Category Archives: Windows 8.x

Patch Tuesday for October 2020

It’s time for another round of updates for your Windows computers. Earlier today Microsoft published fifty-eight bulletins, with associated updates, addressing eighty vulnerabilities in Flash, .NET, Office (2010, 2013, 2016, and 2019), SharePoint, Visual Studio, and Windows (7, 8.1, 10, and Server). Ten of the vulnerabilities are flagged as having Critical severity.

Get the full details directly from the source: Microsoft’s Security Update Guide.

Interestingly, there are no updates for any version of Internet Explorer this time around. I don’t think that’s ever happened before.

What you need to do

Windows 10

Unless you’re running one of the more recent major releases of Windows 10, and you’ve configured it to delay updates, you’re going to get the new updates within the next day or so.

If your version of Windows 10 has settings that allow you to delay updates, I strongly recommend that you use them. Given Microsoft’s recent track record with updates, which includes rushing out fixes for a sadly long series of problematic updates, it seems like the smart choice.

Windows 8.1

It’s been a while since Microsoft broke Windows 8.1 with a bad update, but if you’re at all wary about these things (as am I), you should make sure Windows Update is not configured to install updates automatically, then wait a few days before installing them manually with Windows Update.

The more adventurous among you may choose to install the new updates right away via Windows Update, or even (shudder) configure Windows Update to do it all automatically.

Windows 7

If the organization you work for has paid for extended updates, your Windows 7 computer will get any applicable updates, but your IT folks probably do that for you anyway.

The rest of the world’s Windows 7 users can only wonder how much less secure their computers are without the new updates.

Patch Tuesday for July 2020

Another month, another load of patches from Microsoft.

This month we have seventy-one bulletins and corresponding updates. One hundred and twenty-six vulnerabilities are addressed in all, affecting .NET, Internet Explorer 9 and 11, Edge, Office, SharePoint, Visual Studio, OneDrive, Skype, Windows, and Windows Defender. Nineteen of the vulnerabilities are flagged as having Critical severity.

As usual, you can find all the details in Microsoft’s Security Update Guide.

Those of you running Windows 10 know the drill: depending on which version of Windows 10 you’re running, you can delay installation of updates for a while, but not indefinitely. On Windows 8.1 computers, Windows Update is still the best way to install updates. Windows 7 users don’t have an official way to obtain updates for that O/S, despite the fact that Microsoft continues to develop them.

Update 2020Jul17: Again with this crap, Microsoft? One of the updates from this batch caused Outlook 2016 to crash on starting for users worldwide. This affected one of my clients, and affected critical business operations. A fix posted by someone other than Microsoft allowed Outlook to run, but killed the ability to print. Linux never looked so good.

You will now use Microsoft Edge!

On a related note, you may have noticed that Microsoft is pushing its new Chromium-based Edge browser to all Windows computers. This is happening not only on Windows 10 computers, but also those running Windows 8.1 and even 7. The new Edge cannot be removed in the usual way once it’s installed. This is causing consternation for many users, as Edge seems to take over once installed, forcing the user to make certain choices before the desktop can even be accessed. Isn’t this the kind of behaviour that got Microsoft in trouble in the 1990s?

The Verge has additional details. In case you were thinking about switching to Edge, you should be aware that a recent study by Yandex ranked Edge last in terms of privacy.

Patch Tuesday for April 2020

As if there wasn’t enough going on, it’s already time to patch your Windows computers again.

Of course at this point, given that Windows 7 is effectively no longer getting patches, and Windows 10 updates itself whether you want it to or not, we’re really just talking about Windows 8.1. Market share for Windows 8.x was never high, and it’s now below 5% overall. Oh well.

Somewhat confusingly, Microsoft continues to produce patches for Windows 7, and documents them along with all the others in the Security Update Guide. But if you look at the requirements for these Windows 7 updates, you’ll see that they can’t be installed unless you’ve already paid for and installed the Extended Security Updates (ESU) Licensing Preparation Package. Which most regular folks can’t afford.

This month we don’t have any interesting updates from Adobe, but there’s the usual pile from Microsoft. Analysis of the Security Update Guide reveals that a total of one hundred and fourteen security vulnerabilities are addressed in this month’s patches. The usual lineup of software products are affected, including Windows, Internet Explorer 9 and 11, Edge, Office, and Windows Defender. There are thirty-eight security bulletins in all, nineteen of which are flagged as Critical.

By now I’m sure you know the drill: find Windows Update in the Control Panel and check for updates. Whether you cross your fingers or not is entirely up to you. Windows 10 users need to keep their fingers crossed at all times I guess.

Update 2020Apr15: April’s Microsoft updates include fixes for those actively-exploited Adobe Type Library vulnerabilities recently reported.

