Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 10 devices can fail with a blue screen of death (BSOD) when printing under certain conditions after applying the cumulative March updates.
After installing updates released during this month’s Patch Tuesday, “you may receive an APC_INDEX_MISMATCH error with a blue screen when trying to print to certain printers in some applications”, as Microsoft explains in the Windows 10 health panel.
The affected platforms include Windows client and server versions:
- Client: Windows 10, version 20H2; Windows 10, version 2004; Windows 10, version 1909; Windows 10, version 1809; Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019; Windows 10, version 1803
- Server: Windows Server, version 20H2; Windows Server, version 2004; Windows Server, version 1909; Windows Server, version 1809; Windows Server 2019; Windows Server, version 1803
The cumulative updates that cause Windows 10 blue screens when printing are:
- KB5000802: Windows 10 2004 / 20H2 and Windows Server 2004 / 20H2
- KB5000808: Windows 10 1909 and Windows Server 1909
- KB5000822: Windows 10 1809 and Windows Server 2019
- KB5000809: Windows 10 1803 and Windows Server 1803
As BleepingComputer reported on Wednesday, we saw a stream of user reports about printing, causing Windows 10 to crash with BSOD “APC_INDEX_MISMATCH for win32kfull.sys” errors since cumulative updates were released as part of the March 2021 Patch Tuesday .
Although Microsoft did not provide additional details, the blue screen issues are likely related to security updates CVE-2021-1640 and CVE-2021-26878 that fixed two Windows Print Spooler elevation of privilege vulnerabilities.
Some of the printer brands known to be affected by this known issue include Kyocera, Ricoh and Dymo.
Microsoft is investigating the newly recognized issue and will provide an update as soon as more information becomes available.
How to fix the BSOD hangs when printing
Even though Microsoft has not provided a workaround for Windows 10 devices affected by this issue, you can temporarily restore printing functionality by uninstalling the problematic cumulative update.
You can uninstall updates with errors by closing all applications, opening a command prompt and entering the following command (replace the KB ID to match the cumulative update you want to remove):
wusa /uninstall /kb:5000802We also have this detailed tutorial for more help uninstalling Windows updates using the Control Panel or the Advanced Options feature.
A similar problem affected Windows 10 devices during Patch 2020 updates from June 2020, when a bug prevented users from printing.
To resolve printing problems, Microsoft has released out-of-band updates for all affected Windows users.
Update: information included in all cumulative updates that cause BSOD issues.