Replies

Another “anomaly” – KB4487256 2019-02 Preview of Monthly Quality Rollup for .NET 3.5.1, 4.5.2, 4.6, 4.6.1, 4.6.2, 4.7, 4.7.1 Windows 7 was the .NET preview that was available in mid-February.  I expected a monthly .NET patch to be released on Patch Tuesday in March.  But there was no .NET patch in March nor in April.  Are there problems with this patch?

Important Updates: Download updates but let me choose whether to install them.

Recommended Updates: Give me recpmmended updates the same way I receive important updates.

I had a strange occurrence.  Last Thursday morning at 09:40 I powered-off my Windows 7 Professional computer before an out-of-town trip.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  When I powered-on my computer Sunday night at 20:27, the computer went through it usual “chkdsk c:” (another long-standing problem that no one has been able to “diagnose/fix”), then instead of bringing up Windows, I got a “Configuring Windows updates ..;.” message.  I had not installed any Win 7 patches before shutdown due to the Defcon-1 status.  After that message, there was an auto-reboot and another “Configuring Windows updates …” message.  After another auto-reboot, Windows came up.  When I checked the Windows Update log, I saw that MS had installed KB4493472 (April Win 7 Security Updates) Thursday at 09:43 during the shutdown process WITHOUT MY PERMISSION.  I run MSE, so I have no conflict with the other A-V software mentioned in previous posts above.  There seems to be no problems.  Why was this security patch installed without my permission ?

“MRT is designed to find and remove malware which could prevent other updates from installing.”  If that is the case, then MRT should be the first patch to be installed if there are multiple patches to install.  That was not the case the last time I did not install MRT first, as I detailed in a previous reply.

I have never timed MRT.exe .  I know that it will run for a while, so I always install it first.  And I know that that patch will not require a reboot.  I keep a manual log of all changes to my Win 7 machine, so I need to know when and what each patch is.  If I let MRT install with other patches, I can lose track of what is installed.  After a short interval, Windows Update changes the message “Installing KB…..” to a generic message; I have no idea why.

One problem  with installing multiple patches manually is that if more than  one requires a reboot, I have to reboot before installing another patch.  And I have a problem with NTFS on my C-drive, where Win 7 claims that the disk is corrupt and schedules a “chkdisk c:” on reboot.  That runs for 12 minutes and finds nothing to repair.  During the next backup or full scan, Windows claims that the disk is again corrupted.  I have run Gibson SpinRite at level 4 (16+ hours), and no problems were found.  So I try not to reboot more often than necessary.

 

I always install MSRT (MRT.exe) when I see it each month.  It does a scan of the C-drive (that takes some time), and it has never reported any problem.  One annoyance – Windows Update does not tell me when it starts MRT.exe; the status in the WU window still says “creating restore point”.  I look at the Task Manager to see when MRT.exe starts.  Once I ran MRT.exe manually, as for some reason it did not run to completion when I installed the monthly patch.  It reported problems when run manually, and someone on some MS forum replied to my posting that I should not worry about the output of a manual run of MRT.exe.  I see no harm in running MRT.exe automatically once a month – unless one does not have the time to wait for its completion.

3 users thanked author for this post.

OscarCP, ch100, Nibbled To Death By Ducks

I installed the IE11 fix (KB4486474) yesterday.  As I normally do not use IE11, I have not started IE11 to test anything.  Because IE is tightly integrated into the Windows 7 operating system, the patch installation required a reboot.

One question I have – I saw this patch number via this forum.  If  the monthly security roll-up patches should not yet be installed, how do I find the patches that I can install?  This IE11 patch was not delivered via Windows Update.

 

I have a basic question about the definition of “MS-DEFCON 2”.  Should there be a separate rating for each OS = Win 7, 8.1, 10, Office?  I know that there are problems with the Win 10 patches – depending upon the maintenance version, but for my Win 7 system (without Office), is it safe to install the two February Windows 7 patches?  I did not install the two January patches,  A further note – I do have IE11 installed, but I use it ONLY to test pages that do not seem to work in Firefox, and also to install Flash updates.

I have basic questions about Windows Update.  If we are still at MS-DEFCON 2 on Feb. 12, meaning that the January mega-patches have not been installed, will the January patches be included in the February patches? If so, will there fixes for the January problems in the February mega-patches?

Are the monthly mega-patches cumulative?  If so, would this make the patches huge?  And will Windows Update re-install the pieces that have already been installed?

1 user thanked author for this post.

Morty

“Download updates but let me choose whether to install them”.  I run MSE, and I want the MSE updates installed.  But, since MSE definition updates are auto-installed, I assume that these MSE patches are not controlled by this setting.

I know about preview patches.  I was questioning the designation “2019-01 Preview”, which refers to January.  But if this is the February preview for .NET, does it contain fixes for the problems introduced in the January .NET mega-patch?  If not, will this new patch be updated to do this before the February .NET mega-patch is released?

 

There are two things with my computer that I do not understand.  I have not installed KB4481480 nor KB4480970 (per the recommendations of this forum).  But when I backed up my machine last Monday, I noticed that “manifest” files for these two mega-patches w2ere on my C-drive and backed up.  The c:\Windows\WindowsUpdate.log states that these two patches are “downloaded and ready for installation”.  Why does Windows Update pre-process these patches before I install them?

Yesterday my machine was running slowly; it had been 22 days since the last reboot.  I did a reboot, and when Windows 7 was operational, I noticed changes in the fonts used in the various application windows.  I have not researched what changed, and I have no idea what I could have installed or changed that would cause this.

And, additionally, as I did a “search for updates” to ensure that I had not yet installed the two mega-patches, I saw a new patch – “KB4481488 2019-01 Preview of Quality Rollup for .NET …”  One of the mega-patches  is a 2019-01 .NET patch.  Is this new patch really a 2019-02 (i.e., February) preview?  Why issue a preview patch for next month when there are problems with the January .NET patch?

I did a “search for updates”, and I do not see any new updates.  I would have expected MS to take these new, fixing patches and release them through Windows Update.  But maybe MS will not release them until the fixes are re-packaged into the existing two mega-patches.

I never said that my machine did not connect to the Internet.  If that were the case, how could I patch it? What I meant is that the machine is not on a LAN and is not part of a Windows Work Group.

I have a simple question.  I have a single Windows 7 Professional 32-bit system.  It does not contact any other computer via Windows.  Is it safe to install the patches?  Are there any reported problems with the monthly .NET mega-patch?

Yes, it is easier to uninstall one patch than to determine which one of a handful of patches is bad.  When you uninstall the mega-patch, you lose the benefits of all of the other patches, which MS has created to resolve problems.  And, I assume that even with my limited knowledge of the internals of Windows, I would be able to determine from the MS-supplied documentation which patch is causing the problem.  The only reason, as far as I can tell, that MS is bundling patches is because there are “spyware” patches that users were not installing, and MS wanted these patches installed.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Steve, Elly