Microsoft re-releases three “compatibility” patches KB 2952664, 2976978, and 2977759

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I don’t understand why MS does this. InfoWorld Woody on Windows
[See the full post at: Microsoft re-releases three “compatibility” patches KB 2952664, 2976978, and 2977759]

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Not surprised, they pulled the same stunt the last time they had that big surface pro announcement thingy. I was actually searching for updates yesterday, had a hunch they would do it again. Took them an extra day haha.. Maybe they think people have their guards down when Redmond announces new magical things that SUPPOSEDLY will happen in the near future? Aaaanyways, will spread the word LIKE A DEVIL IN THE NIGHT. Thanks for the tip again Woody.

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Hi Woody,
I removed KB2952664 Awhile ago. The KB3035583 was installed 2/16/16 and I never Removed.I removed the 2952664 with uninstall updates tool.I have not had any problem with it showing up. Until today.
I looked it up and found it’s now at Rev.19.0???
I hid it like the others. I also noticed that when searching for updates,No new updates found. Close Win.Go to your Resource Monitor and watch what is getting Uninstalled & Uploaded to the hard disk!
You can read the KB#’s that you are referring to.
So to me it looks like A Big WHOOP’S for MS and now we(MS) need to fix it.
I Just got this from ZDNET News. If any of you haven’t seen it.Ubuntu & Microsoft?? Link below.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-cozies-up-to-ubuntu-as-developers-welcome-cold-day-in-hell/
What this about?? Sure like to know??
Thank you all again,
D.J.

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Commenting here about the article on InfoWorld.
I think the Microsoft logic goes like this. When they find issues with the Windows 10 Upgrade based on their telemetry measurements, they release a new patch with enhancements for the upgrading process.
The patches are not targeted to the Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users who do not intend to upgrade to Windows 10 as the assumption is that they are already protected by one of the known methods discussed here in detail and the so called ‘compatibility’ patches would not affect them, installed or not.

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I’m not moving to W10 until they fix the WUD autoupdate settings for users to be able to shut off those settings. I guess SP1 for me…

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@Woody,

2664 came down the chute this morning as Optional, unchecked and no italics.

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@Woody,

One additional note. The other day I mentioned that after downloading the latest version of GWX Control Panel it immediately found TEN W10 related items on my W7 SP1 x64 machine. I had been running the previous version of GWX Control panel in monitor mode and thought my machine was really clean having seen no nagware related issues at all. But yet, GWX CP found ten items.

Since installing GWX CP V-1.7.3.1 I am suddenly seeing shorter auto update checks, a lot less stress on my CPU during update checks and my fan is no longer popping on randomly during the day (telemetry requests?).

At first I thought it was coincidence but the change has been pretty noticeable. I would recommend anyone using GWX CP on a W7 machines upgrade to the latest version and see if it does improve your performance. It did on my machine.

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@All,

Josh just released GWX Control Panel V-1.7.4

http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/

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I have KB2976978 listed as an optional update. Is there any reason to install this patch if you do not intend to upgrade to W10? In other words, does the patch have any benefit other than scanning your system for W10 compatibility?

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No reason to install. And it doesn’t scan for compatibility, really.

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Disabling WU was there from the beginning but not highly publicised. The official method is by using Local Group Policy Editor, less official is to set manually the same registry keys which the Group Policy Editor configures and there is another way only for those on Wi-fi presented many times on this site.
And you will have to wait a long time for any SP as Microsoft appears to have stopped releasing them. I think you can safely consider the November 2015 release 1511 as equivalent to what would be Windows 10 SP1.

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Yes, that’s correct. In fact, I’ve called build 1511 Win10 SP1, or 10.1, a number of times.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/3011581/microsoft-windows/cumulative-update-kb-3116908-for-windows-10-version-1511-triggers-errors.html

The current build 1511 is at version 10586.164 – but I like to call it 10.1.10.

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It’s all about wearing people down.

-Noel

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GRRRR, the KB2952664, KB2976978 & KB2977759 updates have been re-re-released again on April 7 woody.

