Microsoft Pulls KB2982791 After 4 Days of Blue Screens

Reports of blue-screening systems started almost immediately after Microsoft released its updates for August. Though some were not affected by the issue, those that were spent a lot of time this past week trying to source the exact problem and come up with workarounds.

Late on Friday, Microsoft finally acknowledged the problem, updated the security bulletin to confirm, and removed update KB2982791.

Per the updated Microsoft Security Bulletin MS14-045:

Microsoft revised this bulletin to address known issues associated with installation of security update 2982791. Microsoft is investigating behavior associated with the installation of this update, and will update this bulletin when more information becomes available. Microsoft recommends that customers uninstall this update. As an added precaution, Microsoft has removed the download links to the 2982791 security update. For instructions on how to uninstall this update, see Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 2982791.

Microsoft is getting closer to determining the actual cause of the problem, finding that it has something to do with how fonts are stored. In a forum post, fonts stored as shortcuts seem to be one area of concern.

Forum post: Blue Screen (Stop 0x50) after applying update KB2982791 to Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

Microsoft is suggesting that customers uninstall the update and has provided steps for fixing affected systems so that it can be booted successfully so that the update can be removed:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2982791

While the bluescreen problem is the most debilitating, the KB article actually lists three known issues with this particular patch. The problem affects both Windows client and Windows server. One customer spent most of Friday trying to repair a multitude of servers.

This marks the second update that Microsoft has had to pull this month. The first one was related to Outlook 2013 not being able to open Archive folders after the update was applied.