Small businesses in IT that are worried about being widely affected by the so-called black screen of death (BSOD) which was discovered with Windows 7 recently should not be too alarmed, according to an expert.

Simon May, the author of the Rough Guide to Windows 7, explained that it is not as threatening as people may believe, as it is both reversible and there is no chance of data loss arising from it.

He said: "The black screen doesn't appear to be as widespread as original reports suggested.

"If you are faced with it then contact Microsoft's official support line; doing so will help them to gather information on the cause and they can help you get through it quickly."

Mr May added that the black screen only really appears in certain cases after people have successfully removed malware, though chances of seeing it are quite low.

Prevx this week explained that the BSOD means that no desktop, task bar, system tray or side bar is visible, with users instead left with a totally black screen and a single My Computer Internet Explorer window, which might itself be minimised.

More than half of small businesses (53 per cent) believe that the most important benefit of outsourcing is guaranteed response times for IT support. London-based Connect conducted the research in 2007.