More information on the problem

According to a post on the Microsoft Answers forum, this is what is being displayed when you reboot after applying the latest Windows XP patch:

A problem has been detected and windows has been shutdown to prevent damage to your computer. 
 
PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
 
Technical Information:
 
STOP: 0x00000050 (0x80097004, 0x00000001, 0x80515103, 0x00000000).

It seems that the cause of the problem was a virus or rootkit, but the exact one is unclear at this time.

Uninstalling the patch

The Windows Forum at Microsoft Answers has this post:

1. Boot from your Windows XP CD or DVD and start the recovery console (see this Microsoft article for help with this step)

Once you are in the Repair Screen:

2. Type this command:

CHDIR $NtUninstallKB977165$\spuninst

3. Type this command:

BATCH spuninst.txt

4. When complete, type this command:

exit

Protecting yourself after uninstalling the patch

After you uninstall the patch, your computer is vulnerable to the reason the patch was installed in the first place. See this article on how to protect yourself:

Accessing your files with Ubuntu Linux

If you don’t want to mess around with installing or uninstalling patches, and you just need to get some files off your computer, you can do so with Ubuntu, a friendly version of Linux.

Just download the latest version of Ubuntu here, burn the download as a CD on a friend’s computer, and boot from it on your computer. You may need to set your computer to boot from the CD-ROM drive.

Ubuntu is able to read NTFS-format hard drives used by Windows XP. You don’t need to do anything special. Just select your hard drive from the Places menu on the top taskbar.

Copy your files to a USB thumbdrive, and you can worry about your Windows installation later.

Resources

Slashdot discussion

Related posts:

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2. My Windows XP Gets Virus Infected
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