Fix for Windows Vista Black Screen of Death, aka KSOD

When I encountered the Black Screen of Death (KSOD), I realize how many losers find the most difficult ways to solve problems. It took me 5 hours to find the below solution only because the guy failed to mention the following keywords (Black Screen of Death KSOD) anywhere in his post. The below solution is simple, elegant and beautiful.

Before you try this fix:

1. Boot into Safe Mode , to do this hit F8 repeatedly while your PC is booting.

Fix from Baltimoremick.com

I came upon a suggestion to invoke the Sticky Keys dialog to invoke the MSCONFIG utility.  The steps below are what I did to get this problem fixed.

1. Press the Shift key five (5) times.
2. The Sticky Keys dialog box should now open, asking “Do you want to turn on Sticky Keys?” An HTML link stating “Go to the Ease of Access Center to disable the keyboard shortcut should also be present.  Click on this HTML link to open an Explorer/Internet Explorer window.
3. Click on the very beginning of the address bar.  Enter the following into the address bar:C:\Windows\System32\msconfig.  Hit Enter.
4. The System Configuration utility should now open.  Click on the tab labeled Services.
5. Find the service called Windows Event Log.  Uncheck the check mark next to it.  Click the Apply button, then click OK.
6. Restart the offending machine.  Once the machine has rebooted, login as normal.
7. The desktop and taskbar should appear as they normally do.  Now, to remove the offending event logs.
8. Open a command prompt as Administrator.
9. Navigate to C:\Windows\System32\winevt.  Issue a dir command, and note that there is a directory named Logs.
10. Rename the Logs directory: ren Logs BAD
11. Open MSCONFIG, and re-enable the Windows Event Log service on the Services tab.
12. Reboot the machine again.
13. Upon login, the machine should be working as expected.  You can reboot a few more times to confirm that all appears in working order.

This fix worked perfectly for me.