Items tagged with Patch-Tuesday
Microsoft is moving to make computer users safer and to help eliminate the risk associated with exploits that rely on VBScript for older versions of Windows. The software giant has announced that in the next Patch Tuesday, which happens on August 13, 2019, it will move forward with its plan to axe VBScript. After the update is applied, VBScript will be disabled by default on Internet Explorer 11 for pre-Windows 10 machines. The disabling of VBScript will roll out via cumulative updates for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1. The move is a good thing for Windows users as VBScript is the preferred target of many hackers. VBScript has been around for a long time surfacing in 1996 as a scripting language for...
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Few things are more annoying than when a Windows update wreaks havoc on your system. It's a case of the cure being worse than the disease, as Ray Stevens sang about in his comical song "Doctor Doctor (Have Mercy On Me)." We saw this play out recently when it was reported that a Patch Tuesday roll out was causing boot problems on some systems with certain antivirus software installed, and the list of affected AV software appears to be growing. Image Source: Flickr via Rory Finneren Originally, Microsoft only said that the update was conflicting with some machines that have Sophos Endpoint Protection installed. Sophos also acknowledged the problem, saying it had received reports of PCs failing...
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In a new post on its Windows Blog, Microsoft details its Windows Update mechanism, allowing us to peer inside the company process to see how those precious updates are rolled out. While some Windows updates have clearly not gone according to plan, the vast majority do, and given the complexity and reach of these updates, it's actually surprising we don't see even more issues than we do. According to Microsoft, it delivers updates to about one thousand devices per second, ultimately topping one billion devices per month. That's not only Windows 10, but every version if Windows that Microsoft still supports - even where that support seems unlikely. Windows XP is tied in with these numbers,...
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A few botched updates from Microsoft this week have us questioning their forced update strategy with Windows 10. If you've had issues logging into your Windows 7 computer, if Outlook is crashing randomly, or if you are unable to open documents from Sharepoint, the fixes are below. The troublesome KB's in question are KB3055034, KB3101521, and KB3097877.KB3055034 was actually released in October but most users probably haven't encountered any issues stemming from it because it seems to only break Office programs when files are opened from Sharepoint. We are covering it now because Microsoft has now released a superseding KB3101521 update which, well, still breaks Sharepoint...
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In a Microsoft post announcing a mostly uninteresting list of products and their respective dates for when Microsoft will terminate support for them is a notable standout: Windows 7. Within the next six months, all versions of Windows 7 will enter the Extended Support phase, which lasts for 5 years and includes free security updates and paid hotfix support, but Mainstream Support for the popular OS will cease as of January 13, 2015. What that means in practice is that although you can rest easy knowing that Windows 7 will remain secure until 2020, it won’t be getting any new features. This is standard procedure for Microsoft, and indeed the company spells out these policies fairly clearly...
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It’s Patch Tuesday folks, and Microsoft has issued its monthly slew of updates. It’s more or less good news, as there are just four this time around, and none are labelled as “critical”--all four are merely “important”. Bulletin 1 is a remote code execution vulnerability that affects all versions of Microsoft Office (2003 and up), Web Apps, and SharePoint Server 2010 Service Pack 1 and later. Bulletin 2 is aimed at solving a problem with a PDF exploit in targeted attacks that Microsoft first addressed in Security Advisory (2914486) which allowed for an elevation of privilege in a kernel component of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Newer versions of the...
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