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Credit to Author: Woody Leonhard| Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2019 09:12:00 -0800<\/strong><\/p>\n In general, the January patches look relatively benign, but for some folks in some situations they can bite. Hard.<\/p>\n On the surface we\u2019ve seen the usual Patch Tuesday Cumulative Updates and secondary Cumulative Updates for all versions of Windows 10. Microsoft calls the secondary Cumulative Updates \u201coptional\u201d because you only get them if you click \u201cCheck for updates.\u201d<\/p>\n Windows 7 and 8.1 got their usual Monthly Rollups, but there\u2019s a problem. Specifically, this month\u2019s Win7 Monthly Rollup has a couple of bugs that are only fixed if you install the preview of February\u2019s Monthly Rollup. Which makes no sense at all, but that\u2019s Microsoft. There\u2019s another Win7 Monthly Rollup bug that\u2019s fixed by installing a different \u201csilver bullet\u201d patch.<\/p>\n A Win10 version 1809 .NET patch, KB 4481031<\/a>, rolled out as a Preview when it wasn\u2019t. Some folks woke up one morning to a notification that their PC was no longer activated. That was a bug on Microsoft\u2019s side. Oops.<\/p>\n Office 2010 took one on the chin. Two, actually. And it looks like the Japanese calendar problem\u2019s still there, with \u201cfixes\u201d bringing Word, Excel and Access to a halt.<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s a reprisal of the mysterious KB 4023057 \u201cupdate reliability\u201d patch, throwing error 0x80070643 on some machines.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been a patch pokin\u2019 month.<\/p>\n All of the extant versions of Windows 10 got Patch Tuesday cumulative updates this month, and then the usual second round of cumulative updates. The former came down the Automatic Update chute; the latter lie in wait unless you click \u201cCheck for updates.\u201d That\u2019s been the common, infuriating, behavior for several months. Nothing new.<\/p>\n What is<\/em>new is the remarkable delay in releasing the second patch for Win10 version 1809 \u2013 the KB 4476976 \u201cOctober 2019 Update.\u201d Microsoft held onto that patch for an extra week, putting it through an unusual second round of beta tests in the Windows Insider Preview Ring. That\u2019s great news<\/a>: It shows Microsoft\u2019s taking its time to push out the 1809 updates.<\/p>\n \u00a0It remains to be seen if the new-found restraint will result in less-buggy patches, but slowing down the gauntlet certainly rates as a step in the right direction.<\/p>\n The two major bugs in all of this month\u2019s Win10 patches are the acknowledged ones<\/a>:<\/p>\n The first bug strikes (old!) applications written in Access 97 and in other database packages. There\u2019s a manual solution, but it isn\u2019t pretty, and it requires you to convert the database to a newer format. That\u2019s not welcome news<\/a> to anyone who\u2019s nursing an old database.<\/p>\n The second bug has a simple workaround<\/a>: Don\u2019t use Edge. As if you needed me to tell you that.<\/p>\n This was yet another Keystone Kops patch. Microsoft originally released KB 4481031 with a KB article that said it was a \u201cPreview of Cumulative Update.\u201d It was actually a real patch. Microsoft pushed KB 4481031 out the Windows Update chute. That, we were told two days later, was a mistake<\/a>. Right now, I\u2019m told, KB 4481031 is a for-real cumulative update that\u2019s only being pushed to people who click \u201cCheck for updates.\u201d<\/p>\n I don\u2019t believe the conspiracy theories \u2013 that Microsoft\u2019s intentionally planting bugs in Win7 patches to prod people on to Win10. But I do believe the complacency theories \u2013 that Microsoft\u2019s focusing on Win10 efforts to the detriment of Win7 users, in particular.<\/p>\n This month we saw two big bugs introduced in the Win7 Monthly Rollup, along with the Access 97 file format problem in Win10:<\/p>\n The first problem is pretty specific: You have to be running a peer-to-peer network, and the person trying to get to the shared folders has to have an administrator account on the shared folder\u2019s PC. Microsoft released a \u201cSilver Bullet\u201d patch for this specific problem, KB 4487345<\/a>. Susan Bradley has a more detailed explanation \u2013 and advice if KB 4487345 doesn\u2019t work \u2013 in her Patch Watch column<\/a>.<\/p>\n The second problem (which isn\u2019t acknowledged in the Monthly Rollup KB article) can be fixed by installing the preview of next month\u2019s<\/em>Win7 Monthly Rollup, KB 4480955<\/a>.<\/p>\n There\u2019s an additional problem. Installing KB 4480970 (this month\u2019s Monthly Rollup) or KB 4480960 (security-only) breaks RDP<\/a> on Server 2008 R2 systems. It looks like installing the Silver Bullet patch KB 4487345 also fixes this problem.<\/p>\n Patch Tuesday also brought an embarrassing barrage of activation failures and \u201cNot genuine\u201d \/ \u201dcounterfeit copy of Windows\u201d notifications on Win7 machines with volume licenses. Microsoft has confirmed that the problem isn\u2019t with this month\u2019s update, it\u2019s with Microsoft\u2019s activation servers. Which have since been fixed. Supposedly.<\/p>\n Windows 8.1 continues its admirable stretch as the most stable version of Windows yet.<\/p>\n Now in its 50th-or-so incarnation, KB 4023057, the \u201cupdate reliability improvement\u201d rolled out to Win10 1507, 1511, 1607, 1703, 1709 and 1803 machines. Microsoft still hasn\u2019t said what KB 4023057 actually does, the KB article<\/a> is a baffling bit of bull\u2026 pablum.<\/p>\n Speculation is that KB 4023057 blasts away any impediments you\u2019ve set to the automatic installer. @ch100 on AskWoody has offered the only explanation<\/a> that makes sense to me:<\/p>\n KB4023057 was and still is one of the most weird and unexplained updates in the recent times. This update has never been offered to WSUS, but only to Windows Update. This would indicate that it [was] meant for unmanaged end-users and unmanaged small business users\u2026<\/p>\n This patch may be harmless, but why it was released and where it actually applies, it is still a mystery.<\/p>\n Patch Tuesday also brought KB 4461614, an Office 2010 security update. Unfortunately, as soon as you install that patch, Access and Excel stop working. Ten days later, Microsoft issued a replacement, KB 4462157. Now we have notices that KB 4462157\u00a0breaks Office 2010 entirely<\/a> on Windows XP machines.<\/p>\n Pro tip: If you\u2019re still running XP, you have worse things to worry about.<\/p>\n We\u2019ll keep you posted on patches on the AskWoody Lounge<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n