1 RTM.
Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) RTM Build 7601.17514.101119-1850 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) RTM are available for download here.
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