14 DAY TRIAL // A couple of days ago, Microsoft launched new Surface firmware updates for the Surface Book and the Pro 4 to provide new driver versions and other improvements, but it turns out that the so-called “ultimate laptop” is actually experiencing major issues after installing them.
Posts on Microsoft’s Community forums reveal that Surface Book owners experience error 0x800f0203 just when applying the latest firmware update. At the moment, it’s not yet clear how widespread this problem actually is, but judging from the number of posts in this discussion thread, it’s something that Microsoft should address as quickly as possible.
A Microsoft user and Surface Book owner who posted on the Community forums goes into details regarding the problems he experienced when trying to install the new firmware update:
“While applying today's updates, I received a Blue screen. After it restarted, it applied updates before continuing into Windows startup. Went into Windows Update and clicked on Install for the remaining ones that were yet to be applied. Then I get this error: Intel Corporation driver update for Intel(R) Control Logic - Error - 0x800f0203.”
How to fix the BSOD
A Microsoft engineer took to reddit to discuss the issue and to provide a workaround, which for the moment seems to do the job for everyone. It goes without saying that Microsoft must come up with a fix as soon as possible, though, especially because many customers might be unaware of this fix.
Open the setupapi.dev.log log file from c:\windows\inf. Find the error "Failed to install device instance." Above this error it will say which inf file caused the issue. In my case oem90.inf Run "pnputil -d oem90.inf" from an elevated command prompt Re-run windows update and install
The Surface Book is Microsoft’s first laptop in history (and a pretty expensive one at the same time), and all these firmware updates are supposed to improve customers’ experience with the device. Without a doubt, better internal testing should be performed before releasing new firmware versions that can brick devices, but the only thing that the company can do right now is to work around the clock to develop a fix.
Thanks for the tip, Markus94!