Initial impressions of Patch Tuesday, March 2020

We have 113 new patches in the Microsoft Update Catalog.

There’s a new Servicing Stack Update for Win10 version 1903 and 1909, KB 4541338. There’s also a new one for Win10 1809 and 1803, and for Win8.1.

Dustin Childs’s report is up on the ZDI site:

• 115 separately identified security holes (CVEs)
• None of them are “Publicly known” or “Exploited.”

CVE-2020-0852 is his top pick for a notable security hole. It’s a bug in Word that can be triggered if you preview a Word document in Outlook. The offered patches are for Office 2019 Click-to-Run, Mac Office 2016, Office Online Server, and Sharepoint Server 2019. Microsoft categorizes it as “Exploitation less likely.”

Martin Brinkmann has his usual detailed, thorough analysis of the patches on ghacks.net.

Microsoft hasn’t acknowledged the bugs in the “optional, non-security, C/D Week” patch for Win10 1903 and 1909, released late last month. No idea if this latest drop fixes any of the multitude of problems with KB 4535996. There’s also no mention I can find of the disappearing icon/temporary profile bug that’s been with us for the past month. But there is a humongous list of fixes to 1903 and 1909.

Notably, the change lists for both Win10 1903 and 1909 are the same.

No indication that Win10 version 2004 will ship today. I was half-way expecting it.

UPDATE: Two hours later and I’m not seeing any major cries of pain. Stay tuned.

Fresh reports of HP PC shortages

Just got a message from a reader:

I wanted to report to you something that may pique your interest. I was tasked with ordering computers (HP) and I am finding out due to the Coronavirus coupled with Intel chip shortages that [it’s difficult to find HP] computers… to replace old Windows 7/Vista, yes Vista, machines.

I did a search on many sites and stock is low and even Amazon and Google are struggling to find pcs that would fit the needs (I’m aiming at 16gb of ram, I5 processors at minimum).

Are you encountering any problems getting new computers? There have been reports and rumors of chip shortages cascading into PC shortages, but I haven’t seen anything specifically about i5-level processors with 16 GB of RAM.

Free tax prep?

(USA centric post)

The other day on the news I heard a story about free tax prep for those who earn under $69,000.

Sounds great right?

Well…but… when you look at the IRS web site and the offerings that they have from the various vendors, ALL of them have gotchas.

Some age discriminate.  (yea, don’t you LOVE that!!)

Most don’t offer free state tax filing…. or most don’t offer a free tax prep IF you live in a state that has no state tax.  Thus you’ll get a charge for filing your state return.

Bottom line, like many things my Mom taught me, you get what you pay for and it’s not always free.

Two new, important reasons to block Automatic Updates this month

Those of you who have been following along here know that the day before Patch Tuesday draws a knee-jerk recommendation from me to check and make sure you have updates paused on your machine.

This month’s worse than most. We don’t know if MS has even seen, much less fixed, the substantive bugs in last month’s “optional, non-security” Win10 patch. And with the folks at Microsoft working from home, by and large, we’re entering uncharted territory in the handling of any bugs that might crop up.

Even under the best of circumstances, MS has historically done a lousy job of cleaning up after its Patch Tuesday messes. These are anything but the best of circumstances.

I’m moving us to MS-DEFCON 2: Patch reliability is unclear. Unless you have an immediate, pressing need to install a specific patch, don’t do it.

Details in Computerworld Woody on Windows.

How small businesses are easy ransomware targets

ON SECURITY

By Susan Bradley

Yes, they really are out to get us. Recent trends in malicious attacks mean that small businesses need to be more vigilant than ever.

As exploits rapidly evolve, we face the threat of falling behind in the battle to protect ourselves. On the latest front, simply keeping backups of our data isn’t enough.

Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.10.0 (2020-03-09).

Is your deleted cloud data really gone?

LANGALIST

By Fred Langa

Most Windows users know that clicking “delete” does not actually erase local files. The same holds true for your data stored in the cloud.

Those files can remain in remote backups or in online services’ logs for a very long time. Fortunately, there’s an easy way to keep your left-online data protected, even when it’s no longer under your full control. Here’s how.

Plus: More on the demise of Windows’ screen saver.

Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.10.0 (2020-03-09).

Switchers: Taking a bite of the Apple – Part 1

APPLE MAC

By Nathan Parker

With the end of free support for Windows 7, many users are looking at alternatives to Windows 10. And some are considering jumping to Apple’s Mac platform.

This two-part series is an introduction to the world of Mac for those thinking about making the switch from a Windows PC. (A more-detailed verion of this article can be found in the AskWoody forum.)

In this installment, we’ll cover the various types of Mac desktops and notebooks. We’ll also give tips for setting up a new Apple system. Part 2 will provide a general tour of the macOS operating system, discuss keyboard differences, and delve into Mac security concepts.

Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.10.0 (2020-03-09).

