MS-DEFCON 2: Batten down the hatches for January

ISSUE 19.01.1 • 2022-01-06

By Susan Bradley

Microsoft has started off the patching year — and not in a good way.

Soon after midnight all across the world, mail administrators running Exchange 2013 and Exchange 2016 started noticing that mail was not being delivered in their organizations. Horror of horrors, this has been dubbed the “Y2K22” bug — just what we wanted to hear.

Anyone can read the full AskWoody Plus Alert 19.01.1 (2022-01-06).

We listened, we listened!

Here’s the thing. Susan and I get a lot of email (we do our best to answer everyone). We grin and light up when complimented; we grit our teeth and bear it when our correspondents are less kind. And we listen.

Unexpectedly, one of the top complaints we’ve both received has to do with the MS-DEFCON banner images we changed back in May. At the time, we conformed the colors of the levels to the US military DEFCON system, with white (level 1) being the most dangerous condition and blue (5) the safest. I thought that made sense because the origin of this site’s MS-DEFCON system was, in fact, the military’s.

The question we kept getting, almost daily, was which was worse, one or five, white or blue? It was politely explained to us that we should have used red and green. We thought this would die down, but the tea leaves were speaking to us – change it!

So we did. We did not quite return to the original colors, which used a shade of green for both levels four and five. Instead, we used blue for level four. What we’ve adopted now is, in effect, the same set of colors used by the US Homeland Security Advisory System (aka terror alert levels). The new images are in effect now, everywhere. They’ll even be updated in older emails if you happen to have saved them.

Now maybe our inboxes will settle down a bit.

Webb telescope – Secondary mirror fully deployed

If you’ve been following the James Webb telescope saga, you’ll know that they are so far… so good.

The sunshield has been deployed and now the secondary mirror deployment is completed.

Too bad the Nasa folks can’t code up Windows updates, ‘eh?

A change to Alerts!

Our MS-DEFCON system has proven extremely popular. It’s the reason the banner on our home page is so prominent.

Early in 2021, we decided to post an abbreviated version of MS-DEFCON alert newsletters in our blog, reserving the full alert for Plus edition members. We’ve been pleased that this change met with general acceptance, but a review of our alerts for 2021 has shown that the difference between our blog post and the full alert is minimal. Therefore, I’ve decided to make a change.

We publish two kinds of alerts, one for a changed MS-DEFCON level and one for other types of information. Henceforth, all MS-DEFCON alerts will be available to anyone visiting the site. Other alerts will continue as an exclusive benefit of Plus membership, as will emailed alerts and text message alerts.

I’m happy to bring the MS-DEFCON coverage to a wider audience. It’s my contribution to promoting safe and sensible patching strategies.

January 2022 Office non-Security Updates are now available

The January 2022 Office non-Security updates have been released Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2022. They are not included in the DEFCON-4 approval for the December 2021 patches. Unless you have a specific need to install them, you should wait until Susan Bradley (Patch Lady) approves them and any problems have been reported.

Remember, Susan’s patching sequence and recommendations are based on a business environment that has IT support and may have time constraints on the updating process. Consumer patching should be more cautious due to limited technical and mechanical resources. The latter is the reason for the AskWoody DEFCON system.

Office 2016
Update for Microsoft Project 2016 (KB4504713)

There were no non-security listings for Office 2013.
On April 10, 2018, Office 2013 reached End of Mainstream Support. Extended Support will end for Office 2013 on April 11, 2023.
Office 2016 also reached  End of Mainstream Support on October 13, 2020. EOS for Office 2016 is October 14, 2025.

Updates are for the .msi version (perpetual). Office 365 and C2R are not included.

Security updates for all supported versions of Microsoft Office are released on the second Tuesday of the month (Patch Tuesday).

Special Edition: Building Opal

ISSUE 19.01 • 2022-01-03

EDITORIAL

By Will Fastie

Our writers have the week off.

The AskWoody newsletters are published 48 times per year, leaving four Mondays on which we would have no issue. Last year we tried an experiment on one of those off Mondays, reprinting a few articles that we thought you would like to see in one place.

That experiment went well; your feedback was positive. We ended up doing it twice last year and now we’re doing it again.

This time, we’re bringing you the four published articles about Opal, my new Windows 11 PC DIY build. That is complemented with a brief new piece in which I describe my lack of progress.

We hope you like it!

Read the full AskWoody Plus Newsletter 19.01.0 (2022-01-03).
Read the full AskWoody Free Newsletter 19.01.F (2022-01-03).

Opal: The Update

HARDWARE DIY

By Will Fastie

It hasn’t gone as smoothly as I had hoped.

Maybe I’ve just been lucky. Maybe I’m getting older and slower. Or dumber. Whatever it is, I’ve run into some problems getting Opal up and running.

I’ve done the basic configuration steps and I’ve installed Windows 10 Pro. The computer is running fine. The UEFI BIOS sees all the hardware and I think I’ve done the RAID 1 configuration correctly. So what’s the problem?

Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 19.01.0 (2022-01-03).
This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 19.01.F (2022-01-03).

Tip for the weekend – you got a Win11

So Santa bought you a new laptop for Christmas. And it’s Windows 11. And you’ve tried that center menu for a bit and it’s well… annoying.  Or you have so many other Windows 10 machines that your brain can’t handle something new. What options do you have?

