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Windows Microsoft Operating Systems IT

Windows 7 Users Who Installed January Update Report Network Issues; Some Say the Update Has Also Incorrectly Flagged Their OS License as 'Not Genuine' (itpro.co.uk) 131

Posted by msmash from the not-again dept.
Some Windows 7 admins are feeling the pain of Microsoft's latest updates in this week's Patch Tuesday releases. From a report: Users who've installed this Tuesday's KB4480970 cumulative January update have been complaining of network connectivity issues on those devices based on a network that uses the SMBv2 file sharing protocol. Microsoft released its update to fix several identified vulnerabilities, including a remote execution flaw in PowerShell and to add robustness against side-channel attacks like those targeting the Meltdown and Spectre flaws. But a number of users immediately complained of networking issues, with Microsoft confirming there are now three known problems with the January patch. The other issues comprise an authentication error, and a file-sharing issue affecting some user accounts. ZDNet adds: Regarding the 'Not Genuine' Windows 7 error, Microsoft confirms that "some users are reporting the KMS Activation error, 'Not Genuine', 0xc004f200 on Windows 7 devices". "We are aware of this incident and are presently investigating it. We will provide an update when available," writes Microsoft on both KB4480960 and KB4480970.
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Windows 7 Users Who Installed January Update Report Network Issues; Some Say the Update Has Also Incorrectly Flagged Their OS Li More

Windows 7 Users Who Installed January Update Report Network Issues; Some Say the Update Has Also Incorrectly Flagged Their OS Li

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  • Just patches? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by omnichad ( 1198475 ) on Thursday January 10, 2019 @12:45PM (#57938000) Homepage

    These "patches"are getting to be almost as complex as the feature updates. Why would security updates be changing so much? Even mitigating a complex attack shouldn't require a registry hack to fix broken functionality.

    Looks like Home and Pro users are guinea pigs for more than just the semi annual updates now. How did this even make it out of testing?

    • Re:Just patches? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Thursday January 10, 2019 @01:09PM (#57938162)

      I think MS just does not care anymore about ordinary users. Sure, they are incompetent and their products never were good, but what is recently happening with win7 and win10 is way beyond that.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by antdude ( 79039 )

        Lack of QA. MS got rid of their QA dept. :(

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Ah, yes. I remember. Must be one of the most stupid (or disrespectful to the customer) acts in the software industry a major player has ever done.

      • They don't care about their E3 licensed users either. I'm really "glad" I read this; I've got three freshly-imaged PCs with Windows 7 that are now "not genuine" and won't properly validate against our valid KMS server. I've got several that haven't been turned on in awhile; I'll have to check them tomorrow and see what they do...but I have a bad feeling. SLMGR /ato just says they are in the "notification stage", and slui won't do anything except "go online to validate", and the URL it goes to at Microsoft
    • Over two years ago, MS started breaking Windows 7 with "security updates" that were really just preparing the OS for an upgrade. I was able to roll back the updates and even disabled future updates, but that poses security issues.

      I let it upgrade to Windows 10 to see how that looked.

      So Linux it is. Using Mint Cinnamon and don't care what happens in the MS world anymore.

      • > I was able to roll back the updates and even disabled future updates, but that poses security issues.

        Major security issues. If you're not being targeted by the NSA, the vast majority of attacks on Windows machines are taking advantage of known issues that have been addressed via updates. So lacking the updates makes a big difference to security. The "mean time to compromise", how quickly an internet-connected machine is hacked, is under 10 minutes for an unpatched Windows machine.

      • Same here, I recently switched to Mint 19.1 with Cinnamon and I'm never going back.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      These "patches"are getting to be almost as complex as the feature updates. Why would security updates be changing so much? Even mitigating a complex attack shouldn't require a registry hack to fix broken functionality.

      Looks like Home and Pro users are guinea pigs for more than just the semi annual updates now. How did this even make it out of testing?

      Windows is a complex tangled mess of code. A lot of it has to do with a lot of backwards compatibility. including backwards compatibility to things that they s

    • Looks like Home and Pro users are guinea pigs for more than just the semi annual updates now. How did this even make it out of testing?

      Microsoft is working towards continuous integration, with builds on every commit, and releases every week or so. That is what an engineer from the Windows team excitedly told me.

    • Why would security updates be changing so much?

