New non-security patches arrive for Win10 1607 and 1703; 1709 update likely soon

Credit to Author: Woody Leonhard| Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2018 04:26:00 -0800

Microsoft last night released a flood of unexpected patches. Yes, that’s a Thursday night dump. No, there weren’t any pressing security fixes – at least, none that were advertised. I have no idea why Microsoft’s pushing this offal out the Automatic Update chute.

In addition to a scattering of Preview patches for Win7, 8.1 and Server 2002 – which are usually posted on the third “Week C” Tuesday of the month – and the Surface Pro 3 firmware patch that was announced, but not delivered, Wednesday, we have two new cumulative updates: one for Win10 Anniversary Update (version 1607) and one for Win10 Creators Update (version 1703). Susan Bradley has a full list with links on the AskWoody site.

The two cumulative updates are:

It isn’t at all clear why there’s no fix for Win10 Fall Creators Update, version 1709. That’s the Windows version that had all sorts of problems with this month’s first round of cumulative updates.

The expectation is that a similar big cumulative update for 1709 is due any time now – possibly today or next Tuesday. I have no idea if it’ll have security components, but it sure as shootin’ better fix the USB problems widely reported with last week’s cumulative update.

As of last night, these patches hadn’t apparently been sent out to WSUS servers, but they were available through Windows Update. In fact, if you have Automatic Update turned on, you may have received the patches overnight. Lucky you.

As I’ve said, it’s still too early to install the February patches, unless you’re very concerned about drive-by infections in Outlook 2007, 2010, 2013 or 2016.

And once again, for emphasis, there are no known Meltdown/Spectre exploits in the wild. None.

Thx @abbodi86, SB

Help us follow the patching pilgrims’ progress on the AskWoody Lounge.

http://www.computerworld.com/category/security/index.rss