Posted on 01/09/2019 4:38:27 PM PST by dayglored
Quality Assurance? We've heard of it
Microsoft has doubled down on efforts to persuade users to migrate to Windows 10 by breaking Windows 7 networking for some.
Windows Server 2008 R2 is also affected.
While the last few monthly updates for the soon-to-be-obsolete OSes featured a known issue affecting an "unknown" number of "problematic configurations" that require manual reinstalls of network drivers, January's monthly update seems to have upped the ante somewhat.
2019's treat has seen some users finding their shares are now inaccessible, with RDP and other connectivity also suffering.
The issue, which affects both the bonzer monthly roll-up (KB4480970) and the more petite Security-only update (KB4480960, which has no known issues according to Microsoft at time of writing), leaves users receiving an INVALID_HANDLE when attempting to kick off a SMB2 connection.
A bit of sleuthing by a contributor posting on Administrator.de has pointed to the problem being related to Microsoft tweaking security settings in the update, with administrators on the host system being affected.
The post by "Andi" at Administrator.de reckoned it was down to "an extension of security".
This is of scant comfort to users who have had to back-out the patch to get connectivity up and running again. After all, there is important stuff in those updates that really needs to be installed.
The Administrator.de contributor suggested a possible solution, requiring a Registry change around Admin credentials.
Users have reported success, but The Reg has been unable to check it out for ourselves, so try it at your own risk. The usual health warnings apply: fiddling with the Registry could leave your system irrevocably borked.
Others have opted to uninstall and await an official fix to be emitted by Microsoft.
We contacted the Windows giant to find out when such a fix might be forthcoming, but have yet to receive a response.
In the meantime, a Reddit thread has popped up with users discussing their own experience of Microsoft's latest quality cockup, with one wag observing: "We are their QA and I think we do a fantastic job of finding problems. Just not pre-release."
Ouch. ®
Thank you much. I'll do that.
Same here. My computer's 8 years old and runs like a champ.
AFAIK, I guess I'm okay/in the clear, because I don't do anything "complex" on my laptop. And yes, I'm only connected to the modem and NOT to the computers we have and I'm not certain what a "storage device" is. Is a "storage device a thumb drive/picture saver?
A storage device is anything that can hold your files, photos, music MP3s, etc. While it’s true that a USB Flash thumb drive is one form of storage device, the ones I was talking about are connected using Ethernet cables or wireless, and tend to be larger, both physically and in terms of how many files and photos they can hold.
Never touch MS again because of their greed and deception. Linux Mint is far far superior and more secure. Runs just like Win 7 in now it operates with NO updates needed. You don’t even need an antivirus. There is nothing for windows that can’t be found for Linux including office suites.
Why folks keep abusing themselves with MS I have no clue. There is a whole free world out there where MS doesn’t own you.
Thumb dives are the only storage devices I use and ONLY for pictures. So I guess I'm okay.
Do it! You will love the linux Mint freedom once you get into it. Mine hasn’t missed a lick yet. I’m running cinnamon also.
It’s not in English like mine is. :)
Only Microsoft could address a “speculative execution side-channel vulnerability” with a “fix” that breaks connectivity with certainty.
Good luck with the regular upgrades on Win 10.
It cashes upon upgrades frequently.
My wife and I set up displays frequently for the Historic Flight Foundation on Payne Field across from Paul Allen’s Heritage Flight Museum. Once a year they put on a big hangar dance at their summer airshow and Paul Allen used to come with his entourage. One year they all came dressed as Indiana Jones and it was hard to tell which one of them was actually Paul Allen.
Now Paul Allen is gone, John Sessions who owns Historic Flight was seriously injured in a plane crash and Alaska Airlines is starting to fly scheduled flights out of Payne Field. So we are told the days of the big airshows there are over and probably the big hangar dance as well.
Most of us really do not care that much about the operating system as long as it works and can be secured. It is all the other software that we use to accomplish useful tasks that makes the difference. If all you are doing is surfing the net, emailing, doing basic word processing, spreadsheets and photo editing then it is probably fine for many people. But I have decades of experience using software that is not available on Linux. There are some packages that are similar but most cannot really replace them.
I have yet to be able to connect my Win10 PC and laptop...they went from making talking to each other the norm to making it very difficult to get them to share....I think they are trying to herd people to the Cloud to store/share data....that can’t be a good thing.
It did break one of my machines, a Windows 8.1 box, but reinstalling the NIC driver set it right. The problem was limited to the message "you are not connected to a network" when I opened up the network window even though I could connect to the other network shares running on various versions of Windows and Linux servers. Go figure.
Now that Sir is the best rebuttal to this question I have heard yet. And you are right,and I understand it. There is a lot of important software out there that is dependent on windows, especially business ware. Linux does have “Wine” which is supposed to run windows software from the Linux environment, but I’m not sure how well it works yet because I hate MS so much I decided I really didn’t need anything that was dependent on it anymore. But from what I understand it does work.
The way I look at it is “build it and they will come”. For the average user, which is probably 80% or better, Linux is superior in most ways and like MAC secure by nature not needing all the constant dependency, meddling, and broken updates. As a starting base for an easy to use popular stable OS they have finally got it down. The thing is... If more started using it, the demand for, and supply of, equal and comparable software will come for Linux and fast.
Build it and they will come, Build the demand for this needed software and it will come. At some point there needs to be some true competition against MS or they will continue to rape and abuse their users unchecked without worry. The only way to break the monopoly is another OS. If most normal average users switched to linux and broke those chains the dependency will sway away from their extortive business practices and monopoly.
Even if it is loading linux as the primary OS in a dual boot, dual OS system along side windows(which Linux packages do for you flawlessly). Then everyone will have the best of both worlds. Your more secure stable average user linux environment for normal stuff, and the windows for using the important needed windows dependent software. When the linux user percentage increases, even as just a second OS option in the same system, so will the software to directly replace these windows dependent programs.
To end the MS monopoly, that ever so important first step has to be taken in the best optional direction. Linux is that best optional direction at this point and it will just get better.
Funny. They only just added SSH support this past year. Welcome to the 90s Microsoft!
It is also good to see that they are finally getting around to adding a decent shell. Of course, it's BASH, but better late than never.
Good advise. I have an SSD that has started to balk a bit on boot. I expect it to fail someday soon.
I'd recommend the program "backintime" if you're using Mint. I have some suggestions as far as how to set that up so that it fairly seamless if you're interested.
Might be the Windows Firewall settings. The defaults these days are very restrictive. If you know what you're doing, getting into the Advanced area of Firewall settings and opening a few things up isn't too hard, but you do want to be careful.
An easy first test, to see if that's the issue, is to simply turn the firewalls on the two machines off, and see if you can connect. Obviously, you don't want to run that way if either machine is connected to the internet. But it's an easy first diagnostic.
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