Warning: Microsoft Pulls Windows 10 Security Update After Reports of Serious Bugs (forbes.com) 103
Slashdot reader golden_donkey quotes Forbes:
Are you booting up your Windows 10 machine and discovering you can't log in to your profile? It appears you're not alone. Reports are increasing across Twitter and Microsoft forums that following the most recent Patch Tuesday update (KB4532693), users are complaining that their profiles and desktop files are missing, and that custom icons and wallpaper have all been reset to their default state...
The KB4532693 update is allegedly causing much more serious headaches for some users. A newer report by Windows Latest cites multiple users in their comments section complaining that the data is nowhere to be found and allegedly not recoverable.
Microsoft has now "yanked KB4524244 from its update servers..." reports ZDNet, "after acknowledging reports of 'an issue affecting a sub-set of devices.'" Microsoft says customers who have successfully installed the update don't need to take any further steps. Those who have configured PCs to defer installation of updates by at least four days should also be unaffected.
For those who are experiencing issues related to this update, Microsoft recommends uninstalling the update.
Forbes also shared a video "on a related note." Its title? "How To Choose A Linux Distro That's Right For You..."
The KB4532693 update is allegedly causing much more serious headaches for some users. A newer report by Windows Latest cites multiple users in their comments section complaining that the data is nowhere to be found and allegedly not recoverable.
Microsoft has now "yanked KB4524244 from its update servers..." reports ZDNet, "after acknowledging reports of 'an issue affecting a sub-set of devices.'" Microsoft says customers who have successfully installed the update don't need to take any further steps. Those who have configured PCs to defer installation of updates by at least four days should also be unaffected.
For those who are experiencing issues related to this update, Microsoft recommends uninstalling the update.
Forbes also shared a video "on a related note." Its title? "How To Choose A Linux Distro That's Right For You..."
I guess the important takeaway from the article is (Score:5, Insightful)
"Those who have configured PCs to defer installation of updates by at least four days should also be unaffected."
I'd think about a 2 week deferral would be much better.
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I wouldn't let my enemies use Microsoft.
Re: Wait... People still use Windows?!? (Score:1)
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Unless friend be happens ro use software only available on windows, and is unwilling tuouse alternatives
So sad, but so true. Wonder if that will ever change?
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We need vastly improved software format compatibility. I use multiple devices: IPad, Linux laptop and Windows 10 desktop, In the past, I've also owned dual boot-systems (most recently, Windows 7 and Linux Mint). No matter how much I enjoy the Linux experience, and appreciate the advantages, I cannot move away from Windows until I find adequate "alternatives" to the MS software that remain mission critical in my life.
MS Office (desktop version) leads the list. I have years of data I need to
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I couldn't agree more, but some applications simply don't have an equivalent in the Linux world.
I have to use Win 10 to run an application named Blue Iris, and there's nothing out there that really comes close in terms of functionality. There just isn't.
Zoneminder on Linux looks good until you start digging into it, and then it's one dead end after another.
Re:Wait... People still use Windows?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
How about running it in Windows in a virtual machine on an operating system of your choice. That program will run better as it's the only thing, or only one of a couple, running in Windows.
Re:Wait... People still use Windows?!? (Score:5, Interesting)
How about a class action law suit, it is tricky for M$ now, you do not choose to update windows 10, they force you and when they do it badly, they should pay the price, again, they are forcing you to install a bad update, seemingly to test it in numbers, prior to running that update on commercial systems, you the retail customers are nothing but a free , well no, pay for the privilege, crash test dummy for M$. It should be criminal what they are doing. Now is them time to start complaining to political candidates.
So which candidates will start holding tech companies to account for bad updates, why should you pay the cost of their incompetence, there should REALLY BE A LAW, and now it the opportune time to become politically active about it, demand laws to ban forced updates and fines for buggy updates. Start communicating with your Presidential candidate, you congressperson and senator. Demand they crack down on forced installs of bad software.
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How about a class action law suit
Sure let's run with this.
Prosecution: My update applied on day 1 broke.
