[Philistine]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/183440/windows_black_screen_of_death_what_you_need_to_know.html

After the latest Microsoft patch was delivered on Tuesday, November 10, 2009, users began reporting a crippling black screen. The Black Screen of Death causes your PC to seize up and removes everything except, in some cases, a single open My Computer window. So what happened?

Microsoft apparently made changes to the Access Control List (ACL), a list of permissions for a logged-on user. The ACL interacts with registry keys, creating visible desktop features such as a sidebar. However, the latest patches appear to make some changes to those registry keys. The effect is that some installed applications aren't aware of the changes and don't run properly.

I haven't seen this on any of my XP or Vista PC's yet - anyone seen it, or downloaded the patch?