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[Berserker79]

Updated my two machines with the following April patches using WUMgr. No issues to report as far as I can tell:

1) Windows 10 Pro 21H2
– KB5012599 (Win CU)
– KB5012117 (.NET 3.5/4.8)
– KB890830 (MSRT)

2) Windows 10 Home 21H2
– KB5012599 (Win CU)
– KB5012117 (.NET 3.5/4.8)
– KB890830 (MSRT)
– Office 2013 April security patches

BTW, on both machines I was also offered, but did not install yet another release of the pesky KB4023057 update.

On the Home 21H2 machine only (apparently), I was also offered a new version of KB5005463, i.e. PC Health Check Application, which I did not install: no need for yet another tool that tries to mess with my updates seeing that the KB article mentions that “ PC Health Check application … will automatically install important application updates when they become available. PC Health Check users will not be able to turn off automatic updates.“.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by Berserker79. Reason: Fixed KB number of .NET framework update

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jburk07

Not sure whether there is anything else you can at this stage: hopefully you have a recent backup of your system from before those updates installed and that you can use for restoring your system if the March updates create trouble. Other than that, I’m afraid that for this month you will be doing some “beta testing” for us all (at least it should not be as bad as getting Covid…).

Not a single app when I scroll down to “H”, so I suppose this further confirms I don’t have the HEVC codecs installed. I mean, I’m sure that I never installed those codecs of my own initiative, but I was not sure they were somehow included in Windows 10 or installed as part of some other application. Well, guess this is one less update to worry about.

I’m a little “confused” in relation to the HEVC update. I have disabled automatic updates of the Windows Store apps, so I loaded the Windows Store and went looking for an update for HEVC Video Extension and found none listed among the available updates.

If I search the store with “HEVC” as keyword I get just a bunch of clearly non-relevant results.

I’ve also run the following command with Powershell as administrator

Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.HEVC*

and got nothing.

At this point I’m under the impression that the HEVC Video Extension is not installed on this machine and assume that I don’t need to update. Can anyone please confirm this is correct?

Finally updated also my Windows 10 Home 21H2 PC with the following February patches. Download/installation performed through WUMgr, no apparent ill effects to report after installation:
– KB5010342 => 2022-02 Windows 10 21H2 CU
– KB5009467 => 2022-02 .NET Framework CU
– KB890830 => MSRT v5.98
– KB5002156, KB5002146, KB3172514 => Various Office 2013 patches

FIY, as regards .NET Framework update I installed the “regular” CU released on 8 February and skipped the “Preview” version released on 15 February. Also skipped the tedious KB4023057 (apparently now this get pushed even when you are on the latest Windows 10 versione, here 21H2).

So far I updated my Windows 10 Pro 21H1 machine with February patches (KB5010342 – 2022-02 CU and KB890830 – Windows MSRT) without any ill effects.

Still need to update my Windows 10 Home 21H2 PC, I’ll update this post later on once I’ve done it.

Robert wrote:

Hi Susan,

Many thanks for your continuing advice. Could I please clarify one issue? For Windows 10 your master patch list still advises against installation of KB5010415 and KB4023057. Is that intentional and should we still defer them?

Hey Robert,

my understanding is that you should still defer both KB5010415 and KB4023057. This is because:
– KB5010415 is a preview update and Susan’s advice is to avoid previews unless you need to install one because it fixes any specific issue(s) you are having with Windows;
– KB4023057 is the pesky update that MS regularly drops to do some “maintenance” to facilitate Windows Update into upgrading your current version of Windows 10 to the latest version. You don’t need this for Windows Update to work correctly (I’ve been deferring all new instances of KB4023057 for years now without any ill effects).

Hope this is helpful!

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tjm1963, Coldheart9020, Robert

Decided to do a last minute update and moved my Windows 10 Home computer from 20H2 to 21H2 using the ISO method: no issues to report as far as I can tell and the following installation of the (regular, i.e. no previews or out-of-band) January CU and .NET patch was successful.

Just reporting that January updates have apparently installed smoothly on my two Windows 10 systems using WUMgr. More in detail:

1) Windows 10 Home 20H2
– KB5009543, 2022-01 Cumulative update
– KB5008876, 2022-01 Cumulative .NET Framework update
– KB890830, MSRT v5.97 update
– KB5002128, KB6002064, KB5002119, KB4462205, KB5002124, various Office 2013 security updates

2) Windows 10 Pro 21H1
– KB5009543, 2022-01 Cumulative update
– KB5008876, 2022-01 Cumulative .NET Framework update
– KB890830, MSRT v5.97 update

On both machines I installed the “regular” .NET Framework CU (dated January 11) and hid the “preview” (dated January 25).

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jburk07

Paul T wrote:

I’ve not seen that on my machines.

