The Vista blacK Screen of Death, or KSOD, (BSOD is already taken.) has been appearing rarely and at random since November in systems located here, there, and everywhere.

Let’s get straight to it. Yes I snagged this lot; but what the —- ? Let’s fix it: -

"There is a fix, courtesy of Mark from the SBSC & MSP Buzz Blog. He says the problem is related to the RPC service running under the LocalSystem account as opposed to the NT Authority\NetworkService account, and I quote:

• On the affected machine, boot using the Vista Media and Select "Next" and then in the bottom left you will see "Repair your Computer"; select Next and then Select Command Prompt.

• At the command prompt, launch regedit.exe and load the SYSTEM hive, follow the below steps.
  • a. Select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

• b. On the File menu, select Load Hive.

• c. Browse to %WINDIR%\System32\Config Folder and select "SYSTEM"

• d. Select Open.

• e. In the Load Hive dialog box, type in "MySYSTEM" box for the registry hive that you want to edit.

• After the hive is loaded, modify the following key value per the instructions below: You will need to know what ControlSet the machine is currently running on, this can be determined by going to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\MySYSTEM\Select and find the "Current" value in the Right hand side. (Example: Current value is 1 then the ControlSet will be ControlSet001)

Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet00X\

• Services\RpcSs (X is the Number from the Current Key from above)
  Value Name: ObjectName
  Old Value: LocalSystem
  New Value: NT AUTHORITY\NetworkService

• Unload the SYSTEM hive by selecting the key "MySYSTEM" and then select "File->Unload Hive" menu item.

• Exit regedit.exe

• Reboot the system normally "

Something is changing the ObjectName key value, but nobody is yet sure what.

I thought I’d make a quick post; additional to what I had planned, just so that Vista users experiencing this problem have an extra reference – point for a solution. …As well as a chance for me to put up some more adverts:-