Windows 7: January 8, 2019 - KB4480960 (Security-only update) Windows 7

Wife's laptop got the "not genuine windows" message, and it has been crashing frequently since the update. I'm about to put Linux on it to free her of this continuing windows update madness.

Can't say I blame you really. I do prefer to keep mine patched with the latest security patches, but that's just my personal preference. I can see why people choose to avoid MS updates lately.

I haven't noticed anything "extra" being slipped into the Security-only updates though. The telemetry style updates (Diagnostics tracking service, etc) were slipped into the rollups very early on after the servicing model change, late 2016 or early 2017 I believe. I don't install the rollups though, except occasionally in VMs to test something out (usually a rollup installation bork).
My PCs still have the default (out-of-the-box) services listed.



Looks like it's another one on my skip list for now.
Apparently the "Not Genuine" issue isn't caused by the latest Security updates though, it's something MS changed server side. MS has said the solution is to remove the update KB971033 on systems with Volume licencing.

Access Denied

Release notes for KB4480960 in first post updated.

Activation failures and "not genuine" notifications around January 8, 2019, on volume-licensed Windows 7 KMS clients

New known issues added to first post.

They did "fix" it...

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KB4487345

Microsoft Update Catalog

I did not try installing this update, as i did uninstall KB4480960 recently.

Here's Microsoft's fix for legit Windows 7 PCs labelled 'not genuine' after latest update mishap - TechRepublic

That update has always been on my skip list, even on my PCs which don't have volume licencing.
Didn't think "Updated Activation Technologies" was something I really needed anyway, as I've only had genuine windows installs. That update seems more like it's aimed to catch "dodgy" installs.

Hello, you guys.

Thank you for the information. I didn't install January updates yet because of reading here about it. So far since I did the repair install after the problems my computer had with Windows Updates a year ago, I have just been installing the stuff that shows up in Windows Updates, which there has not caused any problems I am aware of since the repair install. (It's not set to automatically install anything, but I just install the stuff shows up in Windows Updates, usually Malicious Software Removal Tool, Security Monthly Quality Rollup for Windows 7, and Security and Quality Rollup for .NET Framework, which are the updates in Windows Updates at the moment.) I was considering just installing Security Updates from now on like Brds7t7 does, but I can't even understand something that simple really, like what to make sure I also do in that case such as installing that servicing stack update thing. Is installing that servicing stack update thing something you have to do each month before installing Windows Updates if you only install Security Updates for Windows 7 instead of the Security Monthly Quality Rollup package?

My computer says I have KB971033 installed. I don't even know anything about volume licensing, but I will look for what it is and how to check if I have it. Should I uninstall KB971033? Does KB971033 not need to be installed in either case, whether I have volume licensing or not?

Thank you for reading this.

I don’t have knowledge to answer your questions, but will pass-along experiment on one machine that is very similar to yours.

My Win 7 professional 64-bit SP1 unit also had KB971033 installed, after an image backup, I did January updates with no problem afterwards. See this link:
January 2019 patch Tuesday updates installed successfully


After seeing this quote from link that Brink posted above (post #17): Yesterday I uninstalled KB971033 with no problems to this point. However, not long after uninstalling it I got new update available message and it was KB971033 I had uninstalled earlier. So I just hide it for time being waiting to see if I should reinstall knowing it did not cause a problem in first place.