Thanks Paul, that’s interesting!

I forgot to mention that the issue of WU downloading certain updates when network is set to metered was on a PC running Windows 10 Home , while I don’t recall that happening on the PC where I’m running Pro.

Paul T wrote:

I use “metered connection” to limit WU and use WUmgr to check for updates and hide unwanted, then I let WU do the work – mostly.

I used to do the same on my machines some time ago, but I noticed two drawbacks:

1) Defender updates were prevented from downloading;

2) setting connection to “metered” did not prevent WU from downloading certain updates, such as monthly CUs and that pesky KB4023057, as soon as they were pushed. Those updates were not automatically installed, but WU prompted me to confirm ‘download’ through a “metered” connection (when it had already downloaded the updates) and hitting the confirm button simply started the installation process.

In one particular unfortunate case, WU downloaded the monthly CU mere seconds before I hid the update in WuMgr: this apparently caused the system to be unable to later install that update (from both WU and WuMgr) once I unhid it. Only solution was to download from the Catalog and do a manual install.

Sorry for the late reply Mike. In answer to your question, I’m not using any group policy switches and I just let WuMgr do its own thing.

BTW, I forgot to mention in the earlier post that with the above WuMgr settings I regularly receive automatic definition updates for Defender (this requires to leave your  the network set to “unmetered”).

Here is the setting I’m using on Windows 10 Pro 21H1 to prevent updates with WUMgr

Apologies it’s not in English, in essence

– I checked the radio button for “Disable Automatic Update” and this automatically checked the box for “Disable Update Facilitators” and the box for “Hide WU Settings Page”;

– I checked the box for “Disable Store Auto Update”;

– I left the “Include Drivers” untouched, i.e. it was partially filled by default (I have a Microsfot webcam on this PC, so I let WU offer me drivers on this system to check if new webcam drivers are released).

With these settings all (automatic) updates are prevented, i.e. Windows does not search, offer nor install anything at all (not even drivers). To be on the safe side, when new updates are released I use WUMgr to search for updates and hide everything. Then, once I’m ready to install, I unhide the updates I want to install, select them and hit the “Install” button to download and install directly from WUMgr.

I’ve been using this setup for several months now and so far it worked nicely. I also use the same setup on a Windows 10 Home 20H2 machine and can keep my connection set to unmetered without the risk of unwanted updates installing automatically behind my back.

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Mike, Cybertooth

Used to be what passed for a “gamer” several years ago and as far as I can tell Activision has been spending about the last 20 years buying their continued existence through acquisitions of game developers and mergers and throwing on the market a seemingly never-ending sequence of “Call of Duty” games (still surprises me how players seem not to get bored at always playing the same souped up game whenever a new title in the series is released).

The merger of Activision with Vivendi back in 2008, to acquire Blizzard which was owned by Vivendi, was largely regarded as Activision’s way to buy their way into the massively multiplayer online market through Blizzard’s “World of Warcraft”, in a move to get their own cut from the practices of subscription models and microtransactions (which I largely see as poisonous practices, but that’s just my personal view).

What’s my take on this buy out? Well, given the above I find it somewhat ironical to see a company who has been spending years buying other companies to stay afloat has now “suffered” the same fate. What I find interesting is that MS already has its fair share of money from subscription models and microtransactions thanks to the Xbox business, so I don’t think that’s what they were looking for by buying Activision. And I didn’t think Activision has a strong presence in the mobile world to warrant its acquisition to buy a way into that world, but I could be entirely wrong on this, seeing I have zero interest in the mobile (gaming) world and thus Activision could well be a big player there and I simply missed that bit.

Bottom line, I kind of feel sorry for gamers, who are probably going to see just more of the same stuff: more subscription models, more microtransactions, more Call of Duty. Maybe that’s what gamers want, but as far as I care that’s just boring.

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wavy, Steve S., Microfix, OscarCP

Mele20 wrote:

What version of Windows do you have? Windows 10 Pro since ver 2004 does NOT allow you to set Windows Updates as disabled unless you like having to MANUALLY update Defender each day (after temporarily enabling WU).

I’m on Windows 10 Pro 21H1. As mentioned above, I used WUMgr to set automatic Windows Updates as disabled and Defender still manages to regularly update on its own (without the need to temporarily enable WU).

Did you try disabling WU on your 21H2 computer using WUMgr and see whether that allows Defender to update on its own? If you haven’t so far, you might want to give WUMgr a try: it’s a relatively simple tool to use and gives you more control over the updates. I’ve been using it regularly on both my computers without any issues: with automatic updates disabled I no longer have to worry about postponing updates or having any update forcibly installed behind my back and when I’m ready to install the updates I just do it manually from within WuMgr without re-enabling WU.