A couple of days ago Windows updated to a new version. The update went without a hitch, and the system booted as usual. At some point a notification was shown about an unnamed “driver update”, which too was successful. However, since then the system refuses to boot, showing a BSOD with an Page fault in nonpaged area error at aswstm.sys (Avast’s “stream filter” driver).
I’m able to access recovery mode, and Kyhi’s recovery tools and a live Linux distro are available as well. chkdsk /r found no errors. sfc /scanfile=“aswstm.sys” raises an error: Windows Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation, with a log file stating Servicing stack shim unable to mark handle [some id]. I’ve not seen a memory dump at either C:\Windows or C:\Windows\Minidump.
You’ve enlightened me on this silliest of subjects. For some reason I was under the impression they took away “safe mode” when they took away F8 several years ago.
I’ve logged in to “safe mode” and ran an installation repair, and now everything is back to normal.