Strange times for Microsoft

Microsoft’s relentless push to get everyone using Windows 10 is creating problems for the software giant. At least one class action lawsuit is underway in Illinois, where annoyed users claim that Microsoft owes more than $5 million in damages related to Windows 10 upgrades, both wanted and unwanted.

Meanwhile, Windows is no longer the most popular way to access the Internet. As recently as 2012, up to 90% of all Internet access was via Windows, but that number has been dropping steadily in recent years, and it’s now at an all-time low. For the first time ever, another operating system is in first place: the mobile O/S Android. Microsoft has bet heavily on Windows 10 and its universal touch interface, alienating traditional desktop enthusiasts and power users in the process. But if consumers are increasingly choosing Android over Windows 10 for their mobile devices, where does that leave Windows?

Microsoft’s efforts to herd users towards their advertising platform Windows 10 includes discontinuing support for newer processors on older versions of Windows. While it’s clearly Microsoft’s prerogative to decide which hardware they support, there’s no obvious technical reason for this limitation. In light of Microsoft’s historical support for older systems, this is particularly annoying news for anyone expecting to be able to use Windows 7 or 8.1 with new hardware.

The April 12 publication of a set of exploits by hacking group The Shadow Brokers included several that were widely reported as unpatched zero-day Windows vulnerabilities. It turns out that most of those vulnerabilities were already fixed by March’s Patch Tuesday updates. While this is good news for Windows users, it raises questions about when and how Microsoft learned about the Shadow Brokers exploits, why there was no mention of the source in March’s patch release notes, and whether this has anything to do with the rescheduling of February’s Patch Tuesday updates. Update: TechDirt’s analysis.

When ‘Checking for updates…’ takes forever on Windows 8.1

This week I once again encountered an old nemesis, the infinite ‘Checking for updates…’ Windows Update screen. Not this again! It happened when I was attempting to install the December 2016 updates on my main Windows 8.1 machine.

Is it working? How can you tell?

I tried the usual troubleshooting steps: rebooting, stopping all non-essential processes, the Windows Update troubleshooter, and so on. Nothing helped.

What makes this problem really annoying is that even when Windows Update is working properly, there are long pauses during which nothing appears to be happening. Even looking deeply into the running processes sometimes shows a complete lack of activity. Since a hung Windows Update often looks exactly like Windows Update actually doing something, all you can do is watch helplessly, in growing frustration, until you finally can’t stand it any more and stop the Windows Update process.

After banging my head against this problem for a while, it occurred to me that since most Windows updates are now available in ‘rollup’ form (i.e. packaged together in one update), I could install the appropriate ones manually, which would at least get my computer up to date, and could conceivably also fix Windows Update.

After a bit of searching I found the July 2016 update rollup for Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2. One of the prerequisites for this update is the Servicing stack update for Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2: July 12, 2016, but that had already been installed in July, so I proceeded to install the rollup. It only took a few minutes.

After rebooting, I tried Windows Update, and ‘Checking for updates’ took about a minute to find December’s Patch Tuesday updates. Yay! I installed those updates and the computer is now fully patched.

It’s difficult to know for sure why this Windows Update problem happens, but it’s depressingly common, as are the sometimes wacky solutions users have proposed. The rollup solution that worked for me may work for others, but there are no guarantees. It’s Windows, after all.

Microsoft ‘clarifies’ upcoming Windows Update changes

Yesterday, in a blog post aimed at people who support Windows in organizations, Microsoft responded to some of the questions that arose in the wake of their announcement of upcoming changes to the way Windows 7 and 8.x are updated.

If you plan to risk a migraine and read Microsoft’s blog post, keep in mind that the intended audience is Enterprise users, not us lowly consumers (aka Windows 7/8 Home/Pro users). Parts of the post need to be interpreted differently for non-enterprise users. For instance, references to WSUS and ConfigMgr only apply to Enterprise users.

The changes will take effect on October 11, next week’s Patch Tuesday. The bottom line is that updates will no longer be delivered separately, but in large update packages. Each month, three of these packages will be produced:

  • security-only quality update – a single update containing this month’s security updates; not available through Windows Update!
  • security monthly quality rollup – a single update containing this month’s security updates, as well as non-security updates from the previous month, and the contents of all previous rollups.
  • preview of the monthly quality rollup – perhaps weirdest of all, this update will contain next month’s non-security updates. In other words, this month’s non-security updates, which are otherwise not available in the regular monthly rollup. Microsoft seems to be saying “For those of you who want this month’s non-security updates but would prefer not to wait until next month to get them, here’s a preview of those updates.” Even weirder, this update will become available the week after the regular Patch Tuesday. The preview rollups will also include fixes from all previous monthly rollups, and older updates will be gradually added as well.
This graphic makes all this much easier to understand, right?
This graphic makes all this much easier to understand, right?

