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It’s always a good idea to pause Windows updates just before they hit the rollout chute. This month, we’re facing two extraordinary issues that you need to take into account. Wouldn’t hurt if you told your friends and family, too.

Take last month’s Windows patches. Please. We had one patch, KB 4524244, that slid out on Patch Tuesday, clobbered an unknown number of machines (HP PCs with Ryzen processors got hit hard), then remained in “automatic download” status until it was finally pulled on Friday. We had another patch, KB 4532693, that gobbled desktop icons and moved files while performing a nifty trick with temporary user profiles. Microsoft never did fix that one.

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Remember the warning about watching how sausage is made? This is an electronic sausage-making story with lots of dirty little bits.

First, the chronology. On February’s Patch Tuesday, Microsoft released a bizarre standalone security patch, KB 4524244, which was then called “Security update for Windows 10, version 1607, 1703, 1709, 1803, 1809, and 1903: Feb. 11, 2020.” The name has changed, but bear with me.

The original problems with KB 4524244

That patch had all sorts of weird hallmarks as I discussed at the time:

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Why am I still writing about Windows 7? It’s dead, Jim! The tombstone reads, “June 22, 2009 – January 14, 2020.” It was a good run, but unless you’re shelling out some serious coin for Windows 7 Extended Security Updates (ESU), you shouldn’t be running Windows 7.

But many of you are. According to the best survey of who’s running what, the U.S. government’s Digital Analytics Program (DAP), on Feb. 14, weeks after Win7’s end of life, just over one in 20 of Windows users was still using Windows 7! Oh, come on! More than 5%! A dead and buried OS! Get with the program!

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I’m hearing lots of complaints from people who spent good money to get Win7 Extended Security Updates, but don’t see this month’s patches. There’s a reason why. Microsoft didn’t bother to tell us that you need a new patch, released yesterday, in order to start receiving Win7 ESU updates. You have to download the new patch, KB 4538483, from the Microsoft Catalog, and install it manually before the updates even appear.

Folks who spent money to get the February and later patches are livid. 

Yesterday, after releasing the February updates, Microsoft modified its ESU Procedure page to add this step:

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