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I’ve found that doing in-place Windows 10 upgrades will sometimes result in Cortana/Search not working – Start menu comes up fine, just not the search functionality.  The fix I found is to delete the settings.dat file under each of these user folders:

c:\users\%username%\appdata\<wbr />local\packages\microsoft.<wbr />windows.cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy\<wbr />settings\settings.dat

 

One data point here, but one particular Windows 8.1 system with a Type 4 Ricoh printer driver that was crashing when trying to print with the previous IE11/JScript patch installed, seems to be fine now with today’s 10/8/19 KB4520005 set installed.   I was a bit hopeful when I read the “Addresses an issue with applications and printer drivers that utilize the Windows JavaScript engine (jscript.dll) for processing print jobs.”.  Just really annoying they didn’t list this particular bug as a known issue last week.

 

 

 

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woody

Not installing security updates is not permitted where I work and I’m guessing Microsoft is going to push the blame for crashing printer drivers onto the OEMs.  Let’s hope Ricoh, HP, and the rest are paying attention.

Not just HP for us, but Ricoh printers are causing us fits now too.  In one such case, installed today’s (10/3/19) update (for Windows 8.1) and it didn’t fix the application crashing when trying to print to that particular Ricoh.  It’s not the spooler crashing, it is the application trying to print to that particular Ricoh USB connected printer (Word, Chrome, etc.)
The user’s other printer (network printer, also a copier Ricoh model) works and the Adobe PDF printer driver works.

I know we scream about a lot of buggy patches, but the truth is, with the ~450 computers I directly support, and the three thousand more where I work, we rarely run into the “known issues” from various MS patches.  The last one I can recall was a bad MS AV update.
Every year or two a screwy Word or Excel patch will get us.  But, now they have really gone and done it, breaking printing is like the number one cardinal sin where I work.  Printing is all anyone cares about.

Just from the perspective of someone who has to support Windows for a living, and thus also use it every day, in comparison to the … erraticness (not a word, should be?) of 1903, so glad we’ve stuck with 1809 and I have no current thoughts about moving beyond it any time soon.  I did have issues with 1809 early on, but the key I’ve found is to be sure your video drivers are current, as although Windows 7 and 8.1 don’t seem to care what video driver version you are using (not talking about gamers), Windows 10 has oddly taken a leap back into the Vista years where if you blink wrong your video driver can blue screen your PC in a heartbeat.

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TaskForce141

Not really, no.  Here are two articles to read that will explain it all.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3261009/googles-chromium-browser-explained.html

https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/8/18300772/microsoft-google-services-removed-changed-chromium-edge-browser

 

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woody

Well, yeah, they are going to have to continue fixing the bugs on this branch, given that it has 10 years of support as far as Server 2019 and LTSC go.  We might want to think of 1809 as a “throw away” version, but they have to maintain the source for a long, long time, regardless.

In reality, the problems with 1809 are just a symptom of the far, FAR too rapid pace they have been on with modifying Windows code – with not enough (any?) testing.  1809 has just sort of become a symbol of enough is enough.

There’s one night and day difference between this notification update and the prior Windows 10 “upgrade” debacle: Windows 10 is no longer free.  Microsoft can certainly make these Windows 7 EOS notifications come up multiple times, if they want them to, but it’s not like before when you had to worry every second of every day on whether or not your PC would automatically switch to running Windows 10 against your will.

 

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Microfix

I have a cheap, low-end AMD-based Lenovo 11e laptop which shipped with Windows 8.1 and it ran fine – slow, but fine.  At least, until I “upgraded” to Windows 10 (1607).  The Windows 10 drivers for the integrated AMD video were awful, to where just trying to move the mouse cursor would have it pause for one or two seconds every three or four seconds.  Unusable.  I didn’t use it for several months and tried the next Windows 10 version (1703) and it was the same nonsense.

The laptop sat on a shelf for a few more months, but instead of waiting and trying yet another version of Windows 10, I wiped it and installed Linux Mint 18.2 (Cinnamon) and it ran flawlessly.  Periodically, I update to a newer version of Mint and it continues to run flawlessly to this day.

 

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TaskForce141

I can confirm that I’m able to login with an MS account on a Windows 8.1 Enterprise (64-bit) system that does have KB4038792 installed.  I just did a reboot of Windows and my “cloud” login still works.

 

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HiFlyer, MrBrian

The technical problem with moving past XP was Vista added UAC and tried to get programmers to suddenly, completely change the way their software worked – which meant no longer assuming the logged on user had full access to the system.  The vast majority of Windows software developers are always way (way, way) behind what the Microsoft Windows team and Visual Studio team says you should be doing (today) as far as developing Windows applications.  It didn’t help that Vista was, at best, a beta quality OS.  Even Windows 7, before SP1, was at best, RC quality.  So, XP hung (well, still hangs around in PoS) around longer than it would have had Microsoft had better planning *years* before Vista ever disgraced the computing world.

As for moving past Windows 7, it’s just a matter of doing the work, but there is no inherent technological barrier in the way like there was with moving past XP.  Windows 10 continues to, slowly – very slowly – improve with each new released version, so it is just a matter of timing one’s jump onto the Windows 10 merry-go-round.  The sad thing is, Windows 8.1 (Server 2012R2) is still the most stable Windows version Microsoft has ever released, but because of the lack of a Desktop Start menu, it kept a whole lot of IT shops from moving to it (those who are too conservative to have trusted Classic Shell and so have stuck by the actually quite inferior Windows 7).

 

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radosuaf, AlexEiffel

I assume you meant KB3185330? I have it installed on 48 Windows 7 32-bit systems and no reports of problems over the past few business days. Also, no problems as far as I know for the comparable KB3185331 on Windows 8.1 64-bit, on around 375 stations. I’ll definitely be on the lookout for reports of odd issues now though.

Although the vast majority of 470 Windows PCs I support are currently Windows 8.1, which aren’t having any Windows Update problems, I still have around 75 Windows 7 systems and having updated the WUA bits by manually installing KB3172605 has made all the difference for me. No problems yet with September 2016 updates, on systems where I had manually installed KB3172605. YMMV of course.