Windows 7 Computer unable to start after update 4/15

[risab1981]

Hi guys, I just got home and 2 of the computers in my house that were on overnight, are both saying windows unable to start, bad driver (after a very fast bsod)...recovery cannot repair either one. A system restore to 4/15 2:00 am does fix it. So I restored, installed the updates again and once again, back to "unable to start"

Any ideas? These are BTW 2 different pcs with completely different hardware. One is a zotac intel mini, and the other an AMD A8 desktop.

Any ideas???

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Hi risab1981,

Sorry to hear about your problems. Multiple customers of mine including other forum users have issues after this week's Tuesday push updates from Microsoft. Most likely, both of these computers have either hardware problems or contracted a virus. If you use Wifi for both or one of the devices to connect to the Internet, your Wifi router could have contracted a virus and passed it over to the 2nd computer. Are you running an encrypted connection on both your computers to the Internet such as WEP or WPA/WPA2? If you are not, then this scenario could have happened. I've seen it before.

Next, it's important that you provide us the exact version of Windows you are running on each Computer; for example, Windows7 SP1, or Windows8.1, etc.

Can you connect to the Internet on either computer with INTERNET EXPLORER? If neither computer works with IE on the Internet, you most likely have independent failures on both computers. Concommitant hardware failures are quite rare, so it's more likely to be a virus that's spread throughout your home network. Have you got anti-virus protection on both your Computers? If so, have you run a manual virus scan on both the computers? What anti-virus program are you using on each? (for example, Norton, McAfee, Avast, Trend Micro, etc.).

Please post back COMPLETE answers to these questions, and we can advise you how to proceed further.

You may also wish to read this post from another new forum user I just finished writing this morning on the exact same problem:
http://windowsforum.com/threads/april-2015-critical-updates.208453/#post-637155

Regards,
<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>

 

[Trouble]

Sounds remarkably like this post here
http://windowsforum.com/threads/bsod-after-windows7-update.208448/
Personally I'd try resetting my Windows Update settings to prevent the automatic installation and try installing the updates one at a time, leaving any driver updates completely out of the scenario.

 

[Joe S]

Getting driver updates from MS isn't the best choice. I usually go to the hardware makes's site. Windows drivers are often not up to date.
Joe

 

[risab1981]

Hey guys. thanks for the replies.
So I restored the pc's. Then went through one by one of the updates, and found the culprit on both pc's.

KB3045999 - this is the one, after reboot, puts me back into the computer cannot start. Both pc's have ssd, so the blue screen that pops up, is a split second, and I cannot see what it says.

Both pc's have windows 7 64bit. All updates except the bad one. Again, different hardware.

Here's the thing that is a little scary. As I mentioned before, both these pc's were ON and online of course. I have 2 more pc's, same windows install, that were off at the time. When I went to update those 2 pc's, the KB3045999 installed just fine. WTF!?

My router is a TM-AC1900 (TMOBILE'S FREE VERSION OF THIS ROUTER) None of the computers connect via WIFI. My wifi is WP2 protected, but all 4 pcs are hard wired.

So I basically, restored both, installed all updates except the KB3045999, then I ran, MS Security Essentials scan. No virus. Downloaded malware bytes, did a scan, no virus.

Hope this helps, and we can figure this out. Thanks!

 

[Trouble]

Both pc's have ssd, so the blue screen that pops up, is a split second, and I cannot see what it says.

You can change that behavior if you want....

Go to Start and type in sysdm.cpl and press Enter
Click on the Advanced tab
Click on the Startup and Recovery Settings button
Ensure that Automatically restart is unchecked
Under the Write Debugging Information header select Small memory dump (256 kB) in the dropdown box
Ensure that the Small Dump Directory is listed as %systemroot%\Minidump << where your .dmp files can be
found later.
Click OK twice to exit the dialogs, then reboot for the changes to take effect.

This is not the first time that a Windows Update has caused this kind of issue.
Can you simply right click and hide it for the time being until you can figure out what your PC doesn't like about that particular update or what that update doesn't like about your PC.

 

[risab1981]

Thanks! I'll try it when I get home.

Yeah, I just installed 11 of 12 basically, and hid that one. It's an important security update tho, so not sure if it's a good idea hiding that one, esp the circumstances, where it installs just fine on 2 pc's that were turned off at the time.[/QUOTE]

 

[risab1981]

I should add, both PC's do function normal after restore. I am scared I may have a virus in one of the two of them tho? What do you guys use. ? Like I said, I scanned it with MSE and Malware Bytes (free, w premium trial)...Anything else I should try?

 

[Trouble]

Personally, I would try installing the problem update after performing a clean boot as described here
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/929135
After the installation and a reboot if the machine doesn't blue screen again then you can start recovering from the Clean Boot procedure turning a few things on at a time starting with non-Microsoft services rebooting after each change. See if you can get all those turned back on before attempting to do the StartUp items.
Then go through those, with the same finesse a couple at a time.
That's about the only way I know for sure to find the offending product.

If it does Blue Screen after the update install in a Clean Boot, then double check your Clean Boot and make sure that the things you thought you had disabled are actually disabled (unchecked).
If it looks good then it is likely a driver problem.
I know Ross spotted an Intel Bluetooth driver as a potential offender in the post I linked to above.
You may want to start a new thread over in the BSOD forum and see if he can diagnose it further if that is the case.

