{"id":15945,"date":"2019-07-30T10:30:17","date_gmt":"2019-07-30T18:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2019\/07\/30\/news-9689\/"},"modified":"2019-07-30T10:30:17","modified_gmt":"2019-07-30T18:30:17","slug":"news-9689","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2019\/07\/30\/news-9689\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Patch Alert: Welcome to the Upside Down"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Credit to Author: Woody Leonhard| Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2019 09:33:00 -0700<\/strong><\/p>\n

This month, Microsoft Patch Land looks like a stranger Stranger Things<\/em> Upside Down, where Security-only patches carry loads of telemetry, Visual Studio patches appear for the wrong versions… and we still can\u2019t figure out how to keep the Win10 1903 upgrade demogorgon from swallowing established drivers.<\/p>\n

As we end the month, we\u2019ve seen the second \u201coptional\u201d monthly cumulative updates for all Win10 versions \u2014 the 1903 patch was released, pulled, then re-released \u2014 and fixes for Visual Studio\u2019s transgressions. There\u2019s a kludge for getting the Win10 1903 upgrade to work. And BlueKeep still looms like a gorging Mind Flayer.<\/p>\n

Those of you who have been dodging Windows 7 telemetry by using the monthly Security-only patches \u2014 a process I described as \u201cGroup B\u201d<\/a> three years ago \u2014 have reached the end of the road. The July 2019 Win7 \u201cSecurity-only\u201d patch, KB4507456, includes a full array<\/a> of telemetry\/snooping, uh, enhancements.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know<\/em> what information Microsoft\u2019s collecting with the new patch, but if you\u2019ve been hoping to minimize Microsoft snooping by staying on the increasingly difficult Security-only path, the jig is up. You have two options:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not an easy choice.<\/p>\n

In my opinion, if you want to continue to patch Win7, you\u2019re better off paying the devil his due and installing the Win7 Monthly Rollup, KB4507449 (\u201cGroup A\u201d). That\u2019ll give you the full version of Win7 telemetry, along with many small bug fixes.<\/p>\n

To be sure, there are two sides to this development. On the one hand, you have people who feel that Microsoft should start collecting all of the data it can to guide the inevitable demise of Win7 and help customers onto Win10. On the other hand, you have people who just don\u2019t like the intrusion.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m surprised that regulators haven\u2019t launched an investigation into Microsoft\u2019s newfound nosiness, but the fact remains that we don\u2019t know what telemetry is being collected along either the Monthly Rollup or Security-only path.<\/p>\n

Microsoft has halted Win10 version 1903 upgrades for PCs that have older versions of the Intel Rapid Storage Technology (RST) drivers. (Think Optane memory or certain RAID drivers.) The latest official Release Information status page<\/a> says:<\/p>\n

To safeguard your update experience, we have applied a compatibility hold on devices with Intel RST driver version between 15.1.0.1002 and 15.5.2.1053 installed from being offered Windows 10, version 1903 or Windows Server, version 1903 until the driver has been updated.<\/p>\n

Just one problem. Many, many people report that the Win10 1903 upgrade refuses to proceed in spite of the fact that they have recent Intel RST drivers. When they try to upgrade to 1903, they\u2019re getting a block notice, which looks like this:<\/p>\n

This is in spite of the fact that these folks have moved heaven and earth to try to get the latest versions of the RST drivers. An anonymous poster on AskWoody has a workaround<\/a> that may or may not apply in all situations.<\/p>\n

To my point of view, this is a feature, not a bug. It\u2019s still too early to move to Win10 version 1903. There are still too many bugs lurking about \u2014 this being an excellent case in point. Give 1903 a few more months to mature, and then let\u2019s take a new look.<\/p>\n

Speaking of problems with the Win10 1903 upgrade, Rick Corbett has been trying<\/a> to get the 1903 upgrade to bypass updating his drivers \u2014 he has his drivers set up the way he likes, and he doesn\u2019t want the upgrader to come in and mess with them.<\/p>\n

So far, we don\u2019t have a definitive method for blocking new drivers. In particular, the techniques that worked for 1809 and earlier aren\u2019t working right in 1903.<\/p>\n

The second, \u201coptional\u201d Win10 July cumulative updates are all out, although the 1903 patch was posted last Thursday, pulled, then released again<\/a> last Friday.<\/p>\n

If you couldn\u2019t get the Visual Studio patch KB4506161 installed, you aren\u2019t alone. Microsoft messed up the version detection mechanism. It was fixed in a re-release on July 19<\/a>, leaving admins everywhere scratching their heads for 10 days.<\/p>\n

Also, in case you missed it, SQL Server 2008 has been relegated to the big bit bucket in the sky. Susan Bradley has the full story, including some workarounds, in her Patch Watch column<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We have a new set of Servicing Stack Updates<\/a> for all versions of Win10, as well as Win8.1. (If you use Windows Update to get your updates, you don\u2019t need to worry about the new SSUs. They only apply if you manually install updates.)<\/p>\n

There are new lists of cumulative updates for .NET:<\/p>\n

There aren\u2019t any entries in the latter list, so far.<\/p>\n

I would remiss if I didn\u2019t repeat, loudly, the BlueKeep message I\u2019ve been posting for months<\/a>. If you run a WinXP, Vista, Win7, Server 2003, or Server 2008 machine and you haven\u2019t installed the May patch, you\u2019re playing with fire. Tell your friends to get patched. There are still many hundreds of thousands of machines sitting out there with \u201cKick me\u201d signs facing the internet.<\/p>\n

Although there\u2019s a BlueKeep exploit available for sale, it hasn\u2019t turned into a for-real threat<\/a>. Yet.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t let the heat get to you. We\u2019re cool on the <\/em>AskWoody Lounge<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.computerworld.com\/category\/security\/index.rss<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Credit to Author: Woody Leonhard| Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2019 09:33:00 -0700<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\n

This month, Microsoft Patch Land looks like a stranger Stranger Things<\/em> Upside Down, where Security-only patches carry loads of telemetry, Visual Studio patches appear for the wrong versions… and we still can\u2019t figure out how to keep the Win10 1903 upgrade demogorgon from swallowing established drivers.<\/p>\n

As we end the month, we\u2019ve seen the second \u201coptional\u201d monthly cumulative updates for all Win10 versions \u2014 the 1903 patch was released, pulled, then re-released \u2014 and fixes for Visual Studio\u2019s transgressions. There\u2019s a kludge for getting the Win10 1903 upgrade to work. And BlueKeep still looms like a gorging Mind Flayer.<\/p>\n

Win7 Security-only patch brings telemetry<\/h2>\n

Those of you who have been dodging Windows 7 telemetry by using the monthly Security-only patches \u2014 a process I described as \u201cGroup B\u201d<\/a> three years ago \u2014 have reached the end of the road. The July 2019 Win7 \u201cSecurity-only\u201d patch, KB4507456, includes a full array<\/a> of telemetry\/snooping, uh, enhancements.<\/p>\n

To read this article in full, please click here<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[11062,10643],"tags":[10516,10909,13764,714,10525],"class_list":["post-15945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computerworld","category-independent","tag-microsoft","tag-microsoft-office","tag-pcs","tag-security","tag-windows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15945\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}