Why Windows Guests crash with BSOD after the latest SUSE Block Driver update

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3.x
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.x
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.x
  • Windows Guests with virtio drivers

Issue

  • After applying optional updates from the December 2015 Microsoft patch cycle, Windows VMs crash with the blue screen of death.
  • Not able to detect the boot disk after the latest Windows update.

Resolution

  • At the time of writing, Red Hat is working with Microsoft for an official fix.
    • Microsoft has retired this update from Windows Update so this issue should not reappear.

Workaround for the updated Windows VM

  • Change the driver to IDE for the affected guest machines

RHEV

Login to RHEV-M =>  virtual machine => Disks => Edit => IDE

KVM

Virt-manager => Disk => Change the Disk bus to IDE
  • Boot the guest and uninstall the SUSE Block Driver within the VM
Device Manager => "Show hidden devices in the menu"=> Suse Block Driver for Windows => Uninstall
  • Now change the driver back to virtio and the guest should be able to boot.

Disabling SUSE Block Driver update in existing Windows VMs

  • Find the update options
Control Panel => System and Security => Windows Update => Select the link for optional updates available.
  • Uncheck Storage Controller => SUSE Block Driver for Windows.

Hide the Update

  • Hide it by right-clicking on the line and selecting “Hide Update” from the pop-up menu
  • This will hide the SUSE Block Driver for Windows in the future Windows updates

Root Cause

  • The latest Windows update offers SUSE Block Driver which overwrites existing Red Hat virtio driver. . The SUSE driver which installed is incompatible with the KVM based hypervisors which causes this BSOD.
  • Component
  • kvm

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