Defense: If you're running anything important we have given you the option to defer security updates for up to 30 days, and feature updates for 1 year. Additionally you can disable all remote connections for updates including virus definitions for 7 days. And we pulled the update in 4 days.
Judge: Prosecution you're a bunch of donkeys, don't forget to donate your legal fees to your lawyers on the way out.
Re:Wait... People still use Windows?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
There should be a class action. Microsoft fired most of their QA staff and instead tests patches on users. They push them out and wait to see if bug reports come in from Windows telemetry. If they notice an unusually high number of crashes during installation or in the patched DLLs they think about pausing the roll out and having another go.
Unfortunately everyone does it now. On iOS and Android apps are updated slowly at first so the developer can see if they get a load of crash reports back. Tesla does it with car software.
A big class action against Microsoft might be enough to at least force big companies that can afford a QA department to do a bit of due diligence before shipping code.
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That's basically how it works now. Home users get patches first, Pro can delay a bit longer, Enterprise can delay for years.
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You could try and get Congress to pass laws to make it illegal, I guess.
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Not illegal but you could sue for being irresponsible and causing you problems with bad patches.
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How about running it in Windows in a virtual machine on an operating system of your choice.
Doesn't work. Games don't run better, strange hardware doesn't run better, and Chrome suddenly goes from taking 200MB of RAM per tab to taking 8GB.
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How about running it in Windows in a virtual machine on an operating system of your choice.
Doesn't work. Games don't run better, strange hardware doesn't run better, and Chrome suddenly goes from taking 200MB of RAM per tab to taking 8GB.
Yeah, I think hoping for better performance running it as a VM is dubious at best. For a video-intensive app that's recording multiple streams 27/7, I suspect it would have performance issues. And the idea of having to setup all this stuff all over again only to find out it's worse would just be adding insult to injury.
I'd have to get rid of Windows, install Linux, tune everything, install Windows again, tune and debloat it again, install the application again, set it up and tune it, then run benchmarks onl
Re: Wait... People still use Windows?!? (Score:1)
If by "all" of their engineering you mean about 10 percent. But yes, Windows has a long way to go to be 100% bug free like all the Linux distros are :P
Re: Wait... People still use Windows?!? (Score:1)
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But, if everyone did this, it would be weeks before the millions of Win10 alpha testers saw the errors!
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Bug secured!
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I have a security DVR box that runs Win 10, and I update it about once a month. I hate doing it precisely because of this kind of shit.
No updates are installed unless I approve them manually, period. No automatic updates, no exceptions, zero, zip, nada. And I usually skip anything that's less than a week old.
Frankly, I'm not sure I ever really need to update it since all it does is run the security camera software (Blue Iris), but with Microsoft's craptastic record of vulnerabilities I feel like I should do
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Blue Iris and its 18 FFmpeg GPL violations are discussed at https://ipvm.com/forums/video-... [ipvm.com]
I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do with this information. Should I stop using Blue Iris? Code my own extremely good surveillance app over the next few years? Go "tut tut" at the people who sell the software?
Please advise on how I am to proceed.
I would have waited. (Score:2)
I installed this update yesterday, but If I have known this in advance I would have waited.
AIH it did seem to go smoothly, but took a blood age to install on my i7/SSD laptop, well over an hour in total with three restarts.
King James Bible, Proverbs 16:18 (Score:2)
---- Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. ----
That pretty much sums up Microsoft's development across the decades.
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Re: King James Bible, Proverbs 16:18 (Score:1)
"No one of us is as dumb as all of us" - Guy who worked there 1:24.
And yet you wonder... (Score:2)
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Machine still never taken over, despite dire warnings.
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1) All telemetry can be turned off
2) All ability to force remote updates can be disabled
I control my machine, and I will update manually when I feel it is appropriate (allowing me to ensure I have proper backups and failure recovery plan in place). This way, I don't get screwed when I need to use my computer but Microsoft decided for me that I needed to have an updated driver pushe
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Both can be done with O&O Shutup10
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Both can be done with O&O Shutup10
I'm not going to use it, but a link would have been nice. [oo-software.com]
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[... snipped for brevity ...]
