blank pale blue screen on restarting

robmar0se · 20 Apr 2018

Win 10 home, latest release 1709. After using the system for a while, we restarted the system as we changed the wifi as it was rather slow. On restarting it booted okay, came up with the usual win10 start picture, clicked on enter in the usual way (no password), and all we got was a pale blue screen, the mouse cursor is present and moves. This has happened twice over two days.

We noticed the following diagnostics:

· Starts okay after a waiting an hour or so - heat issue, however new HP system?
· Wifi speed very slow under 0.1mbps (we use NAS for all user folders)
· Windows update recently completed very recently
· Event errors, Windows Explorer was unable to start event id 1002

We have addressed the wifi issue by resetting the router (back now to 28mbps). We have also restored system prior to updates. So far so good.

However some of these symptoms are contradictory hence seeking advice on here. I have also had another system this week with a similar problem (older ex win7 PC) which had the same symptoms after an update, but the restore failed and had to do a system repair - is this a possible rogue update?

Thanks

EdTittel · 21 Apr 2018

Yes, it does sound like a "rogue update," as you so nicely identify the most likely cause. Alas, the only fix for that kind of thing is to work your way back through the update history until the problem goes away. Then block the most recently uninstalled update, and reinstall the other ones that preceded it in your back-in-time, step-at-a-time uninstallation trail. Then, block that update to prevent its automatic reapplication. You can hide it using WUMT (my preferred method) or use Microsoft's Wushowhide tool for that same purpose instead.
HTH,
--Ed--

PS: the MS Wushowhide tool is listed for only Win10 versions 1607 and 1511. The 1607 version seems to work for 1709 and Insider 1803 versions, but I can't tell if it is truly effective, because I have no pending updates to block or hide right now. Can anybody else weigh in on the suitability of this tool for 1709 or Insider Preview builds, please? @Kari @Brink @Bree @topgundcp @essenbe

Brink · 21 Apr 2018

Hello Ed,

Microsoft's wushowhide.diagcab file appears to still work in all versions. I just don't think they have updated the article to include "and later" in it.

Hide or Show Windows Updates in Windows 10 Windows 10 Tutorials

Bree · 21 Apr 2018

EdTittel said:

PS: the MS Wushowhide tool is listed for only Win10 versions 1607 and 1511. The 1607 version seems to work for 1709 and Insider 1803 versions, but I can't tell if it is truly effective, because I have no pending updates to block or hide right now...

There is just the one version of wushowhide.diagcab that you can download from that MS page, with a Digital Signature dated Mon. 15th June 2015 which makes it contemporary with 1507, build 10240. The separate 'Resolutions' for 1511 and 1607 seem to only be there to explain their slightly different ways to uninstall any driver you may want to block. As Brink says, it just looks like the article is overdue for an update.

I don't run any Insider builds, but I will now test and confirm if the original (and only) wushowhide.diagcab hides updates in 1709 on my test machine.

Test results:

Wushowhide found two updates for 1709, a definitions update and an antimalware platform update KB4052623. I hid KB4052623 then checked for updates, only the definitions update was found.

blank pale blue screen on restarting-1709-hidden-update.png

I installed the definitions update. As a final test I ran wushowhide again to show the hidden KB4052623, checked for updates, found and installed it.

EdTittel · 22 Apr 2018

Thanks, guys: I did download it and try to run it on 1709, RS4 Insider Previews, and RS5 Skip Ahead Previews, but because I'm up-to-date and didn't want to stand up a VM to artificially test its workability, I couldn't see if it would work or not because none of my images needed any updates. Because it did run on all those environments and tell me it had nothing to do, I was reasonably certain it *might* work, I just wasn't *sure* it would work. Thanks for confirming this.
Best wishes,
--Ed--