Microsoft Patch Alert: Most March patches look good

Credit to Author: Woody Leonhard| Date: Mon, 01 Apr 2019 16:04:00 -0700

March was an unusually light patching month – all of Office only had one security patch – and there don’t appear to be any immediate patching worries. Just as in the past few months, Microsoft’s holding off on its second cumulative update for Windows 10 1809, raising hopes that it’s taking Win10 quality more seriously.

Win10 1809 deployment proceeded at a positively lethargic rate, even though Microsoft declared the OS fit for business consumption last week, leading to all sorts of speculation about the next-next update, Win10 version 1903, ultimately overtaking its younger sibling.

Dell has confirmed that every Windows patch in March – every one of them — bowled over its Encryption Local Management Console. The only solution offered is to either roll back the March patch or upgrade to Dell Encryption 10.2.1.

Few individual users have the Encryption Console, but it’s not uncommon on corporate machines.

All of the Windows 10 versions had two cumulative updates in March, except for Win10 version 1809, the latest version of the last version of Windows. I take it as a hopeful sign that Microsoft’s spending more time to get the bugs ironed out before delivering the “optional non-security” Win10 patch. (It’s “optional” in the sense that you’ll only get it if you click on “Check for updates.”)

There are five irritating, acknowledged bugs in Win10 1809 that haven’t been fixed yet:

Other versions of Win10 have some of the same bugs, introduced by earlier patches.

We’re covering the demise of Windows 7 intently over on AskWoody. But there’s one thing you definitely don’t need – another nagging patch from Microsoft. KB 4493132, a Win7 patch that does nothing bug nag, is definitely worth skipping.

We have some late-breaking news from Michael Horowitz that Win7 now has a scheduled task called refreshgwxconfig-B that seems to be associated with the widely despised “Get Windows X” campaign. It’s not clear at this point where the unwanted task came from.

Microsoft changes its Windows updating terminology capriciously and with absolutely no consideration for settings baked into earlier versions of Win10. But never mind. With word from on high that Win10 version 1809 has been deemed worthy of business deployment, we also have assurances that we’ll get similar confirmation for Win10 versions from 1903 onward. (And that makes me wonder whether we’ll have yet another change in terminology soon.)

In general, March’s patches seem quite tame. Let’s hope that’s the new normal.

Questions answered and discussions dissed on the AskWoody Lounge.

http://www.computerworld.com/category/security/index.rss