Windows 7 'security' patch knocks out PCs, knackers antivirus tools Windows 7 users should uninstall a security patch Microsoft issued on Tuesday because some PCs failed to restart after applying the update. The software giant advised users of Win 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2* to roll-back a patch within MS13-036, a security update that closed two vulnerabilities in the Windows file system …
I know!!!
I had a relative call me up after his WindblowZE 7 box crapped out after installing this botched update.
He was so unhappy when I informed him that like the maid, I don't do Windows anymore, since I switched to Linux in 2008.
He was so desperate!!!!
Icon says it all!!!!
Indeed, but even users who do not auto update will be affected by this. I checked this patch out, decided I needed it, then had it not been for an El Reg email today, on a day that I do not normally read El Reg, then I would not have now just installed it as a precaution despite not been affected.
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One (not in this lot) has changed how Windows Explorer sees some of my USB Flash Drives.
If I take one drive and plug it into a USB3 port on my laptop the output is shown by file type rather that the 'details' list. If I want to see that I have to right click on the drive, select open as removable media etc.
If I take the same drive and plug it into a USB2 port on the same machine it shows the classic 'details' list.
WTF Microsoft?
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"One (not in this lot) has changed how Windows Explorer sees some of my USB Flash Drives. If I take one drive and plug it into a USB3 port on my laptop the output is shown by file type rather that the 'details' list. If I want to see that I have to right click on the drive, select open as removable media etc. If I take the same drive and plug it into a USB2 port on the same machine it shows the classic 'details' list."
I noticed this behaviour suddenly appear, but didnt attribute it to an update, I just thought it was a random screwup on my windows install. Its really, really irritating, rather like the way Vista used to randomly change the icon sizes in control panel.
My laptop doesnt have usb3 ports, so its not that causing it, but it does change depending on which port the flash drive is plugged into.
Windows has done this for years. I've had folder view settings randomly change on an individial basis. At the moment, Windows 7 keeps taking icons off my system tray and I have to go into the options to set them back to 'Show Icon and Notifications' .
It keeps you alert and stops you getting complacent.
At some point last weekend, my trusty Dell Laptop suddenly decided that my Dell OEM Windows 7 was not geniune. So did my mate's. All this week I've been hearing about machines that were legitimately running Windows 7 OEM suddenly being illegitemised.
Is it the same thing? Something MS has done seems to have screwed the status of these machines.
I've got auto update switched on, and the machine performed the usual update routine last night; it rebooted, and the usual messages following such an update were present when I woke it up this morning.
However, having looked over the installed patches via the control panel, there's no trace of KB2823324 ever having been installed; guess they deleted the offending patch from the update before my machine got around to getting the update done.
*shrug*
I was scratching my head over one machine today suffering a problem with Kaspersky AntiVirus for Windows Workstations.
Wound up uninstalling and reinstalling Kaspersky. Still it refuses to see the license. I did the install using the network agent in the Kaspersky Administration Kit. I left it thinking I'll take it up with Kaspersky on Monday.
The same machine also showed CHKDSK on boot … something it started doing a few days ago.
Looks like I know what I'll be doing first thing on Monday, is uninstall this patch.
Good question.
I had more problems with the latest update to Skype which caused the machine to freeze (but not BSOD) after booting.
Eventually after restarting in Safe Mode and stopping Skype trying to run on startup I was able to uninstall it and roll back to an earlier version which fixed the problem.
Don't be so hard on Microsoft. Everyone knows how hard it is to do proper testing before release when your company has such meager resources. This is no worse than the 5 major update fails in 2012, Microsoft just cannot devote resources to testing and QC when Marketing clearly needs the help far more...
When Vista was being ignored by the XP masses M$ released SP3 for XP. It killed all sorts of network functionality on a friend of mine's PC. His NAS and Xbox mysteriously decided to stop connecting to it and M$ suggested he update to Vista to restore his previously happy networking situation. He preferred a clean reinstall of XP and blocking SP3 on the updates list. M$ made sure SP3 nagged and attempted to be applied forever more.
I can't help thinking that Win 7 users will suffer a string of unhelpful and increasingly buggy patches till the herd accept that this crap isn't going away till they buy in to Win 8 and are properly assimilated into the collective.
Same happened to me with XP on my old latop. I've installed Linux Mint 13 on it and I'm very happy with it so far after five days. It can do everything my shiny new Windows 7 laptop can do, including running my favourite Windows applications (in WINE, obviously). This is the first time I've used Linux and I'm pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to get going and customise. There have been problems and shortfalls but they may be caused by the fact that the laptop is now 8 years old and has a dead battery.