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Tonight i went to Hidden updates and the two KB 2952664 that I placed in hide, had one removed. I had an unchecked KB2952664 in my updates to install so hid it again. this makes about 20 times Microsoft has removed updates from my hidden folder and told me to install them again.A week ago they removed KB3035583, so I placed it in hide again.I had checked “check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them” and yet microsoft continues to remove hidden updates and tells me to install them again????????? I have now checked ” NEVER CHECK FOR UPDATES ” so will check for updates manually on Monday of each week.
Woody, please advise. Had my fill of these Vipers. Will never deal with Microsoft ever again.
Sincerely,
Herb Kelly

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Hi Woody,
[W7 SP1 Home 64-bit, ‘Check, but don’t install’]

Fyi, one of the Lady Macbeth twins has turned up AGAIN this morning (UK).

KB2952664 appeared as Optional, Unticked, publish date yesterday. This is despite the fact that it only just re-re-….re-appeared in the same state on 1st April. The April Fools version has now disappeared from ‘Hidden’ (I hide all the updates I don’t want as I find it easier to keep track of them that way.)
Needless to day I have re-re-….re-hidden it AGAIN.

Thanks for all you do, Woody.
Best wishes.

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Thanks for the heads-up.

Yep, it looks like the three headless horsemen are back again – KB 2952664, 2976978, and 2977759. It doesn’t look like they’re any different than the preceding 20 versions.

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I think that’s a reasonable approach. What I don’t get is why they’re pushing these three on all systems – instead of waiting and doing it on systems that are upgrading to Win10.

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“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
George Orwell – 1984

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@Woody @Adrian

KB 2952664 appeared yesterday Optional, Unchecked and no italics. I thought that was odd because I knew I had hidden 2664 so I checked my hidden updates and sure enough, there was another version of KB 2952664 still hidden.

No rhyme or reason anymore, or so it seems.

One final note, since installing the latest version of GWX CP, where it immediately found ten W10 items on what was thought to be a clean W7 SP1 x64 machine monitored by the previous version of GWX CP, the auto check for updates is smooth as dolphin skin; no CPU spikes, quicker than ever, hardly noticeable. Coincidence? Any other reports of this?

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HA!

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Louis / Woody,
My update checks have been running smooth as dolphin skin 🙂 ever since my 28/3 comment here:
https://www.askwoody.com/2016/the-windows-update-slow-issue-there-is-a-definitive-answer-less-a-definitive-solution/#comment-78962
I’m not a proper tester, merely a vigilant user, so it was purely an observation with no conclusive reason for the improvement of process speed.

I have been running GWPCP in monitor mode ever since that feature first became available and so far appear to be clear, with no alerts even from GWXCP 1.7.4.1
I had previously purged the evil twins (KB2952664 / KB3035583) from my W7 system using the WU Installed Updates list whenever they appeared, so maybe I was lucky and this has been sufficient.

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@Adrian @Woody,

I just reread Adrian’s comment that he linked to…my guess, and it’s only a guess, is that the newest version of Josh’s GWX control panel may be clearing out old Windows Update files that Adrian removed w/Clean System Files within Disk Cleanup. I may make a pass by Josh’s site and ask if he has added that to the program.

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KB2952664 made changes in the WindowsSystem32TasksMicrosoftWindowsApplication Experience folder when I tested it back on Feb 8th. So even if you have CEIP (supposedly) turned off, I believe the tasks under Application Experience are still reporting to MS.

Incidentally, I have opted out of CEIP, but in the Task Manager the tasks do not show “disabled.”

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I see a lot of people here keep hiding updates. I have a theory (unconfirmed) that the updates which get pulled by Microsoft and have previously been hidden by the user keep an orphaned entry in the database which may slow down the Windows Update mechanism. One of those updates is KB2952664 which keeps coming back while the old versions are pulled. What advantage does hiding an update provide if WU is not set to automatically update which I assume it is the case for everyone reading this site?

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Not sure if it helps anyone to know what I got with Windows Update this week (probably not!)

