Windows updates cause Photoshop to bluescreen

[Carl5CC8]

Every time Windows 10 updates itself on my laptop, whenever I try to open Photoshop afterwards I get a blue screen of death. Does anyone else have this problem? Usually there is a Photoshop update I can install that fixes the problem--until the next Windows update. Last night, Windows updated itself for the second time in a week, and this time there is no Photoshop update available yet, so I'm stuck not being able to get any work done, again. I should say, the computer I'm using is a 2020 HP ZBook with a dedicated graphics processor (and yes, the graphics card driver is up to date). Anyone have a solution to this terribleness?

[Akash Sharma]

Hi there,

Sorry that your HP ZBook running Windows 10 shows a blue screen when you launch Photoshop.

Which version of Photoshop are you using and which Windows update did you installed?

Please note that Photoshop or any other app on your computer cannot cause your Operating System to crash and return a blue screen. It is the driver or a hardware that malfunctions and shows the blue screen errors.

Most of the times, the graphics processor unit causes issues like these, it might be incompatible or could have an outdated driver. Please refer this article Troubleshoot Photoshop graphics processor (GPU) and graphics driver issues and let us know if that helps troubleshooting the issue.

Thanks,

Akash Sharma

[D Fosse]

Does it have an integrated Intel GPU in addition to the Nvidia GPU?

This is a very common problem. In advanced applications like Photoshop, the GPU is not a one-way flow like it was traditionally. The GPU is used for actual data processing, and the result returned to Photoshop for further processing. So you can't just switch GPU. Photoshop can't send data to one GPU and then get it back from the other. It will crash and BSOD.

You need to find a way to disable the Intel GPU completely.

HP is notorious for extensively modifying the operating system and drivers. That can in itself be a problem, when you can't go to Nvidia for clean and updated drivers, but have to get them from HP - and then they may be many versions out of date. See if it's possible to use drivers directly from Nvidia.

Here's a telling quote from the HP site about ZBooks: BIOS-level innovations detect and distribute power to the relevant components according to which app is in use- for more efficient power consumption and distribution.