PC-STUFF
Microsoft patch alert: Outstanding problems with recent updates
August has seen a flurry of buggy patches:
Win10 1607 – KB 4033637, which arrived last Friday via Auto Update, was documented early Thursday morning. It's an update to the Compatibility Appraiser, to make it easier for Microsoft to upgrade your version of Windows.
Win10 1507 and 1511 – KB 4033631 remains undocumented and was similarly pushed thru Auto Update (on Friday?). It's also likely an update to the Compatibility Appraiser.
Win10 1607 – KB 4039396, seems to be all right, although it’s too early to say for sure since it was just released Aug. 29. It’s a manually-applied cumulative update for 1607, incorporating August’s KB 4038220, KB 4034658 (still offered through Auto Update, wipes out Update History, redlines servers) and KB 4034661.
Win7 - KB 4034664, KB 4034679, KB 4034670 all have an acknowledged problem with garbling data on a second screen on multi-screen systems. Microsoft issued a patch for the screen problem, KB 4039884, but then pulled the patch and re-released it, without any explanation or warning. The original Monthly Rollup, KB 4034664, has two additional acknowledged problems, an old problem with LDAP referral chasing and a crash in WordPad. KB 4034664 is still being pushed via Automatic Update.
Server 2016 – KB 4039396, Server 2012 R2 – KB 4039871, Server 2012– KB 4039873, WSUS 3.0 SP2 – KB 4039929 – all are supposed to fix the server redlining problem.
Word 2016, Outlook 2016 – The Word 2016 patch KB 3213656 causes merged cells to appear garbled and unresponsive. The bug has not been acknowledged by Microsoft, and the patch is still available.
Office 2016 — The non-security patch KB 4011051 had a bug that left hyperlinks in Excel 2016 non-functional. It’s fixed by KB 4011093 (manual download only)
Additional Office problems – These are detailed on the Fixes or workarounds page.
Surface Pro 4 — The “Surface - System - 7/21/2017 12:00:00 AM - 1.0.65.1,” which rolled out via Auto Update and broke Windows Hello, was replaced by a newer driver, 1.0.75.1.
Adobe Acrobat and Reader — The buggy security patch from Aug. 8 has been replaced by a new one, APSB17-24, dated Aug. 29.
Recommendation: Hold off on applying August Windows and Office patches.
