Newsletter Archives

• Keizer: One year later, enterprises still wrestle with Windows 7’s cumulative updates

  Posted on December 8, 2017 at 07:01 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  How’s the patchocalypse faring? Gregg Keizer has a good overview in Computerworld:

  Microsoft’s decision to change its long-established practice of letting customers decide which Windows patches to apply continues to plague companies.

  Sounds familiar, eh?

  Windows Patches/Security Patchocalypse

• New directions for Win 7 and 8.1 patching

  Posted on October 19, 2017 at 20:59 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  I think it’s time to re-evaluate the “Group A” and “Group B” instructions for updating Windows 7 and 8.1. It’s been one year since Microsoft announced that it was grouping together patches – the “patchocalypse” – and we’ve seen a lot of water under multiple bridges.

  With the advent of MS17-010, there’s no question that patching is a must. Group W is no longer viable.

  @MrBrian and many others are now convinced that Group B doesn’t work either. Lots of details, lots of problems – and those who manually install security-only updates are finding that Microsoft hasn’t made life easy. Or perhaps even tolerable.

  Now it looks like my old instructions for Group A aren’t going to work any more, either. In particular there are problems with hiding individual patches that may bite back.

  So I’m opening up the floor for discussion. Two questions:

  Is it ever going to be possible for “normal” people – by which I mean people who don’t have time to spend hours every day – to manually download and install all of the patches they need?

  For those who stick with Microsoft’s preferred approach, is there anything “normal” people can do to avoid really bad patches? And is it possible to curtail Microsoft’s snooping in the process?

  Your comments and insight most welcome.

  Windows Patches/Security Group A, Group B, Patchocalypse

• Windows 7 & 8.1 patchocalypse springs a few surprises

  Posted on October 14, 2016 at 10:05 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  I’m in catch-up mode here. I posted this two days ago.

  This should give you some perspective on how the patchocalypse is going, in real life.

  InfoWorld Woody on Windows

  Thanks to JO for nudging me! Man, it’s been busy around here.

  Windows Patches/Security Patchocalypse

• Windows Update is wonky this morning

  Posted on October 11, 2016 at 10:25 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  “wonky” being a technical term.

  Canadian Tech just posted a detailed description of his experiences this morning on the Microsoft Answers thread about the patchocalypse.

  I responded with this:

  I, too, installed Office on two VMs this morning. Office 2013 Pro on one, 2016 on the other.

  This morning, I had no updates for either one. So I just left the machines idling with Windows Update set to Never.

  At this point – 8:20 am Pacific time, two hours later – I have a bunch of Office 2013 updates waiting, but no Office 2016 updates.

  Don’t be too surprised if Windows Update gets the jitters while Microsoft is reloading for the patchocalypse. Just follow Canadian Tech’s advice from the post:

  Stay away from Windows Update today and for the foreseeable future until we find out what is going on.  We need a viable strategy that keeps our Windows 7 systems running as Windows 7, reliably and predictably.  If we want Windows 10 and the loss of privacy that brings, we will buy systems like that.  Meantime, we intend to keep our Windows 7 systems, which we invested our own hard-earned money in, running to our satisfaction.

  Windows Patches/Security Patchocalypse

• This month’s Win7/8.1 patchocalypse – and what you should do right now

  Posted on October 7, 2016 at 09:43 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Every Windows 7 and 8.1 user should understand what changes are coming to the Windows patching methodology. Here’s my best guess as to what will happen – and what you can do to protect yourself.

  InfoWorld feature.

  Many thanks to ch100, aboddi86, Canadian Tech, and many other folks who helped formulate and flesh out this approach.

  Windows Patches/Security Patchocalypse