Microsoft is blocking this month’s security update for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, which arrived this week, for Sophos antivirus users, as widespread reports claim computers aren’t booting after installing them.

Microsoft and Sophos have both put out warnings recommending users don’t install this week’s monthly rollup and security-only updates after widespread reports that PCs were unable to boot after installing the update.



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“Microsoft and Sophos have identified an issue on devices with Sophos Endpoint Protection installed and managed by either Sophos Central or Sophos Enterprise Console (SEC) that may cause the system to freeze or hang upon restart after installing this update,” Microsoft said in an update on Thursday morning.

Sophos, meanwhile, are recommended affected users boot in safe mode and disable Sophos antivirus, before loading the PC up again and rolling back the windows update. Re-enable Sophos and you’ll be good to go.

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However, it seems that there are also problems for users of Avast antivirus software, according to Ask Woody, which is seeing Avast users on Windows 7, primarily using Avast for Business or Avast Cloud Care are reporting freezes and halts on startup. Here, the problem is mostly that users either can’t log in, or can log in but it takes an “extended amount of time.”

Avast is recommending the same as Sophos: boot into safe mode, disable the antivirus, roll back the offending update and hey presto.

This isn’t the first time Windows has had problems. Last October’s Windows update deleted users private files, and there were reports of corrupted hard drives. It was a minor disaster for the company and we named it one of our biggest tech fails of 2018.

Been hit by this Windows problem? Get in touch with us on Twitter at @TrustedReviews

Award-winning (and losing) journalist, Jake Tucker created VideoBrains, a series of talks about video games. Jake has held senior positions at Pocket Gamer, Esports Pro and MCV, with bylines at PCGN, …