March’s Patch Tuesday comes in like a lion

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	PATCH WATCH March’s Patch Tuesday comes in like a lion
	By Susan Bradley That updating reprieve we had in January is now a fond but very distant memory. This Patch Tuesday delivers a heavy load of patches. Along with a slug of Windows security fixes, Office gets an astounding 35 updates.

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The full text of this column is posted at windowssecrets.com/patch-watch/marchs-patch-tuesday-comes-in-like-a-lion/ (opens in a new window/tab).

Columnists typically cannot reply to comments here, but do incorporate the best tips into future columns.[/td]

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Thanks Susan for the usual excellent column.

However, this report (and there are other similar ones) concerns me about one of the patches you recommend for installation:-

http://www.infoworld.com/article/2895906/patch-management/new-kb-3033929-patch-install-fails-at-72-complete-with-errors-80004005-800b0100-80070002-80070005.html

While you highlight the need to apply this update and another one in the right order, failure to do so doesn’t appear to be the cause of the problems being reported.

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Today (after a full backup), I started to install the newest updates per Susan’s instructions in Thursday’s column. I do this one by one, testing certain programs and functions between installations. Ran into an unusual problem with KB3046049, the FREAK fix.

The first unusual occurrence was that on reboot I was asked to select the user I wanted to log on as. I only have 2: myself as administrator and a guest account, and heretofore I was automatically logged on at boot. After that, the boot continued normally. I went to the Task Scheduler to select a task that loaded a particular program and found that Task Scheduler could not find the local computer. All options were greyed out and I could not direct it anywhere. When I checked the Services that were running, I found that the TaskScheduler service was not loaded, even though it was set to “Automatic”. I manually turned on the service and was able to see Task Scheduler load all my tasks as usual. I haven’t rebooted yet to see if everything will go as it did before, but has anyone else found that the TS service was turned off by this update? If this happens again on reboot (in a few minutes after checking out other programs) I’ll post back. Also, where is the setting I changed a few years back that allowed my account to be chosen automatically at boot?

Thanks in advance.

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After a second reboot, everything loaded normally.

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Thanks Susan for the usual excellent column.

However, this report (and there are other similar ones) concerns me about one of the patches you recommend for installation:-

http://www.infoworld.com/article/2895906/patch-management/new-kb-3033929-patch-install-fails-at-72-complete-with-errors-80004005-800b0100-80070002-80070005.html

While you highlight the need to apply this update and another one in the right order, failure to do so doesn’t appear to be the cause of the problems being reported.

So far the root cause appears to be grub bootloaders. I’m not seeing widespread issues outside of a dual boot setup.

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So far the root cause appears to be grub bootloaders. I’m not seeing widespread issues outside of a dual boot setup.

Thanks Susan. I have now installed it on both my machines along with the other updates except a couple you recommended holding onto (one Windows, one Office) and no apparent problems encountered.

Thanks again for all your advice.

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I applied the large selection of patches you discussed (windows 7, Office 2013). After rebooting, I couldn’t open Excel files by double clicking the file. An error message opened “There was a problem sending the command to the program.” In the background a conversion of some sort took place and after a loooong wait the Excel file would open but with a strange name with many O’s and X’s. I checked around; I suspect it had to do with security patches for Compatibility that I saw in my updates for various reasons (old .xls files would open, new .xlsx files would not). When I tried “open with…” Excel did not show up. I did a system restore to just before the updates and everything works fine. Did anyone else have this problem? I would like to put the updates in since many were security patches. Rather than try one at a time, does anyone know which may have caused the problem? And is there a fix coming?

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I applied the large selection of patches you discussed (windows 7, Office 2013). After rebooting, I couldn’t open Excel files by double clicking the file. An error message opened “There was a problem sending the command to the program.” In the background a conversion of some sort took place and after a loooong wait the Excel file would open but with a strange name with many O’s and X’s. I checked around; I suspect it had to do with security patches for Compatibility that I saw in my updates for various reasons (old .xls files would open, new .xlsx files would not). When I tried “open with…” Excel did not show up. I did a system restore to just before the updates and everything works fine. Did anyone else have this problem? I would like to put the updates in since many were security patches. Rather than try one at a time, does anyone know which may have caused the problem? And is there a fix coming?

I have not seen that reported anywhere. I think you are going to have to do a one at a time. There’s no fix as there’s no reported problems with these updates

Review this as well: http://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/211494

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I have not seen that reported anywhere. I think you are going to have to do a one at a time. There’s no fix as there’s no reported problems with these updates

Review this as well: http://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/211494

I found time to start one at a time. The culprit was KB2984939. I applied it and could not open Excel .xlsx files. I uninstalled it but that didn’t help. I did a system restore to a minute before I applied it and now everything is fine.

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Non-security update KB2952664 – Compatibility update for upgrading Windows 7 – appears to have been reissued yesterday (March 25). As usual, the description says that “this update helps Microsoft make improvements to the current operating system …” which suggests that there may be problems if it is not installed. I am sure that Susan has answered this question before but are there any advantages and/or disadvantages of applying updates like this if I do not intend to upgrade from Windows 7?

Thanks,
patermann

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