I had been playing Fallout 4 just fine until I decided to update Windows the other day.

I just did some of the security updates, a few that were published on Oct. 13 and the ones from Nov. 10.

After that Fallout stopped working. When I hit play I would either just get a black screen and have to kill it from task manager, or the intro would flash up for a second and then minimize and I wouldn't be able to bring it back up and I'd have to manually kill it.

Sometimes if I go into options and reset them to default I can get the game to come up, but the screen is usually messed in some way, like being shifted off centre.

Resetting to defaults doesn't always work though.

I did a system restore and it's working fine again. I'm not able to test to see which specific update actually breaks it because system restore on my computer acts kind of funky and fails often, so I don't want to risk doing it multiple times, but like I said above, it was one of the security updates from Oct. 13 or Nov. 10.

I was wondering if anyone else had run into this problem.

Just in case it matters here's my system specs

OS: Windows 7 64 bit Home Premium

CPU: Intel i5-4690

RAM: 8 GB 1600 MHz

GPU: AMD Radeon R9 280 3 GB

After reading your post I fretted for a few minutes.

As I didn't play FO4 in past 24 hours and yesterday I noted I had missed the NOv 10th huge wad of Win 7 security updates.

So I had installed those and rebooted.

I had already installed the ones you refer to back in October, way back in October.

As an aside, Adobe Flash has a new update out so I installed those as well.

So, with some fear I fired up FO4.

IT loaded fine here on my rig. Whew.

I'd not want to run a Win box without it updated properly but I have no advise otherwise.

I did read there are beta AMD drivers out (not a AMD person but I read that someplace lately) perhaps they are newer than what you are using?

In my case I"ve installed a bunch of texture mods and a few plugins (esp) on my FO4 , so far so good.

Are you using some aftermarket AV? Could be related. Using default MS AV here.

Are you using MS EMET (enhanced mitigation experience toolkit)? That can be a known trouble maker and is difficult to set up. I had it but removed it recently.

No, I don't have any mods or anything installed.

It could be that it was one of the Oct. updates that did it and if I had installed fallout after those updates things would be fine. I'm not sure.

I also don't have the beta patch for Fallout, or the beta AMD graphics drivers installed. I've always waited for full, stable(questionably), releases.

I ran into someone on another thread that seems to have had the same problem as me.

Maybe I will monkey and try install the security updates one at a time to see if I can find the one that's causing the problem(if it is one of those updates).

Oh, I just noticed that you say you're not running AMD. That could be the reason why you didn't have any trouble, because it seems to be some kind of graphical issue that's being caused. Maybe it only affects AMD.

I think I might test some more and maybe install the beta drivers.

I installed all of the security updates one at a time and found the one causing the issue.

It's KB3092601

I don't know who to take this information to. Bethesda support, or microsoft to see what the issue is and find a solution.

If anyone else is having the same problem though, that's the update that messed things up for me.

It's strange that that update's what's messing things up because it's an update for Windows Winsock.

Is there any networking stuff built into Fallout 4?

Or maybe it's messing up Steam and preventing the game from launching properly.

I've installed that particular update on both my computers without any problem. However, there are a few updates remaining from this month as I only install updates (which I set to to be notified but not downloaded) as advised by Susan Bradley (a Microsoft MVP) on the Windows Secrets site, and then at least a week after they are released. That way the odd rogue update can hopefully be avoided.

I do the same. I was actually only installing the critical security updates this time when I had this problem. I always read over what any updates are for and check the prerequisites.

I don't know what the issue is with that update on my system. All I know is that without it the game works perfect, but with it the game won't launch.

It does sound as if your system is corrupted in some way, given your earlier comment about the system restore function being unreliable. It might be worth repairing Windows sometime.

Could always try to open an elevated command prompt and run the command: sfc /scannow

That is, provided you haven't modified your system files in any way (such as using a theme patcher, like I did; found a better solution and it let me run that and fix safe mode, yay)

I ran sfc /scannow and there were no issues found.

I keep Windows up to date, but I usually wait about a week before installing updates just in case any issues are found with any of them. The only updates I don't have are the telemetry and the windows 10 upgrade compatibility ones.

My computer's not even a year old and I don't install many things on it. I might have maybe 10 programs, including antivirus.

Do you use something like a Killer NIC?

Is the only thing I can think of that would cause an issue with a winsock update.. Maybe try updating your NIC drivers regardless, if not already?

Nope, and I have the most up-to-date lan drivers for my motherboard.