Microsoft pulls security update after reports of issues affecting some PCs

ZDNet ^ | Feb 15, 2020 | Ed Bott

[dayglored]

A standalone security update released as part of the February Patch Tuesday cycle has created headaches for some owners of PCs running Windows 10. After investigating reports of those issues, Microsoft has yanked KB4524244 from its update servers.

Update 15-Feb-2020: The mess gets messier: Judging from a series of cryptic tweets by security experts, this update and its revocation are tied to a situation involving Kaspersky Rescue Disk and a signed bootloader that can circumvent the Secure Boot feature that is the bedrock of security on modern PCs. I'm still trying to figure out the sequence of events here. Stay tuned,

Microsoft has removed a standalone security update from its Windows Update servers and enterprise update channels after acknowledging reports of "an issue affecting a sub-set of devices." The company says it's "working on an improved version of this update in coordination with our partners and will release it in a future update."

The security update, KB4524244, was released on February 11, 2020, as part of the normal Patch Tuesday release cycle, and was targeted for all Windows 10 versions via Windows Update. It was intended to address a security vulnerability affecting third-party Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) boot managers.

In its documentation for the update, Microsoft says its engineers have confirmed at least two known issues:

• You might encounter issues trying to install or after installing KB4524244.
• Using the "Reset this PC" feature, also called "Push Button Reset" or PBR, might fail. You might restart into recovery with "Choose an option" at the top of the screen with various options or you might restart to desktop and receive the error "There was a problem resetting your PC."

According to reports from users on Microsoft's support forums, some users encountered problems restarting after the update attempted to install, while others were signed in using a temporary user profile.

[dayglored]

> My attitude toward Microsoft has been steadily going downhill ever since they decided that we no longer own our operating systems.

Microsoft reminded me of the Overly Attached Girlfriend:

[dayglored]

BTW, one great thing about switching to Windows 10, if you connect to other computers over a network (especially non-Windows computers).

SecureShell (SSH) is now built in, and it works well. You can use it from a standard CMD terminal window (or PowerShell, but PS is not required).

Note that SSH works with a hidden directory “.ssh” in your HOME directory, something like:
  C:\Users\dayglored\.ssh
which can be tricky to create using the GUI Windows Explorer, but it’s easy from the CMD command line.

[bigbob]

Again...

[bicyclerepair]

One of my PCs has Cinammon Mint 17.3.

Wonderful OS. And Linux is way faster than windoze.

The Linux box with a single 64bit cpu is faster than a windoze box with a dual 64bit cpu.

[wastedyears]

I’m sticking with Windows 7 until they pry it from my cold dead hands.

I feel similarly.

[max americana]

I have 2 laptops running 7 and one is...XP.

[Repeal 16-17]

Not the first time Microsoft released a security update that made PCs less secure.

[wastedyears]

The Linux box with a single 64bit cpu is faster than a windoze box with a dual 64bit cpu.

Single 64-bit CPU? Do you mean a single-core CPU?

[Bob434]

dual boot- best of both worlds- use mint as your main online os-

[chulaivn66]

Since this unit has been off and on “Sleep” mode since the update and not yet restarted I uninstalled it. Not risking a crash on restart. Did I mention Windows sucks paddy water? As soon as the warranty expires and I resolve an issue I’ll dual boot 19.3 Linux Mint.

[Revel]

What if I told you that this update tried to install just a few hours ago. When I went to check about it I found mention that it had been pulled from all Microsoft servers. And yet there it was trying to install on my computer. Luckily I stopped it before it did.

[Bob434]

[[Also - have you ever had an issue with Nvidia ? Started a while back but getting worse recently . ]]

You didn’t ask me- but I run windows 7 with NVidia graphics card and have not had any issues-

[[I lose vidoe and “Nvidia Windows Kernel Mode Driver Stopped Responding “message ( in Japanese ) appears ]]

Doesn’t sound good- either a virus or card is going out, or a legit driver incompatibility issue- another ‘possible’ issue might be overheating-

I woudl try reinstalling the driver first- see what happens- that woudl be simplest effort- if it still happens, run a virus check just to be sure- then if nothing, i would try another card- would be good if you could find one from a friend just to try- first- to be sure it’s actually the card- if not- video cards are pretty expensive dependign on which ones you buy= if you don’t do any gaming, then you can get cheaper one to try but it’s still gonna be around $50 or so-

[Bob434]

I’d do a system revert- just to be sure nothing got installed-

[Starcitizen]

Since Microsoft prefers and usually only hires low-quality, cheating unskilled Indian H1Bs, what do you expect?

Most Microsoft software is now a bloated, buggy messes.

Isn’t diversity grand?

[Dalberg-Acton]

Is this any way to run a business?

[minnesota_bound]

Here is my run in with Windows 10 update when I updated to version 1909
https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3816520/posts?page=31#31

[dayglored]

Wow, that is one heckuva tale of woe! I’m speechless.

[sushiman]

Thanks for the message and info .

Not overheating methinks because it happens most often as soon as the computer boots when I turn it on in the morning .

It began happening about half a year ago but just once or twice a week . Now ever day several times .

PC is old and survived a 7 magnitude earthquake ( fell to the floor ) so owes me nothing ( HP Touchsmart 300 )so I’m not going to spend any money on it . Perhaps I’ll take your advice and reinstalling the driver and see what happens . BTW - this is a made for Japan PC and I can’t always understand 100% computer lingo lol !

[duckman]

I would still be with XP, however the apps I was using were not supporting it any longer.

[McGruff]

I was just thinking about something like this:

The Free Software Foundation sent Microsoft a hard drive for Valentine’s Day — along with a petition calling for the release of the source code for Windows 7 (which is no longer supported by Microsoft):

It’s as easy as copying the source code, giving it a license notice, and mailing it back to us. As the author of the most popular free software license in the world, we’re ready to give them all of the help we can. All they have to do is ask.

We want them to show exactly how much love they have for the “open source” software they mention in their advertising. If they really do love free software — and we’re willing to give them the benefit of the doubt — they have the opportunity to show it to the world. We hope they’re not just capitalizing on the free software development model in the most superficial and exploitative way possible: by using it as a marketing tool to fool us into thinking that they care about our freedom.

Together, we’ve stood up for our principles. They can reject us, or ignore us, but what they cannot do is stop us. We’ll go on campaigning, until all of us are free.