      That depends entirely on the problem right? Does security suck because you left yourself open to a buffer overflow? Or maybe security sucks because your entire protocol or architecture was poorly thought out and you need to change something fundamental and important to fix it.

  • This is why update strategy was (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NotSoHeavyD3 ( 1400425 ) on Thursday January 10, 2019 @12:56PM (#57938068) Journal
    On windows 7 I used to do the following

    Turn off auto updates

    Check for updates by hand

    Only if the update was at least a week old update at a time of my choosing

    Of course when I tried this on windows 10 check for updates is now check for the latest alpha updates and immediately apply them.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I've had Windows 7 install updates without my permission using your strategy.

      My new strategy is to go to Services

      Select Windows Update

      Right click and properties >> Disable

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        The weird bit with that is that even when downloading updates manually from the catalog (as one does by hand), you still have to re-enable the service to install them. So the workflow is download updates -> turn off NIC -> enable service -> install updates -> reboot -> disable service -> enable NIC.

  • "Windows Genuine ADVANTAGE" (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Deja vu all over again.

  • Sadly, I doubt them ... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    At this point, it's difficult to distinguish Microsoft's own ineptness where they put out updates that break things, and actively trying to break those systems so people have to upgrade.

    Unfortunately, after many years in the industry, I have learned with Microsoft to never attribute to incompetence what can be attributed to malice.

    My cynical view here is that someone issued a directive to break Windows 7. I could be wrong, but I don't extend the goodwill to Microsoft to assume I am.

  • Remote Desktop Dead (Score:5, Informative)

    by WankerWeasel ( 875277 ) on Thursday January 10, 2019 @01:18PM (#57938262)
    Experienced this issue with remote desktop which the update killed. Found others were experiencing the same. Uninstall the update and remote desktop works again.
    • What operating system? Windows 10? 7? Home/Pro? Which update was the problem? KB4480960 or KB4480970 ? Sorry for being bothersome - someone I know ran in to this issue last night and we were unable to figure out why RDP wasn't working for 1 computer in particular - the best we could do was a solid black display in RDP.

      • Re:Remote Desktop Dead (Score:5, Informative)

        by WankerWeasel ( 875277 ) on Thursday January 10, 2019 @01:58PM (#57938570)
        KB4480970 on Windows 7 Professional. Kept getting a message that the connection couldn't be made and it may be because the password expired. Happened when attempting to connect to it from 2 difference devices (another desktop and a smartphone) which both were able to connect to it previously. Heck, I used Remote Desktop to install the update on the remote computer and after the restart to finish the install, it would no longer connect. Had to get out a keyboard and mouse to attach to it, login, and uninstall KB4480970. Now it works fine again.
        • Thanks mate!

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Actually this got broken in win10 with KB4483234 also!!

          instead of uninstalling the patches, you can fix it like this:
          Run gpedit.msc
          Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Credentials Delegation -> Encryption Oracle Remediation
          Change it to Enable and in Protection level, change back to Vulnerable.

          enjoy! :) (and yes, as a sysadmin, I'm really tired of MS bs patching)

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Darkk ( 1296127 )

            Thanks for the tip! I haven't released the new updates to our enterprise environment yet due to the BS updates the past few months.

            Actually this got broken in win10 with KB4483234 also!!

            instead of uninstalling the patches, you can fix it like this:

            Run gpedit.msc

            Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Credentials Delegation -> Encryption Oracle Remediation
            Change it to Enable and in Protection level, change back to Vulnerable.

            enjoy! :) (and yes, as a sysadmin, I'm really tired of MS bs patching)

  • Any fix for slow SMB? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by snapsnap ( 5451726 ) on Thursday January 10, 2019 @01:21PM (#57938292)

    I copied a 2 GB file, and it took nearly threee weeks. It finally completed and the md5sum checked out, but that's ridiculous. I don't need to access our Windows file share often, but some of my coworkers do. It's driving them nuts.

    • Re:Any fix for slow SMB? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 10, 2019 @01:36PM (#57938406)
      I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Win10 fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a Windows Box (a G5 Dual 2.5Ghz Machine w/ 100 GIG of RAM) for about 3 weeks now while it attempts to copy a 2GB file from one folder on the SMB to another folder. 3 weeks. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running Slackware 1.0, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this Win10 machine, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.

