Microsoft patch alert: Outstanding problems with recent updates
Credit to Author: Woody Leonhard| Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2017 12:36:00 -0700
August has seen a flurry of buggy patches:
Win10 1607 – KB 4033637, which arrived last Friday via Auto Update, is still undocumented. A Reddit thread credits Microsoft as saying it’s a July security patch for Flash. Abbodi86 on AskWoody has a different view: it’s an update to the Compatibility Appraiser, which is the software that scans a PC to see whether it’s ready to move to the next version. Günter Born concurs with Abbodi86. (I wonder if it’s a precursor to the Fall Creators Update.) There’s no explanation about why Microsoft refuses to document it, or talk about it.
Win10 1507 and 1511 – KB 4033631, similarly undocumented and similarly pushed thru Auto Update, is also likely an update to the Compatibility Appraiser.
Win10 1607 – KB 4039396, seems to be all right, although it’s too early to say for sure since it was just released Aug. 29. It’s a manually-applied cumulative update for 1607, incorporating August’s KB 4038220, KB 4034658 (still offered through Auto Update, wipes out Update History, redlines servers) and KB 4034661.
Win7 – KB 4034664, KB 4034679, KB 4034670 all have an acknowledged problem with garbling data on a second screen on multi-screen systems. Microsoft issued a patch for the screen problem, KB 4039884, but then pulled the patch and re-released it, without any explanation or warning. The original Monthly Rollup, KB 4034664, has two additional acknowledged problems, an old problem with LDAP referral chasing and a crash in WordPad. KB 4034664 is still being pushed via Automatic Update.
Server 2016 – KB 4039396, Server 2012 R2 – KB 4039871, Server 2012 – KB 4039873, WSUS 3.0 SP2 – KB 4039929 – all are supposed to fix the server redlining problem.
Word 2016, Outlook 2016 – The Word 2016 patch KB 3213656 causes merged cells to appear garbled and unresponsive. The bug has not been acknowledged by Microsoft, and the patch is still available.
Office 2016 — The non-security patch KB 4011051 had a bug that left hyperlinks in Excel 2016 non-functional. It’s fixed by KB 4011093 (manual download only)
Additional Office problems – These are detailed on the Fixes or workarounds page.
Surface Pro 4 — The “Surface – System – 7/21/2017 12:00:00 AM – 1.0.65.1,” which rolled out via Auto Update and broke Windows Hello, was replaced by a newer driver, 1.0.75.1.
Adobe Acrobat and Reader — The buggy security patch from Aug. 8 has been replaced by a new one, APSB17-24, dated Aug. 29.
Recommendation: Hold off on applying August Windows and Office patches.
Follow the ongoing Patch Alert topic on the AskWoody Lounge.