We're community supported and proud of it!
|
MS-DEFCON 3:
Patch reliability is unclear, but widespread attacks make patching prudent. Go ahead and patch, but watch out for potential problems.
|
Newsletter Archives
-
It’s time for 20H2
Posted on April 5th, 2021 at 01:00 Comment on the AskWoody LoungePATCH WATCH
By Susan Bradley
Are you ready for 20H2? I am!
If your computer hasn’t yet been offered 20H2, you aren’t alone. I’ve seen several laptops, including high end Dell gamer-style models, that haven’t been offered 20H2. A notification is shown in the bottom corner indicating that the system is coming to the end of support but when you click on the notice, nothing happens.
Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.12.0 (2021-04-05).
-
Dealing with printers
Posted on March 22nd, 2021 at 01:00 Comment on the AskWoody LoungePATCH WATCH
By Susan Bradley
Keeping printers up to dateOnce upon a time, I purchased an HP LaserJet 4L printer that would just keep on printing, year after year, until the plastic door on the top of the printer finally broke off. After my initial installation, the printer driver was never updated.
Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.11.0 (2021-03-22).
-
March madness drives printers to blue screen
Posted on March 15th, 2021 at 01:00 Comment on the AskWoody LoungePATCH WATCH
By Susan Bradley
The month of March is not starting off well for those of us who patch Windows 10 machines.
Patchers who have installed the March Windows 10 updates are reporting that upon printing to various printers, they receive a blue screen of death (BSOD), thus crashing their machines. While it doesn’t appear to impact every Windows machine/printer combination, it is widespread enough that Microsoft pulled these particular updates while it investigates.
Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.10.0 (2021-03-15).
-
MS-DEFCON 1 – Blue screens of death triggered by patches
Posted on March 10th, 2021 at 17:23 Comment on the AskWoody LoungeISSUE 18.9.2 • 2021-03-10
PATCH WATCH
By Susan Bradley
Don’t patch!I’ve moved the patching alert status to DEFCON 1.
I don’t do this lightly but we are seeing issues with printing after the March updates are installed. Ghacks reports blue screens of death (BSOD) are being triggered after printing. At the moment, it is unclear whether this is the result of the March operating system updates or just the Windows 10 versions, but for sure the Windows 10 releases are triggering these blue screens of death.
Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Alert 18.9.2 (2021-03-10).
Learn more about MS-DEFCON! -
You think you’ve been hacked?
Posted on March 8th, 2021 at 01:02 Comment on the AskWoody LoungePATCH WATCH
By Susan Bradley
Have you been hacked?Attackers these days are of two varieties — those that want you to know you’ve been attacked and those that don’t. The first camp is quite obvious about it. They are the ransomware attackers, the ones that throw up a note to let you know that your system is no longer your own and is instead held hostage. The second type of attacker is silent, lurking inside your computer with the goal of harvesting information or — worse yet — as a means to attack someone or something else.
Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.9.0 (2021-03-08).
-
MS-DEFCON 4 – February updates trigger few issues
Posted on March 1st, 2021 at 01:00 Comment on the AskWoody LoungePATCH WATCH
MS-DEFCON 4 – February updates trigger few issuesBy Susan Bradley
All-clear for February patchesIt’s that normal time of the month when I’ll urge everyone to get the February security updates installed. For consumers, I’m not tracking any major issues. l also recommend that those of you still on 1909 consider installing 2004 or 20H2, unless they are not yet being offered on your PCs. I’ve now installed 2004/20H2 on enough systems to be comfortable recommending either one on your machines. Remember, the complete list of February updates that I recommend — or not — can be found at any time on the Master Patch List.
Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.8.0 (2021-03-01).
-
The latest vulnerabilities in the network stack
Posted on February 22nd, 2021 at 01:02 Comment on the AskWoody LoungePATCH WATCH
The latest vulnerabilities in the network stackBy Susan Bradley
Focusing on business riskFor this week’s security focus, I’m going to home in on the impact of three security vulnerabilities considered by Microsoft the most critical security issues of the month and on their impact on businesses. Microsoft even released a specific blog post to focus on these risks; it urges installation as soon as possible. But I disagree with that assessment. I urge you to test first, ensure there are no issues with your systems, then patch as normal. I’m not yet ready to give the go-ahead for consumers to patch just yet.
Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.7.0 (2021-02-22).
-
When the patch is worse than the attack
Posted on February 15th, 2021 at 01:00 Comment on the AskWoody LoungePATCH WATCH
When the patch is worse than the attackBy Susan Bradley
.NET releases include known bugs
I was dismayed to see that Microsoft had released several .NET patches that have known interactions with a major developer software platform and could potentially have wider impact on those of us with line-of-business applications. Because .NET updates have been very well behaved for so long, I was finally feeling that .NET updates were trustworthy on their face, with no risks to my applications, and could thus be recommended without fear.
But not this month. It’s very disturbing to see Microsoft release a security update that has a known problem, one that had been identified even before the security patch was released.
Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.6.0 (2021-02-15).
-
Fixing a misbehaving computer
Posted on February 8th, 2021 at 01:30 Comment on the AskWoody LoungePATCH WATCH
Fixing a misbehaving computerBy Susan Bradley
Hitting the wall with Windows updates can be extremely frustrating and even scary. But machines that can’t install updates can be fixed.
