Newsletter Archives

• Where we stand with the Cortana/Search redlining bug

  Posted on September 4, 2019 at 06:05 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  We’re stuck between a rock and a very hard place.

  On the one hand, if you’re running Win10 1903 — you may have been pushed — you really need to get the first August cumulative update installed to guard against DejaBlue (which hasn’t been exploited yet).

  On the other hand, there are so many bugs in the first August cumulative update (VB/VBA/VBScript, Windows Sandbox, PXE, MIT Kerberos) that you really should get the second August cumulative update.

  On the third hand, if you install the second August cumulative update, your machine may start redlining.

  Tell me again how Win10 1903 is ready for prime time?

  Computerworld Woody on Windows.

  Windows Patches/Security Cortana, Cortana redline, CPU redline, KB 4512941, Win10 1903

• Microsoft STILL hasn’t acknowledged the bugs in last Friday’s Win10 1903 cumulative update

  Posted on September 3, 2019 at 13:54 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Last Friday, Microsoft released KB 4512941, the long-anticipated second August cumulative update for Win10 version 1903.

  Within a few hours, people were complaining on various online forums that installing the update immediately triggered excessive CPU use. I wrote about that on Friday night.

  Since then, explanations and workarounds have appeared all over the place. @EP came up with this list:

  https://news.softpedia.com/news/windows-10-cumulative-update-kb4512941-causing-high-cpu-usage-527226.shtml

  https://www.neowin.net/news/some-windows-10-users-on-1903-are-facing-high-cpu-usage-after-latest-cumulative-updates

  https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-cpu-spikes-1903-update-brings-fixes-but-also-high-usage-issues/

  https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/windows-10-kb4512941-update-causing-high-cpu-usage-in-cortana/

  one workaround to the problem posted on Softpedia news:
  https://news.softpedia.com/news/how-to-fix-high-cpu-usage-caused-by-windows-10-cumulative-update-kb4512941-527235.shtml

  Günter Born has had two — not one, but two — explainers with detailed analyses. Ends up that making certain registry changes can get the CPU utilization back to normal.

  Most damning, Mayank Parnmar at Windows Latest reported on Saturday:

  It’s important to note that Microsoft actually tested KB4512941 with Windows Insiders in the Release Preview Ring for more than a week before shipping the update to the general public.

  According to some posts on Feedback Hub, reports of high CPU usage were submitted multiple times by testers earlier this week, but the reports appear to have been ignored because they weren’t upvoted enough.

  So now it’s Tuesday, four days after the offal hit the fan… and Microsoft hasn’t said one thing about it.

  Even now, the KB article says:

  Known issues in this update

  Microsoft is not currently aware of any issues with this update.

  And the Release Information Status page says absolutely nothing.

  UPDATE: As I was writing this, MS posted on Twitter (thx, MJF)

  We are currently investigating an issue where users are reporting high CPU usage linked to SeachUI.EXE after installing the optional update on August 30 (KB4512941). We will provide an update in an upcoming release.

  — Windows Update (@WindowsUpdate) September 3, 2019

  Windows Patches/Security Cortana, Cortana redline, CPU redline, KB 4512941, Win10 1903