Beware of firmware updates for Surface devices

Microsoft’s Surface range might be the darling of the executive crowd, thanks to its lightweight design and portability. However, some users are less than happy at the latest batch of firmware updates which have reduced the devices to showing screens bluer than the Surface Keyboard. The latest Blue Screen of Death errors report an error code 0x800f0203 when the latest firmware update is installed.

Reports of the error are popping up all over Microsoft’s forums, with a fairly convoluted fix to get things back up and running for some users. If your Surface devices are being struck by the error, and you are not confident rooting around in system files, get in touch and our IT support will help restore your PC back to a working state.

The error appears to relate to an Intel driver, many of which were updated in the latest round of tweaks and fixes to improve Microsoft Surface Pro and Surface Book performance. The updates were designed to help fix image flickering, wake from sleep and other problems with the computer’s chipset, this error is presumably an unintended side effect. If you haven’t updated yet, it might be worth waiting for word of an official fix.

With many people updating to Windows 10 ahead of the expiry of Microsoft’s free upgrade in July, users are now seeing daily streams of updates to hardware and the OS, which they are increasingly tempted to leave to the operating system to manage. However, this problem shows the benefit of delaying updates until they have a had a chance to circulate around early adopters who can experience these issues, allowing Microsoft to find a solution before your PC becomes a victim,

That said, make sure that your PC installs security based updates for browsers, antivirus programs and system protection tools as soon as possible, as the threat from malware and viruses continues to grow, with hackers increasingly trying to take advantage of the short gap between a vulnerability being discovered and the fix being sent out to PCs.

If you have any questions on PC or network security, data backups and management, do get in touch and we can help protect your office systems.