Questions

Why will the monthly rollups contain non-security updates from the previous month? For example, according to Microsoft, the first (October 2016) rollup will include non-security updates from September. But why delay October’s non-security fixes for another month? This makes no sense.

What happens if an update causes problems? In the past, you could just uninstall the problematic update. That won’t be an option with this new system. Microsoft’s response to this question makes it clear that this is your fault: “Every Windows update is extensively tested with our OEMs [customers] and ISVs [customers], and by customers – all before these updates are released to the general population. Your organization may also be interested in validating updates before they are publicly released, by participating in the Security Update Validation Program (SUVP).” In other words, our updates are thoroughly tested by you, and if you’re not testing them, you should be.

Why is Microsoft doing this?

According to Microsoft, these changes will “simplify your updating of Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, … while also improving scanning and installation times and providing flexibility depending on how you typically manage Windows updates today.

There may actually be some good reasons for bundling updates. But Microsoft is being so vague that it’s hard to believe they aren’t trying to foist something unwanted on us. Maybe the new system will make Windows Update faster and more reliable. Maybe it will simplify updates, an appealing notion for many users. Maybe it will make us all safer. It’s difficult to predict.

But there’s no question that these changes will make it difficult to avoid unwanted updates, and therein lies the problem. We already know for sure that Microsoft desperately wants us to either upgrade to Windows 10, or install updates that make Windows 7 and 8 more like Windows 10. Clearly these changes are beneficial to Microsoft, and we have a pretty good idea why (it’s advertising infrastructure). And, despite Microsoft’s assurances, we can be fairly certain that these changes don’t actually benefit the user, unless the user enjoys targeted advertising.

Given Microsoft’s recent actions, and suspicions concerning their actual motivation, these new updates are going to be examined closely. Are all the ‘security’ updates actually necessary? Are they even related to security? Microsoft can slap a ‘security’ label on anything they want and force it down our throats.

What can we do about this?

If you use Windows 7 or 8.x Home or Professional, there’s not much you can do. As I explained in an earlier post, you can trust that Microsoft will act in your best interest and let them install what they want on your computer (yikes), you can stop using Windows Update completely (also yikes), or you can switch to Linux.

It’s also still possible that – with enough pressure from users – Microsoft could make these changes more palatable. The Electronic Freedom Foundation says (and I totally agree) that “Microsoft should come clean with its user community. The company needs to acknowledge its missteps and offer real, meaningful opt-outs to the users who want them, preferably in a single unified screen. It also needs to be straightforward in separating security updates from operating system upgrades going forward, and not try to bypass user choice and privacy expectations.” I would add that Microsoft should describe in detail exactly what each update really does, and how it affects the collection and transmission of user activity and other information.

Related news

Woody Leonhard reports that Microsoft recently reactivated one of the Windows 7/8 updates associated with the ‘Get Windows 10’ nightmare. In response to the predictable uproar, Microsoft simply repeated their claims that this update is nothing to worry about, while saying nothing about what the update actually does.

Windows 10 upgrade nagging removed from Windows 7 & 8.x

Now that Microsoft’s offer of free Windows 10 upgrades for Windows 7 and 8.x users is over, it makes sense that we should stop seeing those annoying reminders everywhere. Sure enough, an update for Windows 7 and 8.x became available last Patch Tuesday (September 13) that removes the ‘Get Windows 10’ feature. The update is identified as KB3184143, and has the (surprisingly meaningful) title “Remove software related to the Windows 10 free upgrade offer”.

If you’ve been using the third-party software GWX Control Panel to keep those annoying Windows 10 upgrade messages away, and you’ve installed KB3184143 on your Windows 7/8.x system, you might be tempted to remove GWX Control Panel. Unfortunately, there’s no reason to assume that Microsoft won’t re-enable the ‘Get Windows 10’ feature again in the future. I plan to leave it running on my Windows 7 and 8.x computers.

Of course, knowing Microsoft, if they decide to start pushing Windows 10 on us again, they’ll probably develop something completely new, in which case GWX Control Panel probably won’t help.

Ars Technica has more.

In related news, at least one consumer group is calling for Microsoft to offer compensation to users and organizations that were harmed by unwanted Windows 10 upgrades.

Microsoft: “Upgrade to Windows 10 or we’ll make Windows 7 and 8.1 just as bad.”

Microsoft just announced the next move in their fight to push their advertising platform into our faces, and it’s very bad.

Let’s review, shall we? Microsoft really wants you to use Windows 10. Their official explanation for this includes vague language about reliability, security, productivity, and a consistent interface across platforms. Their claims may be true, but they hide the real reason, which is that Microsoft saw how much money Google makes from advertising, realized that they had a captive audience in Windows users, and added advertising infrastructure to Windows 10 to capitalize on that. The privacy-annihiliating features are easily explained: the more Microsoft knows about its users, the higher the value of the advertising platform, since ads can be better targeted.