Two days ago, I ran Windows Update to cover all of the previous month’s developments (I run it once a month).

I think that I’ve avoided all the possible get-win-10 updates that there have been for the last year.

I have hidden all the prior instances I’ve had of 2664, 5583, and so forth.

I have Windows 7, home edition.

My “optional” list this time around included:

2664 one instance, in the normal font, unchecked (I hid it)

2664 a second instance, in the italicized font, unchecked (I hid it)

5583 just one instance, I can’t remember if it was italicized or not, unchecked (I hid it)

and about 8 others, all unchecked — I left them sitting in the optional list.

—
In the important list, none were a surprise to me (after having skimmed over Susan Bradley’s excel sheet, ghacks’ report, woody’s reports, the bork tuesday discussion thread for the past month, etc.)

All but one were checked. The one that wasn’t checked was the current Outlook junk mail filter one. The information about it that appeared in the right-hand sidebar on the Windows Update screen said, in so many words, that the user should check it. (I’m not sure why it didn’t just come checked.) I didn’t check it since it wasn’t checked. Later if it’s checked, I will download it. (I do not use Outlook anyway.)

On Woody’s advice, I did not download 3139398 and 3139852, just left them there.

Even though Woody and Susan Bradley say it’s okay to download 3139929 (for IE11), because at one stage Woody wrote about it that it “hides an ad generator in the guise of a security patch”, I decided to leave it un-downloaded for the next few weeks, to see if there are any negative reports about it.

The time that Windows Update took to gather the updates from the server for my computer was about 28 minutes. When I started Windows Update, my computer immediately jumped to using 2/3rds of memory and 25% of CPU, and it stayed very steady at those levels for the entire 28 minutes of checking. To my recollection, this precise control is not usually how it has behaved in the past during Windows Update.

The only change in my computer that I have noticed after downloading/installing the other Windows Update Win7 and Office2007 security patches 2 days ago is that, about 10 times in the last 2 days, the mouse and keyboard have frozen up for a few minutes before unfreezing, while I’ve been using the internet in normal ways, on sites that I always visit. This has never happened before with my current computer, which is a couple of years old.

—–
I also “manage” a relative’s win7 home edition computer, and I have it set up just like my own, I install the same Windows Updates on both machines within 2 days of each other, I hide the same updates, etc.

On that computer, which I updated yesterday, a day after doing mine, the only difference in the updates which MS offered it was that it only received one instance of 2664 in the optional list (instead of my two instances), and that one instance was not italicized.

On that computer, Windows Update took about 35-40 minutes to check with the server, and unlike how it worked on my computer, it had this computer’s memory usage jumping up and down, and the CPU use jumped constantly from 1% to 38% most of the time, along with sustained periods of a few minutes each when the CPU usage was 100%. (This is usually how my computer has behaved in the past during Windows Updates.)

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If you enabled History (disabled by default) in Task Scheduler you would be able to see more details about the activity of those tasks. If History is disabled, there is still a code which generally 0 means that the task completed successfully, but there are other codes which indicate partial completion, however the main activity of the task is still completed.
I think the current recommendation is to disable the tasks in addition to the normal CEIP disabled setting to completely disable telemetry in Windows 7.

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In regards to 2664 one instance vs 2 instances I think it relates to timing. The old instance was pulled by Microsoft the same day and it is possible that both coexisted for a while on WU site. When you moved to the second computer, it was probably after the old instance was pulled.
In relation to the Outlook Junk Filter, I also noticed last month that many Office updates were unchecked. I tried hard to find a reason, the closest explanation being the so called throttling or regulation as it normally appears in the logs – “Update is not allowed to download due to regulation”. However even if the behaviour looked like throttling, which means that the Microsoft servers gradually release the updates to different computers or maybe regions at different times due to higher momentary load, I could not find the word “regulation” in the logs. It may be that the log entry applies only to Windows and not Office updates but I don’t know. Let’s assume throttling for now in absence to any other indication. The Junk Filter update can be safely installed as Woody mentioned in many places.

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