In the older versions of the Windows OS series, users used to be plagued by an abominable screen full of garish text filled with more numbers than letters and the background would be a scream-inducing blue. Since the screen always followed a crash or a death, it was called the Blue Screen of Death (a BSoD) by the users.

Windows 7 ^[1] may not be as unstable as Windows XP or (gulp!) Windows Vista, however it does have its own share of problems. Though Microsoft removed the Blue Screen of Death, there are instances when you log in and the screen goes black with nothing but a minimized Explorer window. Since it apparently looks blank, this crashis termed a Black Screen of Death. This is usually caused by a malware infection and sometimes affects XP and Vista as well as older servers.

Luckily, Prevx ^[2] has a solution ^[3] in the form of a quick-fix. All you need to do is download their Black Screen Fix applet and it will clean up your system shell for you. It’s a tiny download (~48KB) and you can easily download it even while affected by the Black Screen by opening task manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del), clicking on new taskand typing this command:-

“C:Program FilesInternet Exploreriexplore.exe” “http://info.prevx.com/download.asp?GRAB=BLACKSCREENFIX ^[4]”

(With the quotes intact)

Run the program (filename fixShell.exe, name Prevx 3.0) and you will find this dialog box.

^[5]

Click yes…

^[6]

…and restart! That’s that! Have fun with your old computer back.

(via BlogsDNA ^[7])