A short history of Microsoft’s sneakiest Windows 10 moves

Move #1: Offer free Windows 10 upgrades for Windows 7 and 8.1 users. Who doesn’t like free stuff? Many people jumped at this opportunity, assuming that newer is better.

Move #2: Dismayed by the poor reception of Windows 10, and upset by all the recommendations to avoid it, Microsoft creates updates for Windows 7 and 8.1 that continually pester users into upgrading, in some cases actually upgrading against their wishes or by tricking them. Angry users fight back by identifying and avoiding the problematic updates.

Move #3: Still not happy with people hanging on to Windows 7 and 8.1, Microsoft creates updates that add Windows 10 features to Windows 7 and 8.1, including instrumentation related to advertising. Again, users fight back by identifying and avoiding these updates.

Move #4: Microsoft announces that business and education customers can avoid all of the privacy-compromising and advertising-related features of Windows 10 through the use of Group Policy. This is good news for bus/edu customers, but then again, those customers pay a high premium for Enterprise versions of Windows already. At least now Windows 10 is a viable option for those customers.

Move #5: Microsoft realizes that the Group Policy tweaks provided for bus/edu customers can also be applied to Pro versions of Windows, Microsoft disables those settings in the Pro version. Windows 10 Home users never had access to those settings. Angry users are running out of options.

Move #6: Which brings us to today. Since the only way to avoid privacy and advertising issues (borrowed from Windows 10) in Windows 7/8.1 will be to stop using Windows Update entirely, angry users are now looking at alternative operating systems.

We know business and education customers won’t be affected by this latest change. The rest of us will have to suffer – or switch.

Assuming Microsoft doesn’t back way from this decision, I imagine my future computing setup to consist primarily of my existing Linux server, and one or two Linux machines for everyday use, development, blogging, media, etc. I’ll keep a single Windows XP machine for running older games and nothing else. In this scenario, I won’t run newer games if they don’t have a console version. Aside: if I’m not the only person doing this, we might see a distinct decline in PC gaming.

Dear Microsoft: I only kind of disliked you before. Now…

Computerworld has more. Thanks for the tip, Pat.

Microsoft now less sneaky about Windows 10 upgrades

Now that their free Windows 10 upgrade offer is almost over, Microsoft thought this would be a good time to reduce some of the more devious tricks they’ve employed to fool users into upgrading from Windows 7 and 8.1 to Windows 10.

One incredibly annoying behaviour of at least one of the previous upgrade dialogs was that closing the dialog by clicking the ‘X’ button at the top right corner was actually interpreted by Microsoft as approval to proceed with the upgrade.

But it’s too little, too late for some users, many of whom encountered serious problems after their computers were upgraded to Windows 10 without their approval.

Techdirt has an amusing look at this issue.

Update 2016Jul04: Apparently Microsoft is making one final big push to get people to upgrade. The Verge reports on new, screen-filling upgrade prompts that are starting to appear on Windows 7 and 8.1 computers.

Getting rid of the Windows 8.1 Charms bar

I’ve been running Windows 8.1 on my main computer for a while now, and while I was initially dreading the goofy new touch-centric user interface, most of the time it stays out of the way.

There is one exception: the ‘Charms Bar’. There’s nothing ‘charming’ about this thing; it pops up at the most inconvenient times, usually when I’m gaming.

The Charms Bar is a toolbar and clock overlay that – by default – appears when the mouse moves to the top right or bottom right of the display. The toolbar contains links to the Devices and Settings apps, and the Start screen. I already have plenty of ways to get to those things, so the bar is pure annoyance.

Sure, if I was using a tablet, the Charms Bar would probably be useful. But I’m not. Thankfully, Microsoft provided some settings for getting rid of it. Unfortunately, the settings involved are in more than one place, and there is no setting to disable the lower right corner trigger.

To stop the Charms Bar from appearing when you move the mouse to the top right, navigate to Control Panel > Taskbar and Navigation > Navigation > Corner Navigation and disable the option When I point to the upper-right corner, show the charms.

If your computer supports mouse or touch swiping motions, you will probably need to disable those as well. To do that, navigate to Control Panel > Mouse, look for swipe-related options, and disable them.

That’s as far as you can go with built-in Windows settings. You’ll still see the Charms Bar when you move your mouse to the lower right. The best solution I’ve found so far is the freeware Charms Bar Killer from Winaero. Even this tool can’t fix the problem permanently, because the changes it makes are reversed whenever Windows (or Explorer) restarts. You can configure it to start with Windows, or just run it whenever you want to disable the Charms Bar until the next reboot.

Microsoft: frustrating people needlessly since 1975.