 

[Trouble]

I am scared I may have a virus in one of the two of them tho?

As far as your concerns about a potential infection (virus or other malware) these are the programs I use to generally delouse a suspect computer.
ADWcleaner from here Link Removed
JRT (Junkware Removal Tool) from here http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/junkware-removal-tool/dl/131/
Malwarebytes from here http://www.malwarebytes.org/mwb-download/confirm/
Ccleaner from here Link Removed
TFC.exe (Temporary Files Cleaner) from here http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/files/file/187-tfc-temp-file-cleaner-by-oldtimer/
ESET Online Scanner from here http://www.eset.com/us/online-scanner/

Eset online scanner is a bit different than the others in that you need to either use
IE or download and run their smart installer if you're using another browser. Then tick
the radio button that says "Enable detection of potentiall unwanted application"
Then click the link that says "Advanced settings", then check all the boxes except the
one that mentions "Use custom proxy settings", unless of course you're using a Proxy
Server. Then just click "Start", it will do a thorough system scan so it takes a long
time.

EDIT: You can probably also throw in Norton Power Eraser from here Link Removed
It'll sometimes find an item or two that the others might miss.

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

I should add, both PC's do function normal after restore. I am scared I may have a virus in one of the two of them tho? What do you guys use. ? Like I said, I scanned it with MSE and Malware Bytes (free, w premium trial)...Anything else I should try?

>>>Thanks for getting back to us, Risa. Looks like we got some more help for you on this. And I've reviewed with my colleagues suggestions and agree for the most part. Glad you ran the MALWAREBYTES, if nothing was found on either of the original 2 PCs; that's good. That covers most Spyware viruses; but you should know that I vehemently disagree with my colleagues about the quality of MSE *Microsoft Security Essentials*, on network virus or e-mail worm script virus protection--these are the viruses that often attack routers. Since none of your 4 PCs are on Wifi, it's unlikely you have a intruder lurking outside of your home in a van or something trying to hack into your network. More likely, you have a virus in your router, and since ALL your PCs are hardwired to the router ports, they will all get the same symptoms; UNLESS you have different security anti-virus configurations on those 2nd 2-PCs (PC #3 & PC #4). For example, if either of those 2 PCs is running Norton, or an aftermarket anti-virus or anti-spyware products, they might have blocked the virus coming in over your hardwire network connection via the router. You haven't mentioned what those 2 PCs are running for A-V. [a really good way to eliminate any viruses lurking in your router is to copy down all the settings in that router, and then perform a hard-reset back to Factory Default settings; reapply any specific changes you had such as NAT, Proxy Server, Relay-Forwarding, Port Filtering, or VPN and re-enable your network. ** IT IS CRITICAL THAT YOU POWER-OFF ALL 4 OF YOUR PCs DURING THE ROUTER HARD-RESET, AS IF YOU DON'T THE VIRUS CAN LURK IN THE NETWORK RAM OF ANY NETWORK CONNECTED PCs, AND AS SOON AS YOUR ROUTER RESETS, WHAM! THE VIRUS REINFECTS THE ROUTER UPON BOOTUP, WITHIN MILLISECONDS, AND ALL YOUR COMPUTERS WILL BECOME RE-INFECTED AGAIN**].
My colleagues are suggesting that you turn off the M$ auto-update install feature; on all your PCs, or at least the 2 affected PCs. When I did consulting for Norton and McAfee on security issues, we found this opens up more problems than it resolves, as shutting off the ability of AUTO-UPDATE to install they critical security updates opens up security holes in both your Windows7 on each of your PCs, as well as the router traffic that's being passed on non-typical UDP/TCP ports on your home network. Turning these updates off for 6 months as suggested, is a GREAT way to catch some really nasty viruses, makes you a lot more susceptible to Phishing and Day-Zero attacks. If you are not familiar with these, I suggest you go to SYMANTEC-NORTON, or McAFFE and look up these terms. Since you have at least 4 computers, you may have heard of some of these.
Now, I run about 5-6 computers out of the 25 or so I have floating around my house, and it's darn near impossible to do manual updates on all of them on a WEEKLY or even a MONTHLY basis. Even for many of my home user Clients, they almost never can keep up with performing manual updates even on only 1 computer that they own. I see this every time they get a new virus infection and bring me their computers to repair. What happens is, that their Spouses, family members, co-workers, etc. get into their computers by telling them that they will do a "Free Tune-up" for them. Then, the go into their Auto-Updates and turn them off *who knows where they found out about this being an ok thing to do?*; next thing you know their calling me to fix their computer(s) cause they think they got a virus!! For Computer Geeks like us volunteers, we are running multi-layer A-V protection, so turning off Auto-Update is no big deal, cause if one of our computers gets scrambled by a virus, we just rebuild it or re-image it in a day or so and put it back on our home network/Internet. HOWEVER, this may not be a good idea for you, unless you're retired or something and have nothing better to do than spend at least 4 days a week applying all the new weekly Security updates from M$ manually for 4 PCs, don't you agree??
And it the you don't take precautions when doing your router reset as I suggested, you might wind up having to reinstall Windows and wipe hard drives on from 1-4 of your PCs. Not my idea of fun, but I've had to do this for more than 1 Customer.
My take on this is, if you have a job or go to school, or do both as I used to, managing 2 or more computers this way is just more work than it's worth IMO.
Something to consider.

Best of luck to you,
<<<BBJ>>>