Can you install Windows 10 on it?  Yes, you have the rights to downgrade rights to Windows 10. But I always wince when you take a brand new computer that was built for and designed for a specific operating system and put something else on it. Now if there is flat out some program that will not run on it? By all means, it’s your computer to do with it whatever you like. But if you don’t have a blocking condition and just don’t like the new menu?  You’ve got options:

Watch this video here for demonstrations of them.

You may wish to install an alternative Windows 10 menu instead. There are two that are highly recommend: Startallback and Start11. Both will provide you with a Windows 10 or even Windows 7 experience.

Want to have file thumbnails back in a folder? There’s a workaround for that as well. However you might just want to use this opportunity to do a better job naming files.

Bottom line while you can install Windows 10 with downgrade rights on a brand new computer, if you are like me where you slightly wince doing so, you may want to try out those options first.

Okay Microsoft this is not how to start off 2022

Business patchers only – heads up

Joseph Roosen on Twitter: “#Microsoft and #Exchange starting off 2022 with a as of 00:00UTC with freezing transport of all emails flowing through it On-Prem due to failure converting the new date… . Solution is to disable the AntiMalware Scanning temporarily via Disable-Antimalwarescanning.ps1. 1/x” / Twitter

If you have an on premises mail server 2016 or 2019, heads up you have a problem and your mail isn’t running because the malware filter can’t parse the 2022 year date.

The workaround is

set-malwarefilteringserver -bypassfiltering $true -identity [name-of-exchange-server]

Yes that disables the malware filter, hopefully Microsoft comes up with a fix soon. Note hosted email is not having a problem. Only on premises email servers.

Exchange mail flow breaks (Disable AntiMalwareScanning) – ALI TAJRAN

Edit of 1/1/2022 10 a.m pacific:  Still no official acknowledgement from Microsoft.

Edit 1/1/2022 11:48 pacific – Acknowledgement by Microsoft:  (1) Email Stuck in Transport Queues – Microsoft Tech Community

It’s nearly 2022

At least for me in my time zone, I have a few hours left. For those of you downunder you are already there.

2021 has had it’s moments. I’m proud of this site and everyone who participates. We’re ending it on a bit of an odd note with the news that actress Betty White has passed away at nearly 100.  Geekdom had a great post the other day and I hope everyone takes the time to read it and contemplate what you’d like to add to his list.

Again thank you all for helping us close 2021 and open up 2022. Here’s to the new year!

To close a bit of YoYo Ma from his twitter account.

Yo-Yo Ma on Twitter: “Wishing you all a happy 2022. https://t.co/AgX2JRP4Y9” / Twitter

Click on the link above and enjoy his fabulous talent.

MS-DEFCON 4: Closing out the year of patching

ISSUE 18.50.1 • 2021-12-28 By Susan Bradley The end of 2021 brings the final updates for Windows 10 2004. Meanwhile, most of us are planning not to install the new Windows 11. The December patching month has been relatively uneventful for Windows Home Edition users. The only major patching side effect I’ve seen came when an Office update prevented multiple users of Access from opening a database on the network. As noted in a Microsoft support page, the Microsoft 365 click-to-run versions listed below have been fixed. If you use Access, close and reopen Office to trigger it to download a new version. The fixed versions are: If you have Office 2016, the fix is in KB4484211. You must manually download the patch and install it. We’re still waiting on the fix for Office 2013. Consumer and home users Now is the time to upgrade Windows 10 2004 to 21H2. If you have not already been offered 21H2, I recommend a visit to the Windows 10 ISO page; click on the Update now button. Of course, be sure you have a backup of your computer first. Also, uninstall any VPN software you use — it’s a bit of overkill, but I have seen cases of VPN software interfering with the update process. Reinstall it after the upgrade is complete. If you have any side effects, please visit the forums so we can follow up on any lingering issues. The good news for Windows 10 is that it’s moving to a once-a-year feature-release cadence. Given that Microsoft will be focusing on Windows 11, I anticipate that Windows 10 updates will turn into a nice, boring release process for most of us. Business users Unless you are running Enterprise versions, I also recommend that businesses move to Windows 10 21H2. The version has been stable in my office. I always make sure that I have all workstations on the same version of Windows 10, to make my life easier. Many of us are still trying to chase down the patching we need to do for the Log4j2 vulnerability. It may take time to follow up with all the vendors in your clients’ networks, so be prepared to get updates from vendors as they discover what is and is not vulnerable. For example, I’ve found that my Ricoh printers are not vulnerable in my own network. Going through this listing takes time, and you’ll probably need to work together with each client. Don’t expect to know immediately what is vulnerable. Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Alert 18.50.1 (2021-12-28).

Roll back Windows 11 after more than 60 days

ISSUE 18.50 • 2021-12-27

PUBLIC DEFENDER

By Brian Livingston

I wrote “Win11 isn’t a must-have upgrade yet” in my October 18, 2021, AskWoody column. However, for true experimenters, I explained a single Registry line that enables you to install Win11 on what Microsoft calls “unsupported” CPU and TPM chips, in case you really need one of four new Win11 features.

Since that time, it turns out you can fix one of Microsoft’s most restrictive new policies. To the frustration of many, Win11 can’t be rolled back to Win10 a mere ten days following an upgrade. Fortunately, you can end that limitation by using a couple of very simple steps.

Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.50.0 (2021-12-27).
This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 18.50.F (2021-12-27).