MS-DEFCON 5: Get all of your Microsoft patches applied

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After last month’s monstrous Black Tuesday debacle, the September Black Tuesday patches had a couple of problems, but they’re resolved now. The two fo
[See the full post at: MS-DEFCON 5: Get all of your Microsoft patches applied]

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Woody, you wanted me to remind you to put a deadline on your headlines so readers would know the deadline for getting the updates installed. For example, your headline should read “MS-DEFCON 5: Get all of your Microsoft patches applied by Monday, 09/29”. This would be very helpful to your readers.

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Woody,

I held off installing any patches from August or September. The change in status to defcon 5 is a welcome change from what has become a monthly mix of fear and uncertainty. I’m holding my breath to see what October brings.

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@J –

Done, and thanks for the reminder! (Changing the head screws up search results, so I put it in the body of the article.)

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Woody
I am running Windows 7 on my laptop and I always try to check what you have to say.
Today when I logged in I saw that you said to go ahead with the Microsoft updates for Aug and Sept.
I had 22 updates to apply and did the downloads and updates. One update failed to install and one update cancelled. After I finished the updates that worked I got the notice that six more updates were ready to download and install. I went ahead and did them also. It appears that two of the six that I downloaded and installed were fixes for the two from the additional 22 updates that failed.
I just thought it would be helpfull in the future for you to let us know about what to expect.
I am not complaining and am very thankful for the information that you give but the additional information would be great to have.

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The change looks good to me. Putting the deadlines in the body of the post seems good, as this is just a detail. The Header is for a quick heads-up, visually hard to miss. Anyone familiar with this site knows that the next step is to read down to the fine print. With MS DEFCON-5 this is an easy step to skip, but it may pay off for some folks.

BTW, the last Flash Player update (15.0.0.152) produced some Flash Playback issues in IE for some Windows installations. A new fix has been issued (15.0.0.167) to stabilize that issue. Other browsers and other platforms seem not to be affected.

Under Ubuntu Linux, a minor Firefox update (32.0.3) finally fixed a vexing Flash Playback without Sound issue for me. So these minor stability updates sometimes give unexpected (often good) results. (This issue was not with Flash Player, but with Firefox for Linux.)

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@Sam –

The permutations and combinations are so vast, there’s no chance I could cover all the bases. But if it helps, you did The Right Thang.

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Woody,

Do we still hold back on IE 11 for windows 7?

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Woody,

I’m running Vista on a HP laptop. When Defcon 5 was notified, I started the updates. It’s been running now for about 15 hours and is only installing update 11 of 14…. Any suggestions? Should I leave it running or cancel it and try again?

Keep up the good work – I live by your advice, and have been successful in avoiding all the problems you identify in your postings.

Cheers
Steve

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@Steve –

Leave it on – even for a day, if necessary. Chances are very good it’ll get caught up.

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@Jacquie –

I don’t see any compelling reason for IE 10 over IE 11, or vice versa, on Windows 7. I’ve upgraded some of my Win7 machines, but haven’t upgraded others. Of course, I use Chrome and Firefox all the time, almost never IE.

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Sorry, but I don’t understand very well english.
So, now I can install august patches too?

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I installed everything except 2993651. Have the two known issues been fixed in 2993651?

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I ran Windows update which applied 21 updates to my system. Then I ran Secunia PSI to be sure everything is up to “snuff”. (a program that you clued me in on, thank you) Secunia says Microsoft XML Core Services (MSXML) 4.x needs updating. The problem is when clicking through to update Microsoft offers four files and says I should “Choose the download you want”.
What the heck is this thing?

Do I need to apply the update?

If so, which file am I supposed to use for Windows 7 64 bit, msxml6.msi, msxml6_ia64.msi, msxml6.SDK.msi or msxml6_x64.msi?

Obviously I am one of the people you write your ‘For Dummies’ books for and I appreciate all you do to keep me out of trouble.

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KB2918614 still has unresolved issues, so not everything is clear from the August debacle. Woody should keep users informed of this outstanding patch, which continues to cause problems. I’ve skipped this patch on all of my machines.

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@Jim –

I’ve seen no complaints recently.

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@Ricardo –

Yes.

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@Bob –

[Sigh] I thought Microsoft had pulled it, but it looks like they haven’t.

Thanks for the heads up!

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@ Joe C.

I had the same issue with Vista.
False positive according to Secunia.

https://secunia.com/community/forum/thread/show/15049/update_msxml_4

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Thank you Hopeful Cynic.

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MSXML 4 is obsolete and does have a security issue. Secunia has never said this is a false positive.Advice is to remove MSXML4 and see if anythign breaks. Inmost cases, nothing breaks. MSXML4 is not native to Widnows 7 onward and any current version of Internet Explorer no longer uses it.

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And also make sure you spell-check before posting. 😉

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@RC –

Gack!

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This is all very confusing.
It seems like no one really knows which, if any, of these files I should download.

msxml6.msi

msxml6_ia64.msi

msxml6_SDK.msi

msxml6_x64.msi

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@Joe –

If you’re running a 64-bit version of Windows, use msxml6_x64.msi.

If you’re running 32-bit Windows, use msxml6.msi

ia64 and SDK don’t really enter into the picture.

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