AskWoody

Dell’s Encryption Console gets clobbered by this month’s Patch Tuesday Win10, 8.1, 7 patches

Yesterday, Dell confirmed that

Dell Encryption’s Local Management Console may fail to display information and the activation status may read “_UNMNGD_” after installing the March 2019 Cumulative Update. This affects all current versions of Microsoft Windows and Dell Encryption.

Dell says the problem crops up after installing the Patch Tuesday Cumulative Updates for Win10 1809, 1803, 1709, 1703, or Server 2016, or the Monthly Rollups or Security-Only patches for Win7 or 8.1.

Clean sweep.

The solution?

Update to Dell Encryption 10.2.1 or later, which can be found at: https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=3wtc7.

To resolve this issue on versions prior to Dell Encryption 10.2.1, remove the March 2019 Cumulative Update.

(“Cumulative Update” in this case means the first monthly Cumulative Update for Win10, or the Monthly Rollup or Security-Only patch for Win7 or 8.1. Not sure what to do if you’ve already installed the second monthly Cumulative Update for Win10 1803, 1709 or Server 2016.)

Win10 installations with earlier versions of Dell Encryption also have to manually block the update from re-appearing using wushowhide.

Thx @Kirsty

Windows 10 nag for Windows 7 makes an appearance

Lawrence Abrams at BleepingComputer has the full story.

As I warned in Computerworld yesterday, the currently optional (but soon to be pushed) patch KB 4493132 carries with it the lovely retro payload shown above.

Per Abrams, KB 4493132 “installs an executable that will be run daily on Windows.” The executable is sipnotify.exe and it’ll show the notifications starting on April 18.  sipnotify.exe is triggered by two new scheduled tasks. There’s a hook so Microsoft can “modify the message and templates shown at a later date.”

See the BleepingComputer report for full details.

Will the “Do not remind me again” checkbox work? My guess is that MS will come up with some mealy-mouthed way to override it, probably by altering the notification at some point…. “You said don’t remind you with that notification, but this is an all new, improved notification and our new machine learning routines said that you would really want it…”

Somebody remind me of the definition of a Potentially Unwanted Program.

UPDATE: I’m getting notes from various people — including JR Raphael, via Gregg Keizer (Hi, JR, Gregg!) — that KB 4493132 now appears as checked and Important in Windows Update, at least on some machines. @abbodi86 now notes that the nagware payload won’t be offered to Professional, Enterprise and Embedded editions of Win7.

This month’s second cumulative updates for Win10 appear — but 1809 is missing again

This is starting to get repetitive.

Yesterday, Microsoft released its second monthly cumulative updates for Win10 versions 1803, 1709, 1703, and 1607. The second “optional non-security” patch for 1809 is MIA, as usual.

As best I can tell, none of this month’s bugs have been fixed. Indeed, there’s a new one to add to the potent stew:

If you enable per font end-user-defined characters (EUDC), the system will stop working and a blue screen will appear at startup. This is not a common setting in non-Asian regions.

I also see Monthly Rollup Previews for Win7 and 8.1.

Same advice as always: Don’t patch. Wait for the screams of pain to subside.

Microsoft issues KB4493132 Windows 7 SP1 support notification

For those of you wondering how you will get the nag for Windows 7 EOL, Microsoft has released KB4493132 on March 19, 2019.

@Cybertooth asks

Windows Update is offering my Windows 7 box a patch released yesterday, KB4493132:
Does anybody know anything about this update? A search here at Woody’s showed no results. Even a Web search via DuckDuckGo turned up nothing.

KB4493132 is available through Windows Update if you want notifications during the next year that Windows 7 will reach end of support on January 14, 2020.

After 10 years of servicing, January 14, 2020, is the last day Microsoft will offer security updates for computers running Windows 7 SP1. This update enables reminders about Windows 7 end of support. More information about Windows 7 end of support can be found here.

This update is available through Windows Update. If automatic updates are enabled, this update will be downloaded and installed automatically. For more information about how to turn on automatic updating, see Windows Update: FAQ.

Hiding this patch is suggested for those of you who don’t want multiple reminders during the next year.

Details (which are few) in Computerworld. Seven Semper Fi!

Patch Lady – downloading the 1809 iso

So given that the tea leaves look like that 1903 is coming soon, I’m making sure that I’m downloading 1809 from the media download site and parking it on a location so that when I’m ready to install 1809, I have it ready to go.

Today the previews of next month updates came out for everything but 1809.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

So if you decide WHEN you want the feature releases, make sure you’ve deferred to the semi annual channel and have 1809 downloaded and parked for the future.

KB 4487017 Feb Cumulative update for Win10 v1803 causing BSODs

@weedacres reports that the Feb 2019 Cumulative Update KB KB4487017 for Win10 v1803  is causing BSODs.

One of my customers called yesterday reporting BSOD’s on their two HP AIO’s. This KB is the 2019-02 Cumulative update for 1803. This apparently started on or about 3/8 when the update was installed.

I found that they’re getting 001a BSOD’s and after some research saw that many others are having the same problem. I saw several failures while working on both PC’s and finally uninstalled the update last evening. I hid it with wushowhide and so far all seems well.

My question is how long with wushowhide keep it hidden? Am I going to have to hand tend this thing until the March updates install?

Is anyone else seeing this problem?

This is a correction to an earlier report. It was not KB 4023057 causing the problems.

More signs that MS is closer to releasing 1809

This page was changed today

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4028685/windows-10-get-the-update

Any idea what’s up?

Thx VulturEMaN

Patch Lady – Domain admins and issues with KB4489878

Sandeep pointed out that after he installed KB4489878 on a Server 2008 R2 he can no longer use the netdom query commands.  I can attest that commands on a Server 2012 R2 machine work fine, but on a Server 2008 R2 it comes back with an error.

That’s what it looks like on a Server 2008 R2 after the March updates when I went to check.

This is what it looks like on a Server 2012 R2 after the March updates on a patched server.

Anyone else seeing this?

netdom /query is a command used by Admins to determine what server is the domain controller, what holds what is called the FSMO roles.

In on premises deployments it’s a command not used that often, but it’s like the c prompt or command line.  It normally just works and you take it for granted.

It’s not a deal breaker bug, but needs to be addressed nonetheless.  I’ll keep you posted on the status.

Now documented in the KB as a known issue.  Microsoft is working on the fix.