Microsoft Update MS14-045 (KB 2993651) problems - Win8.1

[IainB]

Not sure whether this has been posted elsewhere in DC Forum - maybe under another title - but I thought it might be useful/helpful to some people who - like me - had not known that Microsoft advised that they needed to uninstall some of the prior risky updates.

I have read with concern today in BleepingComputer.com and other sites, that
Microsoft ships replacement patch KB 2993651 with two known bugs - News

My Win8.1-64 PRO system auto-updated KB 2993651 on 2014-09-28.

Prior to that I had already uninstalled the buggy updates that Microsoft advised be uninstalled as they carried a risk. These are my notes on that:

>> 2014-08-22 2142hrs: Uninstall + fix MS updates per: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2982791

MS14-045: Description of the security update for kernel-mode drivers: August 12, 2014
(See also Dave Bradley's Tech Talk)

KB2982791 - uninstalled
KB2970228 - had not been installed
KB2975719 - uninstalled
KB2975331 - had not been installed

Then deleted \system32\fntcache.dat

Restarted system.

Checked and found fntcache.dat had not been recreated.

Checked HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts\ 

Right-click the Fonts registry subkey, and then click Export to C:\Users\Iain\Documents\2014-08-22 2206hrs FONTS (fix) key export.reg
Checked the FONTS subkey for:
○ registry values under the Fonts registry subkey for which the data field meets the following criteria:
§ Contains a full file path (not just a file name)
§ The full file path ends in an ".otf" extension. (This indicates an OpenType font file.)
THERE WERE NO matches for that.

Restarted the laptop. (It took a while reconfiguring Windows on the shutdown and on the subsequent restart.)

Then:
>>2014-08-23 0403hrs: ran sfc /scannow and Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth.

[tomos]

Re the new/replacement update KB2993651:

I suppose that, as a "security update for kernel-mode drivers", it's a fairly important update
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2993651

I havent installed it yet...
(thankfully I didnt have the other older updates installed either.)

[IainB]

Re the new/replacement update KB2993651:
I suppose that, as a "security update for kernel-mode drivers", it's a fairly important update
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2993651
I havent installed it yet...
(thankfully I didnt have the other older updates installed either.)

Well, they are apparently ALL "important" (i.e., not "optional") - yet some/all are apparently buggy. I've never experienced anything quite like this before. It's sub-standard IMHO.

[cyberdiva]

In her most recent "Patch Watch" column in Windows Secrets Newsletter, Susan Bradley advises holding off on installing KB2993651 for a while.  Any time she offers such advice, I take it.  An "Important" update is not nearly as pressing as one that is "Critical."

[tomos]

In her most recent "Patch Watch" column in Windows Secrets Newsletter, Susan Bradley advises holding off on installing KB2993651 for a while.  Any time she offers such advice, I take it.  An "Important" update is not nearly as pressing as one that is "Critical."

thanks cyberdiva, think I'll follow your example / Bradley's advice.

[IainB]

Yes, thanks @cyberdiva, I think I should heed that advice too! I shall have to switch off auto-update first though. Bother. I thought that was such a good idea too - manually invoking an update seems so passé in this day and age. How was one to know know that MS would feed bad output into the auto-update? Maybe I've led a charmed life, but I don't recall them ever doing that before and advising you how to manually uninstall the update, and then sending out another buggy update to fix the former (as seems likely).
Maybe they lost the page in the ITIL Change Management manual where it talks about staged testing and then release...putting ßs out into live production is so 1980s.

[IainB]

I just read the manual: Turn automatic updating on or off - Windows Help
Done.
So much for auto-updates.

[40hz]

So much for auto-updates.

I've found it's generally wiser if a little less convenient to allow them to notify you updates are available, but let you handle it from there.

FWIW I almost always wait a few days before I'll install the latest Microsoft updates. I'd rather let somebody else have the pleasure of being Redmond's guinea pig. At my age, the thrill is gone,