|
Patch reliability is unclear. Unless you have an immediate, pressing need to install a specific patch, don't do it. |
.Following up on the March Windows 7/Server 2008 R2 patch situation of KB 4088875 …. uh ..mess, I saw another side effect of the known issues. First
[See the full post at: Patch Lady – KB4088875 side effects to watch out for]
Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher
aaaaaand KB2952664 is back – unhidden again. I feel like I’m playing a game of “whack-a-mole”.
-fm
Ah, KB 4088875. Remote web access timeouts. More blue screens.
What’s left? Water into blood? Frogs? Darkness for three days?
Economical cost of patching is getting higher and higher
With a 6-Yr Old desktop and No Real Meltdown-Spectre Protection in sight It is so troubling to consider what a Win 10 laptop purchase will entail. And Susan encourages 10-Home Upgrade to Pro JUST for the Year Auto-Update protection. So many Posts scattered about for so many Versions. Sad……..
Craig,
If you refer to the firmware update for your CPU for Spectre, don’t give up yet, at least if it’s an Intel. Intel has published a plan to update other CPUs going back to some of the Core 2 Duo and Solo CPUs.
I have a C2D laptop myself, and while the T7800 I’ve been using has not as yet appeared on their guidance, I learned that my motherboard is in fact compatible with the T9300/T9400 CPUs, and those are slated for an eventual update. No rush, as the update is not out yet, but some of those Chinese sellers have them for $12 or so for the 9300s (I haven’t checked the 9400s yet). Might as well order one now and by the time Intel gets around to it, I will have it.
I also have two Sandy Bridge desktops and an Ivy Bridge desktop currently serving as a backup server. Six years old should put you at about the same level as my Sandys… if that’s what you have, Intel says it is coming. Eventually.
A new laptop would come with Windows 10, of course. If you like 10, then you’re all set; if you don’t, then you have a problem to solve. What will you do with it?
You could, of course, get a different Windows and put that on there. If it is a new generation CPU, you may have to use workarounds to get the updates to install… it’s even more of a hassle than it should be, but that’s where we are right now.
There are also lots of refurbished laptops all over the place now, often at pretty incredible prices. Most of them have a short warranty (30 to 90 days), but a few have a full year, and sometimes you can buy more from the seller on top of that. I haven’t tried that, but if the company doing the warranty is reputable, it may be a way to go. Some of those older machines come with pre-10 Windows… not all, as the refurbishers often think that having 10 on there is a selling feature (maybe for some it is, but not for me), and there are plenty from which to choose.
If you’re me, you’d put Linux Mint on the new laptop and call it a day. That’s what I did with the Windows 10 laptop I bought four months ago.
I realized that of the six laptops I’ve owned over the years, only one kept its original OS, and that one was stolen. Its replacement, the same exact model, came with Windows XP Home like its predecessor; I wiped that and replaced it with XP Pro because of the encrypting file system. Even though I am not a business, the target market for Pro, somehow having all of my personal data on a laptop that was in a criminal’s hands kinda bugged me, a little, maybe.
Ok, it made me crazy. I had been foolish to put my personal data on a portable device unencrypted, and I won’t make that mistake again. The idea that this is a feature only of interest to businesses continues to infuriate me to this day.
My first laptop came with WinME and an XP Home upgrade CD/sticker slipped into the box, and I did use the CD to upgrade it. Second one was the stolen one, third was the same as the second (XP to XP Pro), fourth was the replacement HP gave me when I discovered a firmware bug that prevented my USB2 Cardbus adapter from working and they didn’t want to fix it. It came with XP Home and got the same Pro that had been on the replacement PC, which I then sent back to HP as promised (they sent me the replacement first, so I could have just kept both, but I’m not like that. I said I would send the old one, so I did). That PC (now 11 or 12 years old) now dual boots XP and Mint Xfce 32-bit (the latter is the only one that I would actually use for anything that requires connectivity, but for a while I had it doing duty as a call sentry, disconnected from the network).
Fifth one was my Asus Core 2 Duo laptop, which came with Vista Home (32 bit) and got XP Pro once again, and now runs Mint Cinnamon primarily and Win 8.1 (x64) as a secondary choice in dual boot. Sixth, of course, is the Dell ultraportable “I’m really a Chromebook in terms of specs but I came with Windows 10” which now runs Mint Cinnamon x64.
My desktops have all been ones I built, so they never actually came with an OS anyway. My backup server runs 7 Home x64, while my main desktop runs Mint Cinnamon and 8.1 (both x64) like the Asus laptop.
So, yeah, the idea of keeping the original OS on a PC is kind of foreign to me, I suppose.
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)
Let’s not forget this: https://threatpost.com/bad-microsoft-meltdown-patch-made-some-windows-systems-less-secure/130844/
Microsoft’s January Patch Tuesday update made security matters worse when it comes to memory vulnerabilities associated with Intel’s CPU bug Meltdown.
[…]
Microsoft made an error where a single bit was erroneously set by the kernel in a CPU page table entry that was part of the patch. The mistake allowed normal programs read and write access to all of physical memory.
See why automatic updating is not necessarily more secure, kids?
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.
