Posted on 08/17/2016 12:33:22 PM PDT by upchuck
Starting in October, patches will be cumulative and Win7/8.1 customers will effectively cede control of their PCs to Microsoft
Windows 7 and 8.1 have had a good run, but that's about to come to a close. According to new guidelines, Microsoft will start rolling out Windows 7 and 8.1 (as well as Server 2008 R2, 2012, and 2012 R2) patches in undifferentiated monthly blobs. The patches will be cumulative, which eliminates the need to exercise judgment in selecting the patches you want. At the same time, though, the new approach severely hampers your ability to recover from bad patches -- and it allows Microsoft to put anything it wants on your Win7/8.1 PC.
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To a first approximation, Windows 7 and 8.1 customers have two choices: Stop updating entirely or accept everything Microsoft ships. There are some nuances: Admins for Win 7 and 8.1 PCs attached to an update server will be able to independently juggle the security and nonsecurity blobs, while Home users get both security and nonsecurity patches together. Monthly Flash updates and .Net cumulative updates will roll out independently.
It's going to take Microsoft a while to fold all of its old patches into the new scheme, but by and large, starting in October it's Microsoft's way or the highway.
As you might expect, many longtime Windows 7 devotees (present company included) are livid. After years of picking and choosing patches based on their KB numbers, Microsoft is taking full control of the billion-or-so Windows machines that aren't yet absorbed into the Win10 fold. If one of the new patches breaks something, your only choice is binary: Remove all of the patches and wait a month for Microsoft to fix the bad one, or suck it up and live with the problem.
(Excerpt) Read more at infoworld.com ...
Coming up next: upchuck's credit card and social security numbers for sale on the black market. Come one, come all.
:)
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