How to Recover From KB936357 Blue Screen of Death

SmartArray

unread,

Jul 18, 2007, 12:18:03 AM7/18/07

to

After 5 days of narrowing down this problem to this specific Update, making
it happen, and recovering I thought I would share the solution so you
wouldn't have to suffer too! This problem seems to afflict Pentium4HT
processors in the 2.8-3.0Ghz range. This microcode should not install on
these processors as it appears to be a Core 2/Duo update, but somehow the P4
slipped through the install processor check.

Problem: After installing KB936357 microcode update, Windows XP will no
longer boot into any mode. Various blue screens will appear, some with and
some without stop codes.

Solution: Follow these steps and you will save yourself lots of time and
trouble of reinstalling.

1) Boot the machine into the Windows Recovery Console. See KB if you don't
know how. You're now in basically a DOS shell with limited functionality.
2) Type the following: cd $NtUninstallKB936357$\spuninst
This will basically change the active directory to the uninstall
directory created by this update.
3) Type the following: BATCH spuninst.txt
You will see a couple of lines echo'd to the screen indicating a file
was copied.
4) Type the following to reboot the machine: exit
5) Your machine will now reboot into Windows XP.
6) Go to control panel, and add-remove programs, select "show updates".
7) Use add-remove programs to uninstall KB936357 update. This will finish
the cleanup of the registry and other misc windows stuff.
8) Start Windows update, select "Custom", and click the little box under
the update for KB936357 to never show it again.

Countless hours were spent figuring out what was wrong, my machine was
essentially 100% updated except for this one, it was intentionally installed
knowing it would break (yes, willing to risk reinstalling for the third time)
just to prove it was the bain of my existence. Fortunately I was right . . .
I'll keep my nasty comments to myself, have a good night.

artflux

unread,

Jul 18, 2007, 3:40:02 PM7/18/07

to

Thanks for the update on recoving from the blue screen. After several
reinstalls of windows I have turned off updates for now until the problem is
resolved. Your solution seems straight foward however I am not so tech savey
to try another update that may crash my old Dell Latititude into blue again.
If I have some time on my hands I will try your suggestions.

Numalfix

unread,

Jul 22, 2007, 3:26:02 PM7/22/07

to

Thank you very much for your advice.

If you don't have access to the Windows Recovery Console for any reason and
your XP file system is FAT32 (not NTFS) you can help yourself with a bootable
Windows 95/98 start-diskette or CD.

1) Boot your PC with Win 95/98.
2) Go to c:\windows\$N6CD6~1\spuninst (this is the 8.3 short name for
c:\windows\$NtUninstallKB936357$\spuninst\).
3) Enter "copy spuninst.txt myuninst.bat"
4) Edit myuninst.bat with the edit command:
Replace $NtUninstallKB936357$ by $N6CD6~1 in the commands.
You can also add "echo on" at the beginning of the file.
5) Run the batch by entering myuninst.bat on the command line.
6) Boot your PC into Windows XP.
7) Continue with step 6 of SmartArrays list.

bigfoot111

unread,

Jul 26, 2007, 8:38:06 AM7/26/07

to

You are a genius! After reinstalling XP twice on my old Winbook XL with a
P266 processor to fix this problem I discovered your post. It worked
perfectly.

chetbox

unread,

Jul 26, 2007, 6:48:02 PM7/26/07

to

chetbox

unread,

Jul 26, 2007, 6:56:00 PM7/26/07

to

I have uninstalled KB936357. However, I cannot find the button "Custom" in
Windows Update page to perform your instruction Item 8. Please advise.

SmartArray

unread,

Aug 9, 2007, 10:56:01 PM8/9/07

to

Sorry, I've been out of town for a spell . . .

I should have been more clear, the "Custom" selection is when you first go
to the Windows Update website and you are offered the selection of "Express"
or "Custom" (Express means they install everything for you with one-click,
Custom you select what you want to install). You may have to go into the
"Review Updates" mode first.

I've found several other posts regarding this update, and they all seem to
center around a couple flavors of the P4 chip from about this era. I think
it's a coding bug in their update check that allows this family through, but
the answer is still the same, don't do it!

I can't take credit for any of this, I found it by searching far and wide, a
little trial-and-error, and putting a few golden nuggets together to get a
solution. There are others I should credit this solution to, I just can't
remember that far back where I actually found it all . . .

Azrael

unread,

Oct 29, 2007, 12:12:02 PM10/29/07

to

"SmartArray" wrote:

oh my god this was a nightmare ive spent the past 2 months doing repair
installs
and then tried a few clean installs i searched the kb and the net for
answers
thought maybe it was just my pc im down to my last activation from this
issue

why dosnt ms post a warning or only install this to pcs with the correct cpus
i ended up do the same thing you did just didnt know what update it was till
this time

btw it sees p4HT chips as being a multi cpu thats why it will install on
these systems ive talked myself out of calling ms support and letting them
know how "displeased" i am right now

mrchillz

unread,

Aug 27, 2008, 3:43:01 PM8/27/08

to

i have a dell so i dont have a windows xp cd to install the recovery
console,..i have only a dell cd,..will that work?

mrchillz

unread,

Aug 27, 2008, 7:12:10 PM8/27/08

to

i tried everything you suggested but the blue screen of death keeps popping
up,...tells me i have a BAD HEAD SPOOLER,..not sure what that is,..any other
suggestions? thanks

PA Bear [MS MVP]

unread,

Aug 27, 2008, 7:43:14 PM8/27/08

to

You could speed up the process by beginning your own, new thread about
*your* problem. In your new thread, tells us if the STOP error said
BAD_HEAD_SPOOLER or BAD_POOL_HEADER (0x00000019).
--
~PA Bear

mrchillz wrote:
> i tried everything you suggested but the blue screen of death keeps
> popping
> up,...tells me i have a BAD HEAD SPOOLER,..not sure what that is,..any
> other

> suggestions? thanks...

mrchillz

unread,

Aug 27, 2008, 7:55:00 PM8/27/08

to

oops,..i think it was bad pool header,...sorry :)

Harry Johnston [MVP]

unread,

Aug 27, 2008, 11:11:31 PM8/27/08

to

PA Bear [MS MVP] wrote:

> In your new thread, tells us if the STOP error said
> BAD_HEAD_SPOOLER or BAD_POOL_HEADER (0x00000019).

Wow. Good catch!

Harry.

PA Bear [MS MVP]

unread,

Aug 28, 2008, 6:38:01 PM8/28/08

to

PA Bear [MS MVP]

unread,

Aug 28, 2008, 6:42:40 PM8/28/08

to

I thought that might be the case! <eg>

<QP>
0x00000019: BAD_POOL_HEADER
A pool header issue is a problem with Windows memory allocation. Device
driver issues are probably the most common, but this can have diverse causes
including bad sectors or other disk write issues, and problems with some
routers. (By theory, RAM problems would be suspect for memory pool issues,
but I haven’t been able to confirm this as a cause.)
</QP>
Source & more: http://aumha.org/a/stop.htm

In any event, please begin your own new thread if you need further
assistance, mrchillz. (I doubt KB936357 had/has anything to do with your
problem.)

VTRerrorist@discussions.microsoft.com The VTRerrorist

unread,

Jan 17, 2009, 7:24:01 PM1/17/09

to

It's all wrong.
After clean install of Windows XP Professional, and registering/activating,
and doing the updates, I'm getting still BSOD with the message of that my
original version isn't legal.
Yeah right.
I'm thinking of switching to Unix or Linux, if i even can't windows get to
run properly.
After my antivirus program got me saying there's a virus messing about from
the update site, i'm not trusting microsoft anymore.