1) All telemetry can be turned off
How to disable Telemetry and Data Collection in Windows 10 [winaero.com]
Stop Windows 10 spying on you using just Windows Firewall [winaero.com]
sometimes a bit of qa wouldnt hurt (Score:5, Insightful)
It has been a trend for long now to drop much of the QA department in the big IT companies, and just release all the time. Test in production. Some people at Microsoft have given it the name "Minimum Viable Quality". I suppose for some products and services it wouldn't hurt to have a bit more of QA.
This bug does not seem too bad, the customer testers likely wont care that much. Just more stories to complain about. But when you hit a real issue and for millions of re-installs, which seems bound to happen...
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It spread.
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They pushed it out to QA on Tuesday.
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In our department, we call that "Bananaware".
Delivered while green and ripens at the customer's.
reorg issues ? (Score:2)
With all the issues M/S have had with windows, I guess this reorg (zdnet) [zdnet.com] did not work out too well
now off to make more popcorn
Time to go MS (Score:2)
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Re:Time to go MS (Score:4, Insightful)
I think they will wrap Linux up in a MS UI and sell that as new and improved.
Re:Time to go MS (Score:5, Interesting)
Mint with Fusion can work with, though not boot from, a NTFS partion. If MS makes Linux able to boot from and fully work with NTFS (compatible permission structure, disk management tools, etc.), then there's no reason at all to keep using Windows other than for the few bits of software (I have 2) that require it. I figure that since MS has moved most Office use to O365 (mostly cloudy/online via browser), that should work as well in Linux (with Firefox) as in Windows. That removes the old *hurrr can't use Linux because I need MS Office* complaint.
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they will wrap Linux up in a MS UI
The MS UI by itself would be a bug nest. They better build their own distrib, ms-Linux or something.
No Problem (Score:1)
All of my Windows 10 PC's have been updated without issue.
So it goes.
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My 3 all updated too, though not without considerable delay in the process for one of them (a tiny tablet). AFAIK, non are using Secure Boot - one is way too old to have it (conventional BIOS), one has UEFI but has always run in BIOS mode, and the tiny tablet supposedly uses UEFI and Secure Boot but I don't understand how - it's 32-bit Windows 10 running in an older (Bay Trail) Atom. At any rate, the oldest 2 updated in about 1/2 hour total (including the background downloading and prep), and the tablet too
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Same here. No problems.
Any system supporting a wide variety of hardware and giving users a lot of room to change things will always encounter some percentage of problems.
I switched back to Win10 after using Ubuntu for a few years because of continuous issues with updates. Several times a year, I'd end up having to boot into the console and hand edit configuration files after updates in order to get the GUI running again. The issue is that I have an Acer laptop with both Intel and NVidia HW in a configuratio
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Only using Windows still because there is not a cloud or Linux version of Solidworks yet. Windows is still the OS of business, and fuck them for fucking with the tools that we all use to make money.
It's like there is no other possible OS for Business than Windows - something special about those 1's and zeros.
I'll probably get modded to hell and back, but the reason why Microsoft Windows sucks, and will continue to suck is because thier users will accept whatever Microsoft puts out.
Windows 10 has been a train wreck from the get go because there is zero need to have the machines work after an update. The faithful will just say "It's the standard for business", and there is no alternative."
When
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You make no point and are just ranting.
Gotta smack you over the head, I suppose. 8^)
My point is 1: Computing is computing. There is not one thing that Windows can do that Mac, Linux, or something else can't do
Do you accept that? Or is there some magic thing Microsoft does that simply cannot be performed on anything else?
I work in a field which is reliant on specialized software.
Okay. Me too.
Those software vendors are assholes and their ancient, rickety codebase is all Windows-specific. If we had a choice, we would be not using windows.
I have some software that is windows specific. So I use Windows for it. But if there is a choice, I use MacOS. There is a good bit of crossover. And yes, I have some MacOS specific software. But the Windows mac
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You're a fucking idiot. Computing is not computing.
