While normally, I am a staunch advocate of keeping your system as up to date as possible, Win10 is having more issues with updaties it is distributing for it’s Win10 operating system software.
Life Hacker has an article listing MAJOR issues resulting from installing the latest updates ‘KB4524147’ and ‘KB4517211’. These include not being able to start windows after installing the updates!
Beware! It is probably safer to wait until these problems are resolved before updating. If you have alreading installed these updates, it is possible to uninstall them as described in the article.
I have both installed and no worries. Maybe I am just a lucky one. Since I have image backups dated well before these updates were pushed out I am going to sit tight
I’m running the first but for some reason have not yet seen the second.
It is important to bear in mind that most users will not have any problems. While recent Windows updates have caused all sorts of difficulties most have affected ‘edge cases’ rather than the majority of users. Microsoft does test its patches, but unfortunately its testing process has let the company down in the last year or two. In particular, it is over-reliant on the Windows Insider program but has trouble identifying the signal from the noise when ‘Insiders’ report issues prior to the roll-out of new updates.
According to the former head of the area, Microsoft got rid of all the computers and other hardware that they used to do the testing on, disbanded the workgroup, and now do all their limited testing in sand-bagged virtual environments that don’t necessarily cover the range or extent that they used to do.
The problem is, that you just don’t know whether your particular hardware configuration is one that will encounter difficulties.
No they also test the patches across their Windows Insider groups (fast & slow rings). I for example run a dedicated fast ring PC to test patches & releases. This led to some of the trouble in that some problems did not get enough up-votes to trigger review inhouse, this finally led to patches being released with faults.
I haven’t suffered too many issues myself with the patches on my main PC, any that I have had are with drivers eg my Brother MFC driver which I now routinely reinstall after a new Win 10 release without waiting to see if an issue resurfaces (scripted install).
Some people have found issues with AV & Anti-malware products that interfere with new DLLs etc. MS do advise the vendors of software of changes that may impact, but not all adjust their products in time to cater. Another issue has been the Intel issues which have meant software fixes to address the hardware vulnerabilities, these have created problems.
It would also be better if one knew where the reported conflicts were (e.g. specific software, drivers, hardware) rather than news outlets making generalised statements making one think it affects everyone.
I usually apply the updates when they come in, and rarely have any problems. On the other hand, when I’ve tried beta version updates I usually do run into problems before too long and have to reinstall the whole operating system to regress to the supported system. So I don’t do beta testing in Windows any more.
I am enrolled in the Windows Insider program, but have never tried either fast or slow lanes; I need my system to work. I do enjoy the Insider newsletters, though.
You could also run a VM to see what updates are coming through. They don’t recommend you use WI releases on production machines but I find an older box using 2nd gen i5 does trot along happily as a WI box. I am going to upgrade it soon to a 4th gen i5 but even on the older box I just load a few pieces from Ninite to give it some AV, Office stuff, etc. I also run a VM on the old box to stress the system a little to see if any new releases cause hiccups.
Some of the choices allow you to test more stable releases than the fast rings do.
Since an automatic upgrade about 12 months ago I have continual BSODS. The fault is Kernal Mode …Something (Senior’s Memory.). It is a problem the update caused with my Nvidia driver. I’m not alone with this problem and others with MSI cards are also complaining. Have tried everything including clean install of the OS. I’m running 1903 but still have the issue.
I assume you have updated the Nvidia drivers to the latest ones. If not try that first. Then try the dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth then follow up with sfc /scannow
Yep. Done all that. Recently I’ve used a program (app?) called DDU from www.wagnardsoft.com.which you have to do from safe mode without internet connected. It deletes the graphics driver and any thing to do with it and then you manually reinstall a version of the driver that worked. I installed the version from the CD that came with the card. After that I found the latest version not on the Microsoft store and installed that. I haven’t had a BSOD for 24 hrs. Keeping fingers crossed. Thanks for the advice.
The Microsoft drivers have always been an issue for two things on my PCs, they are the Brother Printer Driver and my Creative Soundcards. Both MS drivers do not work well with my devices. So my standard practice is to always remove the MS provided ones and reinstall the device drivers from the OEMs. This stops a lot of issues. You normally don’t need to use any after market device cleanup tools to remove the MS ones, just doing it from Device Manager is normally quite adequate and then installing your replacement drivers. AMD & Nvidia both also provide device driver cleanup tools for when you want to ensure a proper cleanup of their driver packages, you don’t really need anyone else’s tools to do it.
Removal of AV or similar software is sometimes a bit more cumbersome than using the MS removal process and in this regard my goto tool is Revo Unistaller (use the free version if you don’t want to get the extra stuff they throw in with subscription) https://www.revouninstaller.com/revo-uninstaller-free-download/# or without giving them any details you can get it from https://ninite.com. You run Revo instead of using the Windows removal process. If you have the Pro (paid for versions) you can also run a Forced Removal which will look for leftovers if you have mistakenly run a MS removal but it isn’t usually a needed process for most.
Of the 5 machines in this house only one has a remaining issue that can only be fixed by removing the latest ‘feature’ update. Odd that its a Microsoft Surface 3.
Can’t type in the task bar search field. I’ll try updates again in a month
