Patch Tuesday | March 2017 ?

thelma said:

Hi :) all,

I have not updated since July last year and the computer has never run so smooth without ANY problems ........

I'm inclined to agree, but as I'm responsible for my wife's computer, I'm afraid not to install at least the security patches. But I do it first on my computer, to make sure it works. Then, if both are fine, I install them on my music computer, the one I'm most picky about, as I c an't do my music if it tanks. So far, all machines are running well, installing security updates only now for the last several months. I haven'y done March's yet, still looking over other people's experiences.

Thank you Brds7+7 for clarifying for other people to ignore the embedded updates. I have ignored them,
and just installed the Windows 7, 64 bit system updates up to November, 2016, that seems to be as far as I can go now without crap happening.

If this wasn't already posted, this page lists recent update history for Win 7:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...update-history

For Win 8.1 this is the page:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...update-history

These pages are suppose to be regularly updated with recent history.

ethel said:

Thank you Brds7+7 for clarifying for other people to ignore the embedded updates. I have ignored them,
and just installed the Windows 7, 64 bit system updates up to November, 2016, that seems to be as far as I can go now without crap happening.

Hi Ethel, no problem

I personally wouldn't skip security updates. I've been installing the security-only updates ever since MS changed its update strategy. I haven't seen any unwanted stuff in those. The downside of those is that it's going to be a PITA when doing clean installs in future. If they made them available via Windows Update, or made the security-only updates cumulative then things would be a lot less work.

I have no interest in installing their "Quality Rollups" though. I've been checking the history of fixes of every month's rollups, and I haven't noticed any fixes that would apply to my systems/usage so I see no need to install them.
These rollups should start becoming cumulative sometime in the next couple of months, as MS did state they'd start integrating all the past updates within 6 months. Haven't seen it happen yet.

Making the updates fully cumulative is a total waste of time in my opinion, unless they fix the slow updates on new installs. We still need to manually apply two updates before the update system will work properly. Unless MS does something about that, then making the updates cumulative seems like a waste of time and effort to me. These cumulative updates are designed to make new installs easier by installing less updates, but users who don't know how to fix it will still have a broken update system.

We'll have to see if MS does something about that issue!

Brds7t7 said:

Ignore the Windows 7 Embedded updates, those are usually installed on POS systems. They won't apply to home systems.

Thanks for confirming that.
I have been keeping an eye on the MS Answer forums and so far just 5 items re KB4012215 and one for KB4012212 [tried install after 4012215 failed]. Things have changed for searching since I last did one some years ago, so I may not have searched in the right places. A couple of years ago there would have been dozens of threads.
KB4012215 has messed-up MS Dynamics CRM2011 & copyright DVDs will not play in WinMedPlayer - so definitely don't want the roll-up.


Antioch

Hello Brds7t7, I have given up on attempting any updates now. I know now that as soon as I download
and install, security only updates that the "s--t" is going to hit the fan. I have re-installed windows twice
in the last 3 months, and both times were instantly after restarting the pc after an update.

ethel said:

Hello Brds7t7, I have given up on attempting any updates now. I know now that as soon as I download
and install, security only updates that the "s--t" is going to hit the fan. I have re-installed windows twice
in the last 3 months, and both times were instantly after restarting the pc after an update.

You probably should not install any more updates, Ethel. Everyone's computer is different. If they are messing up yours, you really have little choice, unless someone here can figure out why it's happening. but updating has gotten so complicated that most of us are scrambling just to keep our own machines working. But I would want to have very good malware protection if you're not going to update. At the very least, one of the top freebies, plus Malwarebytes free. Ideally, a paid AV. I just installed Malwarebytes paid version on my wife's computer and she loves it. MWB now is a full-featured AV, not just a way to solve problems after you've already been infected. I don't need it on my machines, as I'm on Linux 90% of the time.

Hello Michael, Thank you for replying. I am not going to attempt anymore updates. I do not wish to be a
glutton for punishment. I do have paid internet security. It is Trend Micro Internet Security. I have been
given advice from a friend that Kaspersky and others are better, so I will just change that.

Just a friendly reminder to all that once a computer is running well, a system image could become your best friend. I've lost count how many times Microsoft's "new and improved" update scheme has broken something on one of my 7 or 10 machines. There are several free products available including (but not limited to) Macrium Reflect, AOMEI Backupper, EaseUS Todo Backup, Paragon Backup & Recovery, etc. It takes less than 40 minutes to create a system image and about the same to restore it. YMMV. But it sure beats doing a clean install and trying to deal with all the updates.