I'll get used to it and when I'm fully satisfied and confident, then I'll install Linux on my shiny new laptop and not bother with future versions of Windows.
Was messing up my laptop, windows event viewer was showing various dlls as having invalid hashs and was trying to do a chkdisk on every boot(but finding no problems. Kaspersky refused to start claiming corrupt database which an update fixed.
Checking another machine this morning , which also now keeps wanting to run chkdsk, but in this case kaspersky keeps claiming it's not activated, point it at the key file it is happy till next reboot at which point it has forgotten again. Looks like I will have to remove the update from that machine on Monday.
TURN OFF AUTOMATIC UPDATES.
Never trust that the updates okayed for release by Microsoft will work flawlessly. Manually update. Read up on the security bulletins.
This is not the first time Microsoft had screwed up a software update. I won't be surprised if Microsoft is cutting corners on software maintenance due to its declining corporate fortunes. Whatever it takes to keep the sinking ship afloat, eh?
Microsoft's security gnomes also deserve credit for quickly determining there was a problem before the vast majority of corporates rolled out the problematic patch.
I disagree. They deserve the blame for failing to follow the basic step of TESTING THEIR PATCH before they started to roll it out. How many times does this have to happen before Microsoft figures that out? It seems like they've been pushing out a dodgy patch two or three times a year for ages. That's the sort of thing I expect in the beta software I run, not in a fully released product like Windows.
@sisk: "I disagree. They deserve the blame for failing to follow the basic step of TESTING THEIR PATCH before they started to roll it out. How many times does this have to happen before Microsoft figures that out?"
Er, they do. Why do you think it takes so long to produce patches in the first place?
The problem is the sheer volume of combinations of hardware and third party software that exist in the wild mean that testing ever single possible combination out there is just never going to happen. Sooner or later there is going to be an edge case combination that hits a problem, it's simply a mathematical certainty. Doubly so when you consider how many of these third party "security" solutions often dick around with internal data structures of Windows in ways they really ought not to.
right after I get back from having the root canal done at the discount dentist shop!
Thanks EVER so effing much, M$!
(Mr. Ballmer has a summer home here, on the west side of the island. The other week a huge chunk of the island slid away into the Sound, taking a neighbor's home with it. The local newsrag's said nothing about it, but I suspect it was triggered by Ballmer bangin' his chair against the garage wall, working out his tension from the office!)
Can't recall a similar problem with my GNU Linux systems for some time. However, by default, a common practice for grub (or whatever boot loader) and updater to mark and keep at least the last stable kernel. So if your system has a problem with new one you can always boot that one.
And what about the one that doesn't run under Windows?
What is your point? There is plenty of software available for both OS', however you might be surprised with some "weird" facts. Plus, MS
Windows has a pretty messy architecture. It's hard to debug and control, it's poorly designed. It has a lot of things as afterthoughts, just like a headless server or PowerShell.
Take this particular problem, there is no "safe kernel" to boot, unlike GNU Linux.
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As I read
"STOP: c000021a {Fatal System Error}
The Session Manager Initialization system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0xC000003a (0x00000000 0x00000000).
The system has shutdown."
... It suddenly occurred to me that this would be a pretty good inscription on a gravestone. I might just change my will. Until now, I had specified " E16-10-06 10:36:16|SETI@home|Unrecoverable error for result 09my03aa.866.9600.884652.3.79_1 ( - exit code -4 (0xfffffffc))
For those on the forums here who were hit. Some notes:
Typical problem is that Kaspersky will claim its license is invalid. Uninstalling KB2823324 for us resulted in Kaspersky accepting the license, but then refusing to start due to an "unexpected error".
The fix was to uninstall the patches KB2817183, KB2813347, KB2813170 and KB2808735, rebooting each time, then using the Kaspersky uninstaller tool distributed with your version of Kaspersky, uninstall it, and re-install from your installation media.
Turns out three of the users here got Patch-Wednesday'd (we run UTC+10 here, so it falls on a Wednesday for us). I'm putting a general network notice out to our users here, but for those who read these forums, the above might be worth trying. It of course comes with no guarantees whatsoever.
Just seen this. I assumed the problem I had on Tuesday am was related to some previous start-up problems.
It took nearly an hour from logging in to get to start menu, then it was really slow. Restarted in safe mode and rebooted okay.
Disabled a load of automatic start-up services. Eventually isolated it to the AVG Watch service,
Uninstalled AVG and it all started okay. Now relying on Microsoft Security Essentials.
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