Newsletter Archives

• Microsoft re-issues KB 3125574, the “Service Pack 2” Convenience rollup for Win7 and Server 2008 R2

  Posted on March 30, 2018 at 06:26 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  It’s now available as KB 3125574.

  Look at the first known issue:

  A new Ethernet Network Interface Card (NIC) that has default settings may replace the previous NIC and cause network issues. Any custom settings on the previous NIC persist in the registry but aren’t used.

  You cain’t win, you cain’t get ahead, and you cain’t even get out of the game.

  P.S. I found this by looking at the latest KBNew list.. Microsoft has updated 1,826 KB articles so far this month.

  Windows Patches/Security KB 3125574

• A progress report on Win7 “Service Pack 2”

  Posted on August 9, 2017 at 05:53 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  A year ago, Microsoft promised that it would roll all of its Windows 7 post-SP1 updates together and release them along with the monthly Win7 cumulative rollups. It’s effectively a “Service Pack 2” released in stages.

  Microsoft’s ill-fated KB 3125574, released fourteen months ago, tried but failed to bring together all of the older patches.

  I had a chance to go through the catalog entries for the past few Win7 cumulative rollups, and it looks like Microsoft’s making some progress — although the pace has stalled.

  The catalog entry for this month’s Win7 cumulative rollup, KB 4034664, says it replaces 76 updates, some of which go back years. That’s far from a slam-dunk of all post-SP1 patches, but it’s a decent start — especially if the updates work without stomping all over each other.

  If you’re curious, here’s a copy of the two latest “replaces” lists, in a spreadsheet.

  Windows Patches/Security KB 3125574, KB 4034664

• Office 2010 won’t start with EMET enabled, bug in KB 3146706 and KB 3125574

  Posted on June 22, 2016 at 14:43 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Just saw this:

  https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3163644

  Microsoft Office 2010 doesn’t start when EMET is enabled in Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2

  Symptoms
  This issue occurs when the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) is enabled and security update 3146706 or convenience rollup update 3125574 is installed.

  Resolution
  To fix this issue, install June 2016 update rollup for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

  Thanks to Susan Bradley.

  Windows Patches/Security EMET, KB 3125574, KB 3146706, Office 2010

• Windows 7 “SP2” convenience update rollup under examination

  Posted on June 4, 2016 at 07:01 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  As most of you know, I’ve had no end of frustration with KB 3125574, the Windows 7 “Service Pack 2” that Microsoft calls a “convenience update rollup.”

  An email I received just pointed me to a tremendous detailed analysis of the “SP2” rollup, what’s wrong with it, and how to fix it. Here’s how it starts:

  This document contains detailed information about issues that end users are experiencing with Convenience rollup update for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1.

  These issues are not a result of a misunderstanding or misinterpretation; they’re real issues that degrade the experience of the rollup…

  The rollup doesn’t include the following optional feature packs, but it does contain their updated components (which were previously released as individual hotfixes or updates):

  Platform Update KB2670838, Remote Desktop Protocol 8.0/8.1, Windows Management Framework 4.0, Work Folders, DirectAccess Connectivity Assistant 2.0, Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services, Remote Server Administration Tools, Virtual PC, Server Essentials Connector, Active Directory Federation Services,

  KB2483177 Desktop Experience Decoder Update for Windows Server 2008 R2.

  This means that the user needs to install those feature packs first (before rollup) so that the updated components contained in the rollup get installed when it’s installed afterwards.
  This should eliminate all their individual updates released before the rollup.

  And it follows with a detailed description of exactly what is and isn’t in “SP2.” Right off the bat, the poster — who identifies himself as Abbodii, PointZero, Komm – explains why SFC /scannow burps on an SP2-updated machine.

  The post is couched as a request to Microsoft engineering, to take a look at the problem and fix it. Abbodii recommends that Microsoft put together one small hotfix that fixes three of the problems in “SP2.” That hotfix could be constructed so it need be run just once, right after installing “SP2.”

  Those of you who are knee-deep in “SP2” – could you take a look and tell me what you think? I’m going to try to put together a simple how-to for InfoWorld — one that any Win7 user can follow.

  Windows Patches/Security KB 3125574, Windows 7 SP2

• The Win 7 “SP2” convenience rollup KB 3125574 might actually be worthwhile

  Posted on May 27, 2016 at 13:14 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  This just in from Noel Carboni:

  I now have a test Win 7 virtual machine on which I’ve installed the “convenience rollup update”, KB3125574.

  Rather than start with a clean setup I chose a Win 7 system that was up to date as of January 14, had been set to do manual updates only, and was configured for maximum privacy (e.g., settings were tweaked, telemetry jobs were disabled, etc.).   The system also had several updates hidden.

  These are the Windows Updates I had hidden on that system before installing the “convenience rollup update”.  They include GWX and telemetry, as well as the Windows Genuine Advantage update from years ago.