Updates to the AskWoody Ultimate Utilities List

UTILITIES

By T B Capen

This past October, I introduced my occasional Ultimate Utilities List to the AskWoody newsletter.

Readers returned the favor by offering some of their favorites in the AskWoody Lounge. Here’s an assortment of apps you might want to try out.

Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.10.0 (2020-03-09).

No, Microsoft hasn’t issued a “Windows 10 update warning”

Fool me once, shame on you. This time the shame’s on me.

I click through on clickbaity things from time to time, and I decided to see if the breathless report from one of the major online publications had picked up something that slipped under my radar.

Nope. I need to rap my own knuckles here.

Here’s the fact. The “optional,  non-security, C/D Week” patch for Win10 version 1903 and 1909, KB 4535996, has a bunch of problems. Mayank Parmar first wrote about them on March 5 in Windows Latest. Lawrence Abrams repeated that list and added a few more the next day in BleepingComputer.

We’re seeing a handful of common installation bugs:

• The patch won’t install, or rolls back
• There are blue screens or black screens after installation
• Complaints of slowness from various sources

We’re also seeing one novel problem, first reported (to the best of my knowledge) by Rafael Rivera. The tool used by Visual Studio to self-sign code, signtool.exe, triggers “Failed to sign” errors after installing the update:

If you’re having trouble with signtool.exe, check if you have KB4535996 (optional 2020-02 CU) installed. Looks like WTLogConfigCiScriptEvent got removed from wldp.dll without sufficient testing.

Microsoft has listened to Rivera (for a change!) and a Visual Studio community post from a Microsoft engineer now says:

We’re aware of issues with signtool.exe after installing the latest optional update for Windows 10, version 1903 or Windows 10, version 1909 (KB4535996). If you are encountering issues or receiving errors related to signtool.exe, you can uninstall the optional update KB4535996. We are working on a resolution and estimate a solution will be available in mid-March.

Of course, neither the Knowledge Base article nor the official Windows Release Information page say squat.

I haven’t talked much about these bugs here because I rarely talk about bugs in beta software — and, make no mistake, the monthly “optional, non-security, C/D Week” patches are beta versions. Maybe even alpha, depending on your definitions. The changes in those patches graduate to full, living, breathing cumulative updates on the following Patch Tuesday.

Neither Susan nor I ever, ever, ever recommend that you install the monthly optional updates. There’s too much downside, and almost no upside. This is a case in point.

This month, though, things are a little different. With nearly all of Microsoft’s employees now working from home, it isn’t clear if all the known bugs (much less the unknown ones!) will get fixed in time for Tuesday. But I’ll have more about that tomorrow in Computerworld.

New forum for COVID-19

I’ve posted several times about the novel coronavirus – once on a purely personal level. I should know better than that. Sorry.

I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and can’t recall any single, recent exogenous event (as in outside the tech sphere) that’s had a greater impact on our day-to-day lives. It’s doubly vexing because we not only have the obvious impact of the spreading infection — Microsoft and many other companies are basically shut down, fer heaven’s sake — but also because we have the tools at hand to help people keep going, even if they can’t drop by the water cooler to catch up on the latest gossip.

I’m also painfully aware of the many problems that surround COVID-19, the way governments and individuals have mishandled things, the way coverage in the media falls far short, the lack of information, both intentional and unintentional.

I have a bit of extraterrestrial skin in this game. I’ve been an advocate of telecommuting (er, working from home) for a long time. Co-wrote a book about it, back when dinosaurs ruled the earth. Much has changed. Surprisingly, much hasn’t. I continue to believe that telecommuting is the way of the future — and probably will be for a millennium or two.

As I said earlier this week, I’m no epidemiologist, and you aren’t either. But I was surprised to find that one of the folks here at AskWoody Central does have a great deal of experience with communicable diseases — and knows a whole lot more about the nuts-and-bolts of infections than I ever will.

All of which has led me to create a forum specifically for discussions about COVID-19. You’re most welcome to drop by and add your observations, questions, and insight. It’s an “Outside the box” forum, so the usual posting rules have been relaxed a bit. Still, I’d like to ask that you keep the political noise to a minimum.

COVID-19 hits Williamson County TN

We haven’t yet made it onto the Johns Hopkins database, but should shortly. (That’s a very handy link, by the way, with the most accurate numbers you’re going to see.)

Williamson County, TN, where I live, just had its first presumptive case of COVID-19.

All schools in the county will be closed tomorrow, Friday, and Monday the 9th for deep cleaning.

Kudos to the officials in charge for taking a very aggressive stance.

UPDATE: We’re now on the Johns Hopkins database.

Microsoft PowerShell 7 upgrade now available for Windows 7

MS knows where its bread is buttered.

MS officially launched Microsoft PowerShell 7 today. It’ll run on Windows 10, Windows Server, macOS, some Linuxi, and … Windows 7.

Good overview from Mary Jo Foley on ZDNet.