Simplified servicing for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1: the latest improvements

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Nathan Mercer is back with a modification to the modified patchocalypse method for updating Win7 and 8.1. The bottom line: Starting with February 2017
[See the full post at: Simplified servicing for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1: the latest improvements]

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And apparently we won’t see a Preview Rollup this month too

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Hey woody, I’m having troubles with MSE. On the 10th of this month MSE started instaling new definitions every 2 hours, this really bums me out, I used to update through the client once a day and sometimes it update 1 time by itself but now every 2 hours it starts installing new ones. Now, my PC is really an low spec netbook, with barely 50 GBs and when it updates by it’s own it clogs my CPU and my memory with temp files. And it only shows the update through WU since the MSE icon stays in the same green state thrugh the process only the CPU spikes and the TrustedInstaller.exe service shows up. I’m running on a Win 7 Pro 32 bits, when I did I little research and found this post on the MS Comunity and in the last 3 reply pages there are some people having the same prob: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/protect/forum/mse-protect_updating/mse-automatically-updated-definitions-multiple/8ddc5b3b-b846-4563-83bd-470e205cea1e?page=5 . What do you recommend, should I do a clean install of MSE, revert to a earlier Restore Point (I have one before I updated on the 31 so I would only lose the .Net and Adobe updates) or should I wait it out and see if MS solves the problem?

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I don’t see that mentioned in the linked blog though. Is it confirmed a separate IE update will be offered in the catalog? As my current level of trust for microsoft is precisely zero then i would not put it past them to only offer IE updates in the monthly rollups. Great if true though, it’ll be one less update included in the lump to cause potential problems forcing you to uninstall the lot. Provided they do include it in the catalog as a separate standalone update.

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Looks like it’ll be in the Catalog.

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Fascinating! After Paul Thurrott took Microsoft to the woodshed over the poor preview capabilities (although he was talking about Win10)….

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Yikes! I just saw it. Last line in Nathan’s post:

“months with no new reliability fixes to preview will not have a Preview Rollup; December 2016 and January 2017, for example.”

I wonder if that means there will be no Preview Rollup this month because there won’t be any reliability fixes in Feb?

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Here is the link to the new blog post: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/windowsitpro/2017/01/13/simplified-servicing-for-windows-7-and-windows-8-1-the-latest-improvements/.

Thank you for the post Woody :).

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Reliability fixes can always be delayed
i guess they will focus now on adding previous reliability fixes

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Thank you for that. A step in the right direction but a step in the right direction in this case is just returning to the normal we had before. Now if they could just separate out the rest of the updates and we can all pretend this never happened… much like 2016 as a whole.

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Off topic: For me, page “Description of Software Update Services and Windows Server Update Services changes in content for 2017” (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/894199) doesn’t list anything, but https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/894199/description-of-software-update-services-and-windows-server-update-services-changes-in-content-for-2017 does.

Off topic: Catalog-only update “Update for Internet Explorer (KB3210694)” (“Internet browser page becomes blank after you install security updates 3185330 in Windows 7 SP1 or security update 3185331 in Windows 8.1”) (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3210694/internet-browser-page-becomes-blank-after-you-install-security-updates-3185330-in-windows-7-sp1-or-security-update-3185331-in-windows-8.1) is listed as having been updated recently.

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This is scheduled to happen first in the February Preview.
https://msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net/media/2016/10/100616_2357_1.png

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/windowsitpro/2016/10/07/more-on-windows-7-and-windows-8-1-servicing-changes/

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It would be a disaster. It is far better for them to continue with the rollups, but to get them right.
Isn’t the same method of updating done by every other major software manufacturer?
How can 200-500 updates available better than 3-4 or anything less than 10?

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Does that mean if you installed the Security-Only for October 2016 you need to pull the stand-alone KB3210694 from the catalog, too?

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For all
it eems all new and future KB articles will be available now at support.microsoft.com/help instead support.microsoft.com/kb
even the old articles now accessable changing /kb/ to /help/

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Odd…..

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No. This change is supposed to take effect in February.

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If it was a disaster then it’s one of their own making due to the gutting of their update testers. Yes they should get them right but would that it were so simple, we’ve already seen plenty of bugs introduced (printing, active directory etc) that I honestly do not think would have happened in years past. It’s been discussed here many times that users are now their beta testers. In an ideal world this is better than 200-500 updates on a new install but with the huge caveat that they all work flawlessly (they don’t) and they don’t sneak in spyware/adware (they have). Let’s not even begin on the farce of win 10 updates: multi-monitor setups failing? This is basic stuff that should never be an issue in 2017.

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I’m in Group B.

I’m no expert but I’ve always understood that IE is deeply integrated into the Win 7 OS such that – even if one never uses it as a browser, as I don’t – security flaws in IE can still impact overall security of the OS. True or not?

If that is the case, wouldn’t it be folly to just install the “security only” update but not install the “IE security” update?

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Likely true.

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Microsoft has already demonstrated their willingness to use the Windows Update system to push out adware and spyware. Some of us were able to avoid all of this because of the old individual update system, and we did it without sacrificing any desirable bug fixes and security updates. That level of control over our own systems isn’t possible with the rollups.

That’s something that the “get it right” idea won’t fix. Microsoft has a very different idea about what “right” means than most users of Windows. They’d probably tell us that these telemetry updates are an important part of “getting it right,” since they will supposedly help MS fix bugs.

Of course, that hints at why MS will never “get it right” in the reliability sense either. They got rid of most of their QA testers; it simply is not possible for them to release patches of the same quality that they did when they had a QA department. The new telemetry updates may help MS debug patches, but this doesn’t happen until after they are released and found to be causing problems on people’s PCs.

As such, the ability to pick and choose which updates to install (and avoid) is more important now than it was when we actually had that ability. Unless we want to keep being unpaid beta testers for software we paid for, that is.

The means by which other software publishers distribute updates isn’t really relevant here. A full-featured graphical OS is a very different animal than an application that runs on that OS. It’s not really valid to compare the update process of Windows to that of a word processor, browser, or anything like that.

The only other OS for the x86 PC I have recent experience with is Linux in various Ubuntu forms or derivatives (currently Mint). It doesn’t have rollups; in fact, the granularity and frequency of individual updates is far greater than it ever was for Windows.

Far from being a disaster, though, updating Mint is much faster and easier than in Windows, even with the roll-ups. It’s not that a large number of smaller patches can’t be handled efficiently; it’s that MS has never managed to do so.

The only time that less than 10 rolled-up updates would be better than 200 individual updates would be if you were certain you wanted all 200 of them (and would always want every patch going forward). With Windows and Microsoft as they are now, that’s very unlikely.

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Rule 1 stop using Internet Explorer lol.

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Therein is the rub. Either one installs the Security Monthly Quality Rollups, all of which include deep telemetry, to get security updates for IE; or one foregoes IE updates and avoids the installation of telemetry by installing the equivalent Security Only Quality Rollups.

In any event, a search of the Microsoft Update Catalog indicates that the last security update for IE on Win7 systems is KB3087985 which was released on 08/20/2015.

http://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=internet+explorer

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So, I don’t use IE, but I have been updating it per Woody’s advice. Group B, wanting to avoid telemetry. Does that mean that by updating IE I am adding telemetry to my system, or only if I am using IE?

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The Win7 Security-only patches (“Group B”) don’t include telemetry, as best I know.

Separate IE Security-only patches are coming next month.

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Confirmed. The Security Only patches do not include telemetry. As far as I can tell, that is the only difference.

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