On occasion, computers decide to drive your life crazy. When it comes to installing updates, they can often throw off confusing and unhelpful error messages. In the Windows 10 era, the Windows update error log and component-based servicing logs (cbs.log) can be hard to understand; see Microsoft’s Analyze the log file entries that SFC.exe generates article (which is still relevant to Windows 10) for help.
If you have a machine that is throwing off an error message when attempting to update, there are some paths forward.
Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.5.0 (2021-02-08).
-
Changing Patch Watch and giving you more information
Posted on February 1st, 2021 at 01:00 Comment on the AskWoody LoungePATCH WATCH
Changing Patch Watch and giving you more informationBy Susan Bradley
- A big change to Patch Watch
- Install updates at this time
- Security update for Secure Boot DBX can be skipped if you want (KB4535680)
- Server administrators need to watch out for KB4535680
- Conexant drivers STILL causing issues getting to 2004
- Use targetreleaseversion setting to be on Windows 10 2004 or 20H2
- Windows 7 ESU update process
A big change to Patch Watch
One of the big takeaways of the survey we did a few weeks ago was learning that the vast majority of you do NOT read the patching spreadsheets that I spend hours and hours (truly!) to create. Instead, you are more interested in finding out about when it is safe to patch and, more importantly, what patches to avoid. If you remember Sally Fields on the stage of the Oscars, saying, “You like me, you really really like me!” — well, clearly you really don’t like those spreadsheets of patching information.
Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.4.0 (2021-02-01).
-
Wow! Even more Office updates!
Posted on January 18th, 2021 at 02:30 Comment on the AskWoody LoungePATCH WATCH
Wow! Even more Office updates!By Susan Bradley
- Office 2010 receives more updates this month
- Windows Defender had a zero day that silently was patched
- Security update for Secure Boot DBX can be skipped (KB 4535680)
- I’m giving the all-clear for Windows 10 2004
Well … once again, we thought we’d seen the last of Office 2010. And here we are AGAIN with more updates!
Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.2.0 (2021-01-18).
-
Windows 10 and chkdsk issues?
Posted on December 27th, 2020 at 21:00 Comment on the AskWoody LoungePATCH WATCH
By Susan Bradley
Yikes! Say it isn’t so!
Günter Born reports that a small number of Windows users whose systems have solid-state drives ran into serious trouble with the classic chkdsk tool after installing KB 4592438, the December cumulative update for Win10 20H2. When they kicked off chkdsk c: /f, their systems crashed with a blue screen of death. The problem appears to be limited to machines with SSDs.
Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.51.0 (2020-12-28).
Welcome to our unique respite from the madness.
It's easy to post questions about Windows 10, Win8.1, Win7, Surface, Office, or browse through our Forums. Post anonymously or register for greater privileges. Keep it civil, please: Decorous Lounge rules strictly enforced. Questions? Contact Customer Support.
Plus Membership
Donations from Plus members keep this site going. You can identify the people who support AskWoody by the Plus badge on their avatars.
AskWoody Plus members not only get access to all of the contents of this site -- including Susan Bradley's frequently updated Patch Watch listing -- they also receive weekly AskWoody Plus Newsletters (formerly Windows Secrets Newsletter) and AskWoody Plus Alerts, emails when there are important breaking developments. Click here for details and to sign up.
Recent Replies
anonymous on It’s time for 20H2
Just nowWCHS on 20H2 and Adobe Flash Player
49 minutes agoAscaris on How much RAM does your computer have?
1 hour, 26 minutes ago- 1 hour, 41 minutes ago
Larry B on Chrome messed up my “run browser sandboxed” link
1 hour, 44 minutes ago- 1 hour, 53 minutes ago
Seff on How much RAM does your computer have?
2 hours, 2 minutes agoMoonshine on Editing a PDF in Mint
2 hours, 15 minutes agoagoldhammer on How much RAM does your computer have?
3 hours, 14 minutes ago- 3 hours, 18 minutes ago
OscarCP on Good animated movies and shows for ages ten to one hundred and ten.
5 hours, 25 minutes agoPKCano on 20H2 and and OOB optional March 18 printer problem update
5 hours, 27 minutes ago- 5 hours, 41 minutes ago
- 5 hours, 45 minutes ago
dmt_3904 on We’re sorry, but Outlook has run into a problem…
5 hours, 55 minutes agoAlex5723 on Good animated movies and shows for ages ten to one hundred and ten.
6 hours, 7 minutes ago- 6 hours, 14 minutes ago
- 6 hours, 50 minutes ago
macropod on Find & Replace
7 hours, 8 minutes agoPaul T on 20H2 and Adobe Flash Player
7 hours, 10 minutes ago- 7 hours, 11 minutes ago
- 7 hours, 16 minutes ago
- 7 hours, 22 minutes ago
- 7 hours, 30 minutes ago
- 7 hours, 37 minutes ago
- 7 hours, 54 minutes ago
BrerBear on It’s time for 20H2
8 hours, 1 minute agoSky on Good animated movies and shows for ages ten to one hundred and ten.
8 hours, 31 minutes ago- 8 hours, 34 minutes ago
- 8 hours, 36 minutes ago