Reinstall Win7 what updates to avoid for telemetry & winX preparation?

Paul Black said:

Hi Sevenfox,

[1] Does you computer boot into Windows?
[2] Are you saying that you tried to run a Repair Install from the disk and it didn't work?
[3] Is the Win SP1 disk the correct bit-type?

I can boot into windows fine, everything in and of itself works, but I cannot read any USB device, or even any NEW devices period, and no driver replacement/repair/anything will work. I had a new hard drive installed and even it shows up unrecognised in device manager.T


I appear to have two options with the windows disc, upgrade or custom, I ran the upgrade option and it didn't fix any of my issues, and the custom option will remove all my settings anyway so in this case, it feels like it'd be better to just do a full drive wipe to be sure iIm getting rid of any software gremlins.

I am so sorry it took me so long to reply, life has been getting in the way.

Right after I last commented I realised that the upgrade install from within windows itself was working, so I gave it a shot and it did infact fix my broken USBs... however it completely and utterly broke everything else, to the point I wasn't even able to uninstall/reinstall much of the corrupted software (including antivirus and video driver).

So I bit the bullet and formatted, reinstalling Windows from scratch. In the end I decided to go with the the Simplix updater and it all seems to have worked out rather smoothly. It has been a real pain re-configuring everything, and then redoing the configs that I forgot to backup or take notes on, but everything seems to be going well right now. All up to date, no performance issues.

I think I'll give Dism a try on my laptop though.

Paul Black, SIW2, Thank you both so much, your help has been invaluable, you guys really took the stress out of a situation for me at a time when I really needed to avoid it.

Paul Black said:

Hi Sevenfox,



You're welcome!

SUGGESTION: Now you have your OS updated and running the way you like it, create a system image. This way, if things go wrong in the future, you will be able to restore your OS back to the exact same state that it was when the system image was made in a very short time. There are two imaging programs which are very popular among members here, the first is AOMEI Backupper Standard [FREE], and the second is Macrium Reflect [FREE].

I hope this helps!

Good call, I'll get right on that. Thanks again.

I'm reviving my thread with some new security only update questions.
This question applies to both win7 and win8. I started a thread in win8 forum but it's not the same activity over there.

Win7 EOL is here and i'm forced to use win8.1 on two of my computers, to by myself three more years, when I boycott win10spyware.

My win7 computers aren't updated since december 2017 and i need to install some of the updates but to avoid spectre/meltdown updates...... Or have they resolved the cpu performance loss? and all other trouble it caused older computers?
The same goes for my win8.1 computers, same hardware with triple boot.

.
so i wonder if this is right, or have I missed something?
.

--------------------------Windows 7 --------------------------

Jan 2018 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4056897 spectre and/or meltdown?
Feb 18 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4074587 Safe?
Mar 18 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4088878 spectre and/or meltdown?
Apr 18 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4093108 Safe?
May 18 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4103712 Safe?
Jun 18 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4284867 spectre and/or meltdown?
Jul 18 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4338823 Safe or it is contains spectre code?
Aug 18 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4343899 spectre and/or meltdown?
Sep 18 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4457145 Safe?
Oct 18 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4462915 Safe?
Nov 18 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4467106 Safe?
Dec 18 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4471328 Safe?

Jan 2019 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...2008-kb4480960 spectre and/or meltdown?
Feb 19 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4486564 Safe?
Mar 19 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4489885 Safe?
Apr 19 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4493448 spectre and/or meltdown?
May 19 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4499175 Safe or it is contains spectre code?
Jun 19 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4503269 Safe?
Jul 19 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4507456 spectre and/or meltdown?
Aug 19 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4512486 Safe?
Sep 19 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4516033 Safe or it is contains spectre code?
Oct 19 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4520003 Safe?
Nov 19 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4525233 Safe or not?
Dec 19 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4530692 Safe?

Jan 2020 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4534314 Safe?



------------------------- Windows 8.1 ------------------------

Jan 2018 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4056898 spectre and/or meltdown?
Feb 18 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...ate-kb-4074597 Safe?
Mar 18 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4088879 spectre and/or meltdown?
Apr 18 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4093115 Safe?
May 18 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4103715 Safe?
Jun 18 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4284878 Safe?
Jul 18 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4338824 spectre and/or meltdown?
Aug 18 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4343888 spectre and/or meltdown?
Sep 18 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4457143 Safe?
Oct 18 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4462941 Safe?
Nov 18 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4467697 Safe or it is contains spectre code?
Dec 18 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4471322 Safe?

Jan 2019 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4480964 spectre and/or meltdown?
Feb 19 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4487028 Safe?
Mar 19 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4489883 Safe?
Apr 19 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4493467 spectre and/or meltdown?
May 19 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4499165 Safe or it is contains spectre code?
Jun 19 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4503290 Safe?
Jul 19 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4507457 spectre and/or meltdown?
Aug 19 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4512489 Safe or not do to: When attempting to print from a 32-bit app on a 64-bit operating system (OS), you may receive an error, or the application may stop responding or close.........This issue is resolved in KB4525250. However, the issue occurs when you install only KB4512489 (released on August 13, 2019) without installing KB4507457, the previous Security Only update (released July 9, 2019). KB4507457 is a spectre and/or meltdown update i want to avoid
Sep 19 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...-8-1-kb4516064 Safe or it is contains spectre code?
Oct 19 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...-8-1-kb4519990 Safe?
Nov 19 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...-8-1-kb4525250 Safe or not?
Dec 19 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...-8-1-kb4530730 Safe?
Jan 2020 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...-8-1-kb4534309 Safe?
Feb 20 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...-8-1-kb4537803 Safe?


It seems that each and every one contains Spectre or meltdown code.
Is there any other things about this updates above that you have had trouble with?

Hi Marie,
Attached is a cmd file to uninstall the telemetry KB.

If you want to update your Win 7 computer, use Simplix
My suggestion is to set Services - Windows Update - Manual and on WU page set it to Never check.
Then run UpdatePack7R2
Simplix is a single file (850MB) that contain all updates since Win 7 released up to date. It has all security and non security updates without the trash (telemetry and tracking). Very good.
Then run WU manually to find updates for Office etc and decide witch one to install.