Category Archives: Microsoft

Microsoft, Patches and updates, Windows 7

Another bad patch from Microsoft

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One of the updates from last week’s Patch Tuesday apparently caused problems for numerous Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 users.

The update, KB3004394, was issued to increase the frequency of root certificate updates from weekly to daily, thereby improving overall system security.

Unfortunately, once the update was installed on affected computers, some software and driver installation programs no longer worked as expected.

Microsoft initially recommended uninstalling the problematic update, but has now released another update (KB3024777) that fixes the problem.

Ars Technica has additional details.

Adobe, Flash, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Patches and updates, Security, Windows

Patch Tuesday for December 2014

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It’s patch time again.

As expected, Adobe released updates for Reader/Acrobat, but they also issued updates for Flash. The new version of Reader/Acrobat is 11.0.10, and it addresses at least twenty vulnerabilities.

The latest version of Flash is 16.0.0.235 (on most platforms), and it fixes six vulnerabilities in previous versions. As usual, Google Chrome will update its own internal Flash, and Microsoft will offer Flash updates for Internet Explorer on Windows 8.x via Microsoft Update. Note that Adobe also released Flash 15.0.0.246, which apparently fixes the same issues in earlier versions of Flash 15.

Meanwhile, Microsoft today released seven bulletins and associated patches. The patches address vulnerabilities in Windows, Internet Explorer, and Office. There’s a useful summary on the MSRC blog.

Brian Krebs has additional details.

Microsoft, Windows 10

Microsoft will finally reconcile version identifiers with Windows 10

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If you’re a regular user and not a developer, you may not have noticed that internal Windows version identifiers have been stuck at 6.x since Vista.

Vista was a disaster, with one of the biggest problems being software compatibility. Programs that worked fine on Windows XP no longer worked on Vista. One reason that happened was that Microsoft bumped the internal version of Windows from 5 (XP) to 6 for Vista. This caused a lot of software to get confused and stop working.

This made Microsoft much more reluctant to make major changes to the internal version number for subsequent releases of Windows. The internal version identifier for Windows 7 is 6.1. For Windows 8, it’s 6.2, and for Windows 8.1, it’s 6.3.

Microsoft also got to work on finding better ways to get around software compatibility issues, and developed the Application Compatibility tools, which include a simple method for tricking software into thinking it’s running on a different version of Windows.

With Windows 10, Microsoft apparently plans to get back to internal version numbers that make sense, and they’re also using this opportunity to finally make the internal version match the external version. Windows 10 will be identified internally as version 10.

Microsoft, Patches and updates, Security, Windows

Microsoft issues special update MS14-068

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Two of the updates originally scheduled for release last week for Patch Tuesday were held back. Yesterday one of those updates was released. MS14-068 addresses security vulnerabilities in all versions of Windows. We recommend installing the update as soon as possible.

Brian Krebs has additional details, as does Ars Technica. A post on Microsoft’s Security Research and Defense Blog provides technical details of the vulnerability.

Adobe, Flash, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Patches and updates, Security, Windows

Patch Tuesday for November 2014

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Yesterday Microsoft released fourteen updates, addressing 33 CVEs in Windows, Internet Explorer, Office, .NET, Internet Information Services, Remote Desktop Protocol, Active Directory Federation Services, Input Method Editor, and Kernel Mode Driver. Four of the updates are flagged as Critical. You can find all the details in the main bulletin.

Two of the expected sixteen updates (MS14-068 and MS14-075) were held back by Microsoft, with release dates for those updates now being shown as ‘Release date to be determined’.

In keeping with its new monthly update policy, Adobe released a new version of Flash yesterday. Flash 15.0.0.223 addresses several security vulnerabilities in previous versions.

Brian Krebs has additional analysis of these updates.

Update 2014Nov15: One of the updates in this batch addresses a serious vulnerability that exists on all versions of Windows. MS14-066 fixes a bug in the way secure connections are handled by the Microsoft secure channel (schannel) security component. Most of the focus has been on Windows servers, especially those running Microsoft’s web server software, Internet Information Services (IIS). However, according to some sources, any Windows computer that is configured to accept secure network connections is potentially vulnerable. Recommendation: if you’re running any Internet-facing service on a Windows computer, install this patch ASAP. Ars Technica has additional details.

Update 2014Nov15: Another of this month’s patches (MS14-064) addresses problems with a previous patch (MS14-060). McAfee has a detailed breakdown of the problems with MS14-060.

Update 2014Nov19: MS14-068 was released.

Update 2014Nov26: Apparently the MS14-066 update caused problems for some Windows servers. Microsoft added a workaround to the update bulletin that should resolve one of the problems, but has yet to acknowledge the performance problems reported in SQL Server and IIS. InfoWorld has additional details.

Microsoft, Windows 8.x

Adjusted numbers show Windows 8 is actually doing as well as Windows XP

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Ars Technica’s monthly look at operating system and browser market share was delayed slightly this month as they investigated an unexpected blip in the numbers for Windows 8 and XP. It turns out that the new numbers really are more accurate, and they show that Windows 8 isn’t doing quite as badly as previously thought. In fact, Windows 8 is doing about as well as the ancient and no longer supported Windows XP.

Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Patches and updates, Security, Windows

Advance notification for November Patch Tuesday

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Next Tuesday Microsoft plans to publish 16 Security Bulletins, five of which are flagged as Critical. The updates affect Windows, Internet Explorer, Office, Exchange, .NET Framework, Internet Information Services (IIS), Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS), Input Method Editor (IME) (Japanese), and Kernel Mode Driver (KMD).

Microsoft, Windows 7

Last chance to buy Windows 7 Home and Ultimate

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After October 31st, you will no longer be able to purchase the Home Basic, Home Premium and Ultimate versions of Windows 7. The Professional version will still be available, and Microsoft has yet to announce when that will stop.

If you are planning to purchase or build a new PC and want to run Windows 7 Home or Ultimate, you need to buy your Windows license before the end of the month.

Microsoft Lifecycle Fact Sheet – End of sales.