More problems with Windows patches breaking older Access databases

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Susan Bradley noted over the weekend that all of this month’s Windows patches break some Access 95-era Jet databases. That’s been acknowledged by Micr
[See the full post at: More problems with Windows patches breaking older Access databases]

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abbodi86, GreatAndPowerfulTech

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Unfortunately, upgrading a non-trivial Access 97 database to 2000 requires application changes.  Been there, done that.  It was totally worth it for the new programming features, though.

 

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woody

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KB4486563 — Monthly Rollup February 12, 2019 — notes last Updated: Feb 20, 2019

M$ why don’t you pull the January and February 2019 updates, fix the awful mess you have made, test it, until it is working properly, and then release it.

The list of “Known issues” (February 2019 upsates) is now up to five. The text of the “known issues” has changed on an almost daily basis — twice in the last four hours. Who would install this — not me.

I do voluntary work where we have six Win 7 computers. We run a custom written program that stores about 100.000 names and information on an MDB database. I am very protective of this database (daily off site backups etc), so why would I run a script on it to fix the broken February update.

I WOULD BE MAD TO DO SO !!!!!!!!!! Who says the “fixit” script will fix it or break it even further.

After a database has been converted (as M$ sugests) it must be verified otherwise we could find  ourselves with a corrupted database — and I don’t see M$ knocking on my door to help me fix that event.

I do not have any confidence in Microsoft updates any more. Take a look at the past year since Meltdown ans Spectre arrived in January 2018, and you will see what I mean.

An Example —

The following “Known issue” has been listed in every monthly rollup since March 2018. In February 2019 It suddenly disappears without an explanation. Has it been fixed or not? Until I see a note in the “Known Issues” I can only assume that it has not.

After you apply this update, the network interface controller may stop working on some client software configurations. This occurs because of an issue related to a missing file, oem<number>.inf. The exact problematic configurations are currently unknown.

What an awefull mess M$ have got themselves into. I have been reading Canadian Tech’s approach to computer maintenance and it is the only thing that safely makes sense at the moment.

My computers updates are frozen at December 2017 until this mess is sorted — if ever —

mbhelwig

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I really don’t understand comments like these.

Your professional responsibility is to protect your customers’ data, and you’ve decided to…. what…. not do that?  The idea that you’d refuse to protect your customers from Spectre/Meltdown is deeply, deeply unprofessional.

Who do you work for?  Your customer, or botnet farmers?

As it turns out, JET had a variety of security vulnerabilities that have likely been lurking for the last 20 years.  Now that these have come to light, expect it to be added to the set of standard attacks that automated systems will try.  JET is deployed on millions & millions of systems…. a juicy target, indeed.

Make a copy of the MDB, test the fix, then upgrade accordingly.  Yeah, it sucks, but this is the real world we have to live in as security professionals.  Whine about it if you must, but Get It Done.

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Yeah, that’s a major problem here.

Properly verified processing for data integrity, which *is* “protecting customers’ data”, is not something that’s feasible with constant updates – especially as the updates cause other problems in the database application already, not to mention elsewhere…

The right way to do such processing safely is isolation.

And it’s not like it’s news that JET has problems.

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woody & Susan:

The fixes for the MS Access database problems have just been released several hours ago.

KB4490511 – Update for Windows 7, February 19, 2019
KB4409512 – Update for Windows 8.1, February 19, 2019

There are also new cumulative updates for Windows 10 from v1607 to v1803 as noted on this Neowin.net page:
https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-releases-windows-10-builds-17134619-162991004—heres-whats-new

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Lori

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Is it reasonable to expect Win10 to maintain compatibility with 20-25 year-old software? Seems unrealistic to me.

If I had old essential apps like that, I’d make sure I had similar-era hardware & OS to run it on.

Lugh.
~
Alienware Aurora R6; Win10 Home x64 1803; Office 365 x32
i7-7700; GeForce GTX 1060; 16GB DDR4 2400; 1TB SSD, 256GB SSD, 4TB HD

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Access 2010 is able to work natively with Access 97 MDB files, so it is still in the support matrix.  Office 2010 is not scheduled for EOL until late next year.

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Lugh

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If I had old essential apps like that, I’d make sure I had similar-era hardware & OS to run it on.

We did — It was called windows XP pro — our last XP machine died last year (Failed Motherboard). Our current MDB database was converted from the previous database (name now unknown) in the 1990s. It was a harrowing experience that took all night (I kid you not). Our previous office manager sat up all night until he had successfully converted it and verified it. I thought that we had lost it all, but he persevered. There are companies still using older databases than M$ Jet.

There is an airport (not a large one) in France that is still using Windows 3.1 — Google it sometime.

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/7xakd9/windows-31-is-still-alive-and-it-just-killed-a-french-airport

mbhelwig

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Lugh

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I don’t find that unrealistic at all.

Microsoft used to be good at binary compatibility when they chose to – I’m fairly sure you could still run Xenix/286 applications from 1985 on Xinuos/SCO operating systems today.

SCO OpenServer 5, originally released in 1995 (a descendant of MS Xenix), did get a 2018 maintenance release from Xinuos, after all…

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