Security blogger Brian Krebs is reporting that some Windows XP users are reporting blue screen of death on reboot after installing Microsoft's Tuesday patch KB977165 (MS010-15: "Vulnerabilities in Windows kernel could allow elevation of privilege.")
"Turns out, a non-trivial number of XP users are reporting that their systems suffer from the dreaded Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) and fall into an interminable reboot loop after installing the latest batch of patches from Redmond," he wrote.
Brian Krebs' blog here.
Those trying to maintain Microsoft systems are caught in the cross-currents of the patching process: some patches might be buggy (think "delay") but the dark side will be reverse engineering the patches as fast as they can (do it now.)
It almost seems like it would be a good idea for the users of Microsoft products to hold off about two days before installing the Patch Tuesday updates. That seems to be how long it takes for the word to get out - like this problem - that there are glitches in the updates.
The overwhelming number of Microsoft fixes are straightforward and urgently needed security measures. However, the massive complexity presented by the older flavors of the Windows operating system and service pack levels almost guarantees that there are going to be problems like this.