  • KB2952664 (diagnostics to determine whether the system will be compatible with Win 10)
  • KB3021917 (determines if performance issues will be encountered if upgrading to Win 10 and sends telemetry)
  • KB3035583 (GWX)
  • KB3068708 (Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry)
  • KB3080149 (Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry)
  • KB3123862 (Updated capabilities to upgrade Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 [to Win 10])
  • KB971033 (Update for Windows Activation Technologies)

  I have some uncommon software that allows me to see what communications are being attempted, and I can verify that this particular setup was completely quiet before the update.

  The idea here is to see whether installing the “convenience rollup update” could be useful with an existing system that’s both up-to-date or mostly so, and which had experienced some Windows Update slowness before.

  Today I installed the “convenience rollup update” from the catalog .msu file downloaded from Microsoft.

  I’m monitoring the communications carefully.  Afterward, so far, I haven’t heard an new peeps out of the telemetry software.

  I checked the various scheduled jobs and whatnot.  Pro-privacy configuration changes I had made were left in place, and disabled jobs were left disabled – which surprised me a bit given Microsoft’s recent moves.  Maybe the folks who are doing Windows 7 updates at Microsoft aren’t all bad.  Yet.

  This is good news so far; it hints that this “convenience rollup” update really might be worth using.  However, I’ve only been monitoring it for a few hours after the installation.  It needs to be running for some days (and especially overnight) before I can say with any confidence whether it’s staying quiet.   I’ll let you know if I detect anything out of the ordinary.

  Other observations:

  I tried a manually-initiated Windows Update.   It took a few minutes, then failed with hex error.  However, a notification pop-up came up shortly thereafter claiming an update was available.  I think the error may have happened because it was checking on its own after I had started the Windows Update service, and my manually initiated check couldn’t start up a second instance.

  When I clicked on the notification pop-up, this update was the only one listed as available:

  • KB971033

  After the update, this reduced list is now shown as still hidden:

  • KB3021917 (determines if performance issues will be encountered if upgrading to Win 10 and sends telemetry)
  • KB3035583 (GWX)
  • KB3068708 (Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry)
  • KB3080149 (Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry)

  As mentioned above, KB971033 is an update from years ago that will actively check to see whether Microsoft wants to deactivate your license.  I use only legitimately licensed software, but I can imagine any number of things could go wrong with that, so as a matter of course I always hide it on all my Win 7 systems.

  It was a bit of a surprise that only that update showed up as available.  What I don’t know is whether they’re trying to tell me that KB971033 must go in before I can see any other updates, or whether there just aren’t any more right now that are not included in the convenience package.  If this update is now required, that represents a change, as it has never been required before.

  Experimentation and observation continues…

  [Woody again… I had a horrible time starting with a clean Win7 SP1 and running the rollup – hours and hours of delays, odd behavior. I’ll try to write it up at some point, but my top priority right now is the second edition of Win10 All-In-One For Dummies — a Herculean task.]

   

  Windows News KB 3125574, Windows 7 SP2

• What’s really happening with the Win7 “SP2” update KB 3125574

  Posted on May 23, 2016 at 14:28 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  I’ve done a squeaky-clean install of Win7 SP1 (the official copy from the MSDN site).

  Went to the Microsoft Update Catalog site, to download KB 3125574.

  Golly, the Update Catalog site doesn’t work with IE 8. So I opened IE 8 and upgraded to IE 11.

  I tried again, but the Update Catalog site didn’t like my copy of IE 11, either.  In the end, the ActiveX control for the Catalog wouldn’t install. So, following the instructions on the KB 3125574 page, I downloaded KB 3020369 directly and installed it

  I then went to the direct download link for “SP2” for 64-bit versions of Windows 7, downloaded 3125574 and installed it.

  A day after I started, I got notification that Windows was installing 1 of 1 updates. Many hours later (hey, a guy’s gotta sleep) the installation was done and I rebooted.

  These updates – and ONLY these updates – are installed:

  Update for Microsoft Windows (KB3125574)

  Security Update for Microsoft Windows (KB3123479)

  User-Mode Driver Framework v111 (KB2685813)

  Update for Microsoft Windows (KB971033)

  Update for Microsoft Windows (KB3063109)

  Update for Microsoft Windows (KB3020369)

  Update for Microsoft Windows (KB2888049)

  Update for Microsoft Windows (KB2882822)

  Update for Microsoft Windows (KB2834140)

  Update for Microsoft Windows (KB2786081)

  Update for Microsoft Windows (KB2731771)

  Update for Microsoft Windows (KB2729094)

  Hotfix for Microsoft Windows (KB2639308)

  Update for Microsoft Windows (KB2533623)

  Update for Microsoft Windows (KB2670838)

  Internet Explorer 11

  Microsoft Windows English Spelling Package

  Microsoft Windows English Hyphenation Package

  Hotfix for Microsoft Windows (KB2534111)

  Update for Microsoft Windows (KB976902)

  That’s it. No 3035583, no GWX, not much garbage. Those of you with hate lists of “bad” patches might want to check and see which of these are offensive in your part of the universe.

  Investigation continues.

  t/h to Anonymous for proofreading this list!

  Windows Patches/Security KB 3125574, Windows 7 SP2