      In addition, during this file transfer, Explorer will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even vi is straining to keep up as I type this.

      I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various Windows installs, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Win10 that has run faster than its Android counterpart, despite the Arm's faster chip architecture. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs faster than this 2.5 Ghz Dual machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the Win10 machine is a superior machine

      Win addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a Windows machine over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.
      • This has nothing to do with Win 10 and everything to do with something is seriously wrong if it's taking weeks to copy a file..the kind of wrong that can happen to pretty much any OS if files get corrupted, or something wasn't set up right or if something was installed that shouldn't be installed or goofed (like an antivirus goofed up).
      • I copied a 51.8 GB file from one SSD to another last night in about 5 minutes on Win 7.

      • "I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a Windows machine over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems."

        In no particular order, here are several intelligent reasons why I'm still running Windows
        ( Win 7 Ultimate, Updates and Patches disabled because they tend to break more than they fix )

        Wacom MobileStudio Pro 16 Tablet - $2699 Win 10 only
        The entire Adobe CC Suite - $650 / year Win / Mac only
        Sibelius Ultimate - $900 perpetual license Win / Mac only
        Cubase Pro - $550 perpetu

    • 3 Weeks for 2GB is NOT typical for Windows file transfer. Reach out to your IT support, neighborhood nerd, computer shop, or forums - something is really wrong for it to take that long.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Doke ( 23992 )
        Please do not pester your neighborhood nerd. We're all sick of fixing other people's computers, especially if they're clueless. We recently saw one where the owner had put over 20,000 icons on the desktop, then wondered why it was slow.
      • If he's still using a Pentium Pro with Slackware he's most likely the neighborhood nerd.

    • I copied a 2 GB file, and it took nearly threee weeks. ... some of my coworkers do. It's driving them nuts.

      That's like 2KB/sec, USR modem speed. Install WireShark somewhere (NOT on your production server) and see what the problem is -- something's busted. (like you don't know!)

      Or check out Resilio Sync (was BitTorrent Sync.) It's a freemium product (think business use must pay, but you could set it up to see if it suffices) which will keep specific/all files synced up between users/servers. You can choose exactly which ones, and the users can also sync between themselves without the server.

      Also libre Syn

    • What did you do to break it? Undo that and you have you fix. There's no wide spread issue with SMB speed. Every consider your HDD in your NAS is shitting itself?

  • I know I've pulled a random relative's Windows 7 computer out and turned it on after a random amount of time, reinstalled the system with the key on the system, and got it flagged as not genuine.

    I think Microsoft just wants you to call up their activation helpline in these edge cases, for a variety of small reasons. Not the least of which would be subtle pushes to want an upgrade on old systems.

    But for systems you just want as a garage tool system, or something like a Plex or random file server a relative

    • Just yesterday, I was fixing a computer of an acquaintance whose HDD started to make weird clacking noises and would not boot their Windows 7 Pro any more.
      Ordered an SSD, downloaded the latest Win 7 Pro 64 image and created a bootable usb drive. Installation of hard and software went without any issues. Fortunately the new install would recognize the old drive. So I ran ProduKey which found the old key.

      Activation would not work. I called the helpline (which is usual here in Germany for activating OEM Win

  • I hope they have fix by the time I boot up windows (Score:4, Funny)

    by Revek ( 133289 ) on Thursday January 10, 2019 @01:43PM (#57938464)

    Should happen sometime in the next six months.

  • RDP fix for win7/8/10 (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Actually RDP also broke in win10 with KB4483234 ... (as well as win7)

    instead of uninstalling the patches, you can fix it like this:
    Run gpedit.msc
    Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Credentials Delegation -> Encryption Oracle Remediation
    Change it to Enable and in Protection

  • The ability to authorized an operating system is clearly a national security risk. Once a operating system is paid for, there should be not allowed way to deauthorize--else or enemies will surly take advantage of it.

    Additionally, this happened with the last update on my machine; is Microsoft testing rolling operating system blackouts?

  • I stopped updating my old Win7 box when an update blasted me off the net and I had to recover with a System Restore point.

    I recently went full time to Linux Mint and I plan on running Win7 in a VM for a few older Windows programs I still have to use.

    Microsoft is, in my opinion, deliberately crashing older versions in order to force people onto Windows 10. That's just never going to happen on any of my computers, never never never.

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