Bork Tuesday, Any Problems Yet?

While reading the post by ronjor.... Microsoft Security Advisory (2755801) and following the link
https://technet.microsoft.com/library/security/2755801

I came across this in the FAQs section :-

If I don't use Internet Explorer, do I still need to apply the update?
Yes, other applications, such as Microsoft Office 2007 and Microsoft Office 2010, can invoke Adobe Flash Player in Internet Explorer.
Microsoft recommends that customers apply the update immediately.

So it looks like removing IE from Windows completely is not an option , and it begs the question
" What does 'disabling' Internet Explorer actually mean ? "

Edit -

I just ran a little test on a friends laptop....
... Cleared all cookies and temporary internet files , then started Skype and shut it down again.

..... 2 Internet Explorer cookies and 32 Temp internet files were created !

So "disabling" , or simply not using Internet Explorer is no defense at all against it's security vulnerabilities
eg the Adobe issues mentioned in ronjor's post

 

From How to turn Internet Explorer off:

Also see https://www.wilderssecurity.com/thr...curity-discussion-thread.371151/#post-2451016.

 

I keep my IE 10 Adobe flash plug-in up to date. I don't use MS Office and I don't have it installed though.

I'd forgotten about the ability to disable/turn off IE that MrBrian quotes above. I have never really used Internet Explorer since IE 7 was such a disappointment on Vista for me. Although, with hindsight, this was probably a lot to do with Vista's sluggishness combined with an underpowered notebook at the time. I started using Firefox and other browsers (depending on the particular machine) and by the time I acquired a Win 7 desktop I had ceased using IE altogether. IE has never been set as my default browser on Win 7. In fact the day I acquired the desktop I opened IE and downloaded Firefox and set it as default.

It was a past borky IE update that once took me over seven hours to unbork one Saturday a couple of years ago. Not the best way to spend one's weekend in my opinion. Although, until recently, I would always update IE with all the other updates. It's still probably the best thing to do, but I'd rather wait at least seven days before updating anything at all on the monthly 'Borkdays'.

I would have updated to IE 11 but when I did it shagged with my desktop gadgets making them often disappear. Again, I have to balance the threat or probability of being hacked through my desktop calendar, clock or weather widget against choosing whether to lose them or not. When I asked about this inconvenience on Microsoft Answers it was suggested that I upgrade to Win 8 (this was before IE 7 ceased being generally available). Not the answer I was really looking for! I have only ever run Maxthon in Blink/WebKit mode so I believe that shouldn't be a security problem whilst running an older version of IE on my Win 7 PC.

This is a very interesting security quandary with IE however. It also brings into focus as to why Microsoft made IE such an immovable, obdurate program, so firmly rooted in or wedded to the operating system in the first place.

 

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! Bork-a-day is here again! Here are mine minus the MSE update which I assume even Micro$oft couldn't bork. MSE seemed to update OK anyway for me.



After the MSE update finished they came back with 12 updates oddly reduced to 11 and KB3021917 strangely unchecked. I presume this has been very recently pulled.

I guess I'll wait a week or so before daring to install the rest. Good luck everyone!

 

Hi Dave,

About your question about KB3021917 :
I had the same one on my Win7 (64 bit), and it was also not checked by default.
You can read more about it here:
http://support2.microsoft.com/kb/3021917/en-us

I decided not to install it and to hide it. Of course others may decide to make another decision.

I had posted it in Ron's thread, but maybe that was not the right place (in case it wasn't: sorry):
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/microsoft-updates-for-february-2015.373291/

 

Thanks for clearing up the mystery FanJ, I think I'll probably hide it as well.

 

You're welcome!
(And we can always decide to unhide it and install it later if we wish to do so).

 

Yes, unhiding is an option. Sometimes I want to hide all MS updates lol!

 

No serious problems, just yet another new version of .NET Crapwork. While they're figuring out how to get rid of Flash, someone needs to come up with a way to throw this one on the trash heap.

 

Installed all updates (except for KB3021917) on two 7x64 machines and all seems well.

 

Windows 8.1 x64.
Updates installed OK.
Except for the problematic 'Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime'

 

I think I'll have to start installing the December updates to catch up !

 

No problems so far, after updating Win 8 x64. All offered updates installed.

 

X64 W7 SP1, they pulled the problem child before I received the notification this morning so all was good with 14 installs, three of which were optional x64s.

 

I've got 10 of 36 updates I can't install. I'm really tired of Microsoft's fail with Windows Update. Seriously considering running Ubuntu or Mint.

 

i have a problem with win7 x64 system updates KB3020338 and 3021917, both cause bsod in session manager - failed to create protected prefixes. oddly, not after installing and re-booting, they install fine, reboot is successful and installation progresses thru 100% and leaves me at a desktop and windows update then tells me they all were installed successfully. the NEXT (and subsequent) boot gives a bsod. luckioly i had a macrium image from the night before to restore. i have now hidden those two kb.

 

Thanks for the info kronckew. FanJ has more information on KB3021917 here: Bork Tuesday, Any Problems Yet?

 

Installed the Kb 3001652 on Windows 8.1- (4 machines )no problem (btw you will not see this if you do not have ms office installed), now installed it all by itself. I do all updates in small bunches just in case but this one all by itself, well it seemed to install fine, asked for a reboot then the fun began. Windows 7 Pro sp1 came to login screen, put in my info and it opened but all the icons were blank and worse I could do nothing! Completely locked up, Control Alt Delete 2x nada!, so I shut it down and of course saw the famous black screen- well I picked Safe Mode, booted into that fine, I was going to uninstall it but I could not find it with all the other ms updates, so I prayed and rebooted in reg mode. She went in fine, so far all is well but I have 40 machines of clients to update remotely. This is my main business machine. It seemed to go fine on another test windows 7 pro one too, had same problem though. But I did it on another test Windows 7 Pro I have , It failed in the middle and it was so bad I had to do a system restore to get windows back, otherwise I would have had to reformat it, removing the update did NOTHING.
This is going to be hidden on all Windows 7 Pro machines until Microsoft figures this out......http://www.sevenforums.com/news/360915-new-february-2015-updates-windows-available-2.html

 

Microsoft also addressed reports with a silent feature update in Visual Studio (KB3001652) that was causing Windows machines to lock up. The update has since been re-released after it was removed from Windows Update............http://threatpost.com/patched-windows-kernel-mode-driver-flaw-exploitable-with-one-bit-change/111020

 

Really? It's almost been a year (I guess) and this update failure drama is still airing? I want my XP back now.

 

MS would bork XP these days probably now!

 

And they wonder why people are reluctant to install OS updates...

 

This patch cycle was DESTRUCTIVE...

Two servers we monitor died after application of these updates. Unfortunately the servers were new into our matrix, and had not been restructured to best practices. Both had auto-update on w/reboot. One came back up and then died, the other didn't come back up...

Note: Both of them were Server 2003... No issues on the 'thousands' of 2008/R2/2012 servers we monitor.

 

(W7 Pro 32-bit)

Yesterday I started getting random Kernel_Data_Inpage Error bsod's after hours of streaming episode reruns of "Game of Thrones" via couchtuner..com. It's probably unrelated to the latest windows updates but ya never know for sure. Already feeling queasy about the trial and error suggestions offