Microsoft Says it Will Release Black Desktop Bug Fix To All Windows 7 Users For Free

Mark Wycislik-Wilson, writing for BetaNews: Some Windows 7 users who installed the KB4534310 update found that their desktops turned black. With the operating system having now reached end of life, the company said that it would only make a fix available to organizations paying for Windows 7 Extended Security Updates (ESU). But Microsoft has changed its mind. It now says that it will make a patch available for all Windows 7 users, addressing the bug introduced by the last ever freely available Windows 7 update. As we reported the other day, Microsoft had already suggested some workarounds for the black desktop problem. The company had said that it was working on a fix that would be released next month: "We are working on a resolution and estimate a solution will be available in mid-February for organizations who have purchased Windows 7 Extended Security Updates (ESU)."

The updates that matter

[xack]

Will still get released. Microsoft knows there are a significant amount of users for which Windows 10 is not an option. Any major updates will be free just like on XP. The alternative for Microsoft is Wannacry combined with Code Red.

Re:

[toddestan]

I figure Windows 7 has about another good 3 years of support by third parties. By that I mean for the next 3 years, you won't be getting updates but just about anything you might want to run on Windows will work on Windows 7. So you'll still have an up to date browser, antivirus, most any new game will run, and so forth. After that, it'll start getting a bit iffy as various third parties drop support for Windows 7.

Windows 8.1 users won't be so lucky. They still get another 3 years of support from Micros

Re:

[jungletek]

[...]So you'll still have an up to date browser, antivirus, most any new game will run, and so forth. After that, it'll start getting a bit iffy as various third parties drop support for Windows 7.[...]

It's already happening. For probably close to a year now, Adobe products past a certain version are requiring Windows 10 when the same version was running fine on Windows 7 one point-release earlier. Of course this was hand-waved away as "supporting a single platform" or somesuch bullshit.

Games are already doing it too. One or more of the latest Forza games, and Control, off the top of my head, require Windows 10, though there's slightly more practical reasons (for some people) to make the switch, given tha

Re:The updates that matter

[twocows]

This "update" is more of a hotfix for a very visible issue they introduced themselves with one of the final updates. If they didn't hotfix it, they'd be getting complaints that they're deliberately gimping Windows 7 to push Windows 10. The only updates Win7 is likely to get going forward are for publicized high severity security flaws that can be used without much difficulty to compromise computers in common configurations and spread to other computers using the same configuration. BlueKeep is a good example. There are still thousands of vulnerabilities that go unpatched because they're lower severity or harder to take advantage of. A remote exploit that only gives user-level access and an LPE might each individually be assigned a lower severity score and not get patched, but when used in tandem you can still achieve the same effect of full remote compromise of a system.

Assuming your security situation is relatively low-risk (you're a low-profile home user doing typical things home users do, don't have any public-facing services on standard ports, don't have a lot of sensitive information to hide, and don't run random software you find online like cracks etc.), you'll probably be reasonably safe as long as you continue to keep a low profile, at least until browser developers stop supporting Windows 7. But that's a lot of assumptions I'm making there. The thing about computers is they're designed as general purpose devices and people do a lot of different things with them. When you're talking about the scale of "everyone still using Windows 7," a lot of those assumptions and probably lots of others I'm missing won't hold true, people will expose themselves by doing something that is no longer safe to do on Win7, and then their device (and possibly others on their network) will end up part of some guy's botnet sending spam and mining crypto. Maybe Dad wants to run a web server so he can have a family website with the family album, except uh oh, the web server software he uses stopped supporting Win7 in Feb 2021 and it's now 2023 and he's still using Win7. Just an example.

It's definitely true that most people will probably be fine using Windows 7 for a while longer, but when we're talking about general populations, there are tons of edge cases that result in probably several orders of magnitude more infections than you'd get if those people updated to Win10, and every edge case is another spambot slamming everyone's email servers. So it's in everyone's best interest to at least urge people to get off Win7 as a matter of general practice, even if you in particular are able to lock down such a computer for your use case for now (you won't be able to indefinitely).

Re:

[jellomizer]

I just put it down to, that is what you get when you cheap out on your IT Budget.
If you are going to be using windows, you need to make sure all your vendors will keep their products up to date with the new software. Avoid jumping on Fads ideas, and always have a migration plan ready at a drop of a hat.

Re:

[KB3HAG]

Ah, but no more XP updates will get released at all - period. No matter how severe.

They only patched the wormable ones, and only because other XP variants were still in support and CSA support for paying customers was still available.

In 3 years time, after CSA/ESU support ends for paying customers, no more 7 patches will be developed AT ALL. Just like with XP now - microsoft no longer has anyone developing patches for the OS and even paying customers cannot get updates for it anymore. XP had variants in dif

Re:

[jrumney]

In this case, it is probably their legal team advising them they need to issue the update to everyone for free. A lot of jurisdictions have implied warranties on repairs carried out, and shrink wrap contracts in those jurisdictions generally cannot override the minimum legal guarantees, so Microsoft introducing an obvious new bug in their last patch for Windows 7 then saying they will only fix it if you pay them is going to get them in a lot of trouble.

Re:

[Q-Hack!]

Why? Pretty much everybody who works with IT knows that Microsoft has been trying to go full "Software as a Service" for a while now. If you don't like their business model, you are free to move over to something else. Suing a company just because you can't be bothered to read the EULA is asinine.

Re:

[jellomizer]

Microsoft is smart enough to screw you over just enough that dealing with them is slightly cheaper then the hassle of switching to something else, to await some non-quantified long term benefit.

I remember having a contractor look at a home expansion. They went, this will raise the property of your home by 40k. We can do the work for 38k... That noted I didn't go with them, but it is a similar process, the cost of change is high, even with Free Software. So Microsoft can Milk a million dollars from you to

Re: For Free?

[Type44Q]

Nice try, except for the fact that, logically-speaking, a click-thru EULA can't possibly constitute a valid contract (regardless what the corrupt want to claim). Now fuck off.

Re:

[KB3HAG]

Custom support agreement / ESU support for a 3 year period post-EOL (10 year support window) of their OS has been the standard policy for 20 years. This is nothing new at all.........

Releasing public post-EOL fixes for wormable exploits is semi-new, but with XP fully retired now (no CSA possible - you can't even pay for patches anymore) no more post-EOL XP updates will be coming (and the same will be true for 7 in 3 years)

Updates after the cutoff weren't going to be good

[bjdevil66]

I skipped and blocked that last Windows 7 update because I knew it wasn't gonna be anything for my benefit (no more security updates meant no more GOOD updates).

Sure enough - it busted Windows 7's desktop for everyone unfortunate enough to install it.

Unless you have ESU coverage, Win7 updates are over.

Re:

[deKernel]

Might want to back away from the "everyone" statement. I have several VMs locally that I use as well as all the VMs at our office are working just fine. I realize it is fun and all to rant against MS, but if you were to look at the total number of Win7 installs and compare against the number experiencing this issue that you would find the percentage to be quite small. Remember, I am fully admitting I am speculating here.

Re:

[jrumney]

It has busted for everyone, just you are not currently using the stretched wallpaper feature they busted. One day in future, you may want to do that, and then find that it was busted for you too after all.

No

[DogDude]

Sure enough - it busted Windows 7's desktop for everyone unfortunate enough to install it.

That's not true. That did not happen to any of our 30+ PC's.

Re:

[KB3HAG]

The update only broke your background if you had a specific option set - most users will not have this option set.

It is a feature.

[jovius]

By now they must be doing things like this because it is part of the MS culture. They likely have a brilliantly crafted piece of software or AI that deliberately inserts random bugs in the code.

Upgrade your system = system blacks out: look at that good old Microsoft Microsofting again, I wonder what they do next. Something to trust in the post-modern days of social isolation. And so on..

Re:

[codeButcher]

On non-pay software including Eclipse (and derivatives like Android Studio and IntelliJ), Firefox, many phone apps, and of course Linux desktop managers "dark theme" or "night mode" is in fact an intentional and well-working feature (not a bug) that saves some electri... I mean carbon emissions, on top of reducing eye strain. Seems MS missed an opportunity.

Re:

[barakn]

Saves some electricity? Maybe if you were using a CRT, the black screen would come from it not firing a high-speed stream of electrons at your head during much of the scanning, and that would save some juice, but if you are using an LCD, the backlight is on no matter what. Dark modes don't save much electricity. https://www.digitaltrends.com/... [digitaltrends.com]

Re:

[paralumina01]

They break Windows 7 installs with a new patch in order to trick users to install Windows 10, but it appears that it backfired, so to appear like a benevolent and caring company, they are releasing the fix for the intentional bug that they forced on users.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Do they bother testing anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why I won't use MS products in my company. It's painfully clear that they literally test nothing before they push it out, and depend on "user experience feedback" to find bugs.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[freeze128]

You *CONTROL* the system, but Microsoft *UPDATES* the code. Unless you can fix the vulnerabilities yourself, you're just a botnet waiting to happen.

Re:

[rtb61]

You missed the bit where MS pretty fucking regularly releases shitty bug fixes that break more than they fix. Yeah, I am from the same camp, no M$ updates until they have been out in the wild for at least a month, worked out really well for me on many occasions.

Rely on the windows OS for security are you nuts, I run multiple security apps to provide the security M$ regularly lacks and always set all machines with dual boot, so I can always boot to Linux to fix Windows. Still have an original install (no rei

Nice gesture but....

[SmaryJerry]

They release an update that causes additional bugs immediately before ending support? That is extremely suspicious given they want to force you to upgrade. I would expect them to fix a bug like that that was introduced by them.. although I don't expect any further updates once they clean up their own mess

Then sell us the updates.

[Anonymous Coward]

The fundamental issue with 7 and 10 is this: end users and the SOHO market cannot purchase the products they actually want.

As one such customer, I want one of two things:

1) The ability to purchase ESU without having to go through some random third party who refuses to deal in fiddling small change and who refuse to sell me the ESU unless I purcahse 10-20-50 licenses.

MS talks a good game about how ESU is available, and yet I, as an individual, cannot simply go to microsoft.com, newegg.com, spamazon.com

Re:

[KB3HAG]

"2) The option to purchase Win10 Enterprise without similar market-segmenting bullshit involving MS "Partners" who refuse to deal with purchases of anything less than enterprise-numbers of seats.

I'm even willing to pay a premium (leaving aside the fact that Win10 "Pro" is the functional equivalent of Win7 "Home" when it comes to end user control over the OS) for the right to have a registry entry or group policy of "Telemetry:None" respected an honored.

Microsoft will not sell it to me."

Uh, have you tried ta

Re:

[drinkypoo]

I paid $100 for Windows 7 professional. Are you telling me I can volume license 10 for $120?

Crap - All crap

[AndyKron]

They can't even get wallpaper right after decades of trying.

Re:

[Anachronous Coward]

I keep all my desktops black. It's a nuisance to have to set "black.jpg" as my desktop background every time I deal with a new machine. For me, this would be a feature, not a bug!

Re:

[Ed Avis]

But you don't need black.jpg. Windows has always had the option to set the background to a solid colour. That's also quicker to repaint than an image, even a solid black one.

Re:

[WallyL]

There was a bug, somewhere, in some version of Windows (probably 98 or XP) that would cause issues if you set your wallpaper to a solid color. It might have been related to a certain program, or screen resolution-- I can't quite remember anymore. However, there was a reason I didn't use the "solid color" option. Therefore, I too always used black.jpg!

Re:

[antdude]

MS will break something else with this fix. Heh!

How magnanimous

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

How magnanimous of them to fix a bug they created.

You get what you pay for

[slick7]

I paid for windows 7 years ago. Why is it such an issue to want to continue using it? My OS library started with ms-dos, windows 1.0, 1.01, 3.0, 3.1, 3.11, windows 95, windows xp, windows vista, and windows 7; I tried 8 but it sucked. Not once was I offered a free upgrade. I'm tired of being forced to upgrade at a cost.

According to TFA, the latest version of 7 didn't work very well, hmmm. And your "fix"? I sincerely doubt that it's a fix. It's probably more like that asshat's vaccines. USELESS!

Luckily, I

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Same bug hit Windows 10

[Khyber]

My laptop, which runs a legitimate copy of Win10, has my wallpaper unstretched, top-aligned, centered. On the desktop, it is stretched/centered so that it fits the screen properly.

Non-legit Win10 install, which does not get updates, does not have this fuckery going on.

Fucking Microsoft can't even get wallpapers done correctly, SMH.