I just spent hours backing up a client's computer, reformatting, reinstalling XP, SP2, drivers, software and settings, and restoring their user data. Upon reboot, I was faced with a Blue Screen of Death with the error message: bad_pool_caller.  GRRR!

After some fumbling around, running chkdsk /f and that kind of stuff, I finally ran System Restore from safe mode. Bingo! I'm back in the game.

What happened? Well, I already had Automatic Updates turned on, and XP went ahead and downloaded/ installed a new security patch called: Microsoft GDI+ Detection Tool (KB873374). I'm not sure if this is happening to other people, or if it is somehow specific to this computer's hardware and driver combination. But, I thought that I would put it out there, incase anyone else gets the bad_pool_caller error message after updating. Now you know.

If you are here from a Google search, and this article does pertain to you, please leave a comment to let me know.

Meanwhile, I'm kind of in a dilemma, as I don't want to leave Automatic Updates turned off on this computer, but then I don't want my client to wake up one day to the nasty Blue Screen of Deaaaaaaaaaaath.