Chillaxe homie. If you are actually arguing with my point, you are saying that it is not possible to write the software for anything but Windows. You are arguing that it is simply not possible to write this software for MacOS, or Unix. Otherwise you are just being obtuse. I know all about the niches. I work in one at present. Now the Windows only software I have to use isn't ancient, but since it is Windows only, that's what it gets run on.
So relax, have an adult beverage of your choice, and try discus
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You don't get it do you, the power of GPL is the ability to detect, remove and ostracise anyone who would do this. Unlike BSD which is open source and the basis for Mac OS, GPL makes sure that the software with that license stays open and auditable. If you choose to run closed source software that spies on you, on top of Linux, that's your fault, not the OS of choice and freedom.
I hope you are a Poe, because if you believe what you just wrote - that's kinda sad. The internet is simply not built that way.
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Nothing to do with "the internet", genius.
Can't keep up can you? I was replying to a coward who was bitching about computers and operating systems spying on you.
So now my hyper intelligent AC - Explain how they are going to spy on you if they aren't connected to the internet?
Harmonic phases? Crystal resonances?
The only intelligent thing you did today was to post as an anonymous coward, because if you used your name, you'd be my new sig line as the dumbest twatwaffle on Slashdot. Now go eat some paste, and stare at your hand.
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I'll tell you what Windows AND Mac can do that Linux can't. Remove the users right to control their hardware, the right to know what their OS is doing, the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures from governments AND corporations.
Good lord, homie! I use all three, and I gotta tell ya that if you think Linux is somehow immune, I would suggest you look deeper. Love the constitutional curveball though.
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There is something special about those ones and zeroes - it has been the defacto standard for two decades. MS did an amazing job and monopolizing the market, but are burning all of that to the ground with their garbage win10.
I just wonder what the tipping point is. It is difficult for the rational part of my peabrain to think there isn't - but there might not be. After a several year hiatus from Windows, I had to use it again. But it isn't just the same old Windows - it's worse.
Perhaps a widespread cloud loss of data issue could get businesses to re-evaluate their use of this horrid OS. But I'm thinking they will go down with the ship - proclaiming Windows as the industry standard as it drags them down with it.
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No disputeing that -- It is a lot worse. We have exponentially more processing power at our hands and it still takes a minute to load my damn email on my 4+ ghz boost, 14 core machine with 64gb of ram on a gigabit fiber line.
Want to have the stable SW certified graphics driver on your $1000 quadro GPU so you can open the software you need to do your job? Oh, sorry windows updated to the new, worse graphics driver framework and you can't downgrade to the driver that worked fine. And the new one makes a big, critical part of your workflow suddenly not render on screen. Oh well, go fuck yourself and spend six hours in the windows forums (useless) and on random forums to find a howto detailing hacking your registry to uninstall whatever that terrible shit was called to revert to a known good driver.
Oh gawd - the windows forums.
Let's add to your list, updates renaming every sound driver on my Windows computer to the same name, plus an index number. Breaks the program, and I have to go in and change the names back to what they were - on over 30 drivers. Or killing a perfectly good laser printer driver and offering no new driver. Or killing the driver for a perfectly good USB to serial driver, again with no possible alternative. The devices still work perfectly on MacOS and Linux.
And finally, an update I had zero control over rebooting my Enterprise computer in the middle of a critical event. I did turn on the flame throwers on that last one.
And finally, seeing new (insert color here) screens of death, and in one case, an infinite reboot sequence.
Quality control (Score:2)
Even Microsoft in the 1980s made more reliable software than this.
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Even Microsoft in the 1980s made more reliable software than this.
Bullshit.
Remember the 3.0 rollout? File mangler refreshed its whole tree when changing directories. It was useless as tits on a boar. There was so much hell-raising by the IT departments that we simply refused to implement.
Microsoft published an update to Windows 3.1 and the only goddam fix was to tell file manager to refresh just whatever the hell the user was looking out.
That set the pattern whereby Microsoft beta tested its products by releasing unpolished shit to the public and then fixing all the sque
Oh Yeah! (Score:2)
I wants me some Windows 10, I gots to get rid of this antique "no longer supported" Win 7 stuff!
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I wants me some Windows 10, I gots to get rid of this antique "no longer supported" Win 7 stuff!
The irony of no longer supported Windows versions becoming the reliable Windows versions.
Use the Long Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) Edition (Score:5, Informative)
Use the Long Term Servicing Channel (LTSC)
"The Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC), also formerly known as the Long-Term Service Branch (LTSB), refers to a specialized Windows 10 edition specifically designed for scenarios and devices that require feature consistency, such as Point-of-Sale terminals, medical equipment (CAT/MRI scanners), industrial process controllers, ATMs and air traffic control devices."
https://blog.juriba.com/window... [juriba.com]
It gets security updates but not feature updates--and the feature updates have the bugs. While you can buy it on the internet, those of us of low moral character use file sharing.
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A shiver went down my back that there's medical equipment, industrial process controllers, and air traffic control devices that could be running Windows (10).
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The circulating snake on the ATM screen of one of my banks sure looks like embedded Win10.
Given that Win10 does get at least some support (of questionable effectiveness at times), I'd rather that those devices be on Win10 than on 7 or XP or (horrors) 98 or older. As is actually true of some of them. A better approach might be to have them running on a genuine RTOS, or if real-time isn't necessary some form of embedded Linux/BSD/QNix/Minix/etc.
Re: Use the Long Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) Edi (Score:2)
As long as those devices are on a closed network they usually don't need updates and you can cherry pick the updates needed through manual means.
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Fire alarm panels that control all the safety critical fire suppression and smoke extract systems too.
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There could be some, but I have not seen anything newer than Windows 7, and that's a minority. I can't speak for air traffic control devices, but Windows XP absolutely dominates here.
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It gets security updates...
So despite your long post you've offered absolutely nothing to prevent this from occurring, and the LTSC branch was just as likely to suffer from it.
Even normal joe-blow edition of Windows 10 allows deferring of feature updates for 365 days at which point the breaking bugs are well and truly ironed out. But the thing about "features" is that the LTSC branch only makes sense if you consider Windows 10 "feature complete". It's not. It's half baked and partially unfinished. Remember things such as taping the v
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Problem is you can't buy the LTSC edition. It's only available on subscription, just like all the Enterprise versions. It's $84/year but you need to have a Volume Licencing account set up, which means having a server to administer the licence, a business account with Microsoft etc.
There is the new Workstation edition which I think allows you to defer updates for longer but it's $340.
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My deferral windows are 180 days for feature upgrades and 7 days for security upgrades (2 days on systems exposed externally). The only issue I have with Windows updates at this point is the fact that you can only
Multiple times (Score:2)
Man, this keeps happening over and over. It's not the first time an update has wiped out an entire system.
I don't use Win10 myself, but I've helped family with their computers. Frequently, updates will create an entirely new profile for the owner, and move the old profile into a folder called "username.old". The data is still there, but when I try to open up the folder, Windows insists that I don't have security permissions to access the files. I have to do the typical runaround and reset security descr
Thank God I'm still on XP. (Score:3)
I'll just wait until they get the bugs out of Win10 before I upgrade.
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So you want it turned up to 11?
What are these 1 in a million doing? (Score:2)
One wonders what these 1 in a million lusers are doing that they are having a problem?
These people probably looked in the bathroom and in the fridge, under the couch and in the refuse bin for their data but couldn't find it anywhere. Probably the same lusers as answer the question "where did you save it" with "in my computer".
One has to take such reports with a large mountain sized grain of salt ...
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... a large mountain sized grain ...
A black hole, you live on.
Critical mass? (Score:2)
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I wonder if it is the case that MS's Windows code has reached the critical mass threshold beyond which the whole thing has become essentially unmaintainable? For, every time they apply a patch they seem to break something. The only question now is how seriously they will be breaking things with every new patch?
Yeah, I wonder, too.
I think MS is tired of Windows. That's why they stopped the train at station 10. Office is a cash cow and it's up on the web.
Windows has to be a money sink for them.