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Has this recently happened to you: You go into the office, pull up some document, hit print, and then BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH? The computer then restarts, and you’re left wondering what the hell just happened?
Figure 1: Cake or Blue Screen of Death?
You are not alone. Last week, when Microsoft put out its latest Security Patch, companies everywhere were suddenly watching in horror as their computers crash again and again—just from trying to print. Here’s what happened and what you can do about it.
Microsoft releases its latest patches for Windows on the second Tuesday of each month, known as Patch Tuesday. Last Tuesday, Microsoft pushed out its Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1909 (KB5000808) and Security Update for Microsoft Windows (KB5000802).[1] These are both important updates that help secure our computers.
The problem is that sometimes certain bits of computer code does not place nicely with other bits of code. And what, pray tell, is the other piece of software that causes Windows to come crashing down after this update?
A Kyocera printer driver.
Not that this is Kyocera’s fault. These printers and their drivers were minding their own business. However, some combinations are just toxic.
The solution online was to uninstall these updates. This removal can be done by going into update history and uninstalling. However, this is a dangerous idea! The whole point of security updates and patches is for Microsoft to address vulnerabilities in the Windows operating system. As such, this sucks, but as Sean Endicott of Windows Central writes, “The only way to fix this problem is to uninstall the latest update to your Windows 10 PC.”
We here at NexgenTec have come up with an alternative fix that has worked for all of our clients: change the driver. Kyocera offers a Classic Universal Driver for Windows 10 that is signed and certified by Microsoft. This driver is easy to find and install:
With this new driver in place, we are free to print again with reckless abandon.
Microsoft, too, has come up with a fix of its own. On March 15, they pushed out the KB5001567. Highlights with this update include, “Updates an issue that might cause a blue screen when you attempt to print to certain printers using some apps.” With this in mind, the current best solution is to update our copy of Windows to fix the issue created by the last update of Windows.
[1] This same update also caused faxes sent from eClinicalWorks to transmit only the top two inches of each faxed page.
[2] I like the KyoClassicUniversalPCL6_v3.3 (A4) driver specifically.