Microsoft tells all Windows 7 users to uninstall security patch, after some PCs fail to restart

Microsoft has advised all users of Windows 7 (and the server version, Windows Server 2008) who installed a security update on Tuesday to uninstall it, after some customers found their computers would not restart or applications would not load.

Users who experienced problems described how they saw fatal system errors like the following:

STOP: c000021a {Fatal System Error}
The Session Manager Initialization system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0xC000003a (0x00000000 0x00000000).
The system has shutdown.

The problem appears to be connected with Update 2823324 in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS13-036, a security update for the Windows file system kernel-mode driver (ntfs.sys).

In a…

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, or drop him an email.