When we awoke this morning, my wife found a blue screen displayed on her PC running Windows 10 Professional with the message "Your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart. We'll restart for you." and "Stop Code: PAGE FAULT in NONPAGED AREA". She tried rebooting the system several times and powering the system off and on, but the message kept reappearing. I rebooted the system and hit the F8 key before Windows started - you may have to reboot several times to hit the key right before Windows starts to have it take effect. That took me to a Recovery window where I saw the message It looks like Windows didn't load correctly. If you'd like to restart and try again, choose "Restart my PC" below. Otherwise, choose "See advanced repair options" for troubleshooting tools and advanced options.
Choosing "Restart my PC" only led back to the "page fault in nonpaged area" screen again. When I chose "See advanced repair options", I saw a "Choose Option" screen where I could choose to "Continue", "Use a device", "Troubleshoot", or "Turn off your PC".
When I chose "Troubleshoot", I then saw a "Troubleshoot" screen where I could choose "Reset this PC" which "Lets you choose to keep or remove your files, and then reinstalls Windows" or "Advanced options".
I chose "Advanced options" which displayed a screen where I could choose from "System Restore", "System Image Recovery", "Startup Repair", "Command Prompt", "UEFI Firmware Settings", or "Startup Settings".
I chose "System Restore", which led to the display of a screen where I could choose to perform a system restore to a prior restore point. The last restore point for the system, which was the only one displayed, is listed below:
| Date and Time | Description | Type |
|---|---|---|
| 2/14/2018 7:56:44 AM | Windows Update | Critical Update |
I chose to use that restore point and was asked to confirm that I wanted to use it. I then saw "Once started, System Restore cannot be interrupted. Do you want to continue?" I chose to continue and was notified that "System Restore cannot be undone until after it is completed. If System Restore is being run in Safe Mode or from the System Recovery Options menu, it cannot be undone." I chose to proceed and the system restore completed successfully. When the system rebooted into Windows my wife was able to log into the system with her personal files still intact.
