Fixing Windows' Black Screen of Death
Monday, 30 November 2009 00:00

Microsoft's colors of choice now appear to be black and blue. There's always been the Blue Screen of Death, but lately people have been seeing the Black Screen of Death. Here's what to do if your Windows computer is getting a black eye.

First, though, I should point out that not all Black Screens of Death are caused by this newest set of problems. People have been turning on their computers and facing a blank screen since before there were PCs. If you've been running into a black screen on your Windows PC for some time, check out Microsoft support on the more common problems that causes black screens to happen with Windows XP.

But, if you just started seeing a Black Screen of Death after installing Microsoft's November 10th set of patches for Windows and Microsoft Office, you may need this fix. Is it right for you? Here's how to tell.

According to the UK security firm Prevx, if after starting your Windows 7, Vista, XP, NT, W2K, W2K3 or W2K8 PC or server your system appears normal, but, after logging on, the screen goes totally black, except for possibly a single My Computer Explorer window, which might be minimized, chances are Prevx's fix might help.

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Hot tips

Red-eye removal in Photoshop

If Photoshop's Red-Eye tool can't fix those demon eyes, never fear... the Color Replacement tool will. First, duplicate the photo layer then choose black as the foreground color chip. Grab the Color Replacement tool and in the Options bar, set the Mode to Hue (in order to add color) and the Limits to Contiguous (because the color we want to zap is limited to one area and not littered across the whole image). Second, paint away the offending color by touching it with the crosshair of the brush cursor (it doesn't matter if the brush edge touches another color). That's all there is to it! Buh-bye red-eye