Microsoft and Lenovo are working on fix for Windows 10 crashes on ThinkPad laptops

Microsoft and Lenovo are working on an update to prevent Windows 10 from crashing on ThinkPad laptops. A recent update to Windows 10 caused the OS to show problems on 2019 and 2020 ThinkPad models, including blue screen of deathcrashes.

Microsoft acknowledges that ThinkPad users who installed the KB4568831 update or later updates to Windows 10 may run into problems. Those problems can arise if the systems have Enhanced Windows Biometric Security enabled in the UEFI and are running Lenovo Vantage software.

The ThinkPads can then blue screen of deathcrashes during startup and during startup of Lenovo Vantage or Windows Defender Scan. Logging in with facial recognition via Windows Hello is also not possible. In the event of a crash, users get the error “System_thread_exception_not_handled” and “0xc0000005 Access Denied” associated with the ldiagio.sys process, according to Microsoft.

This is due to the way Windows 10 restricts how processes can access PCI configurations of devices after the update is implemented. While Lenovo Vantage is running, ThinkPads may attempt to access PCI configurations in an unsupported manner, resulting in crashes.

As a temporary workaround, Microsoft and Lenovo recommend disabling Enhanced Windows Biometric Security in the UEFI. This option can be found in the virtualization section of the Security page in the UEFI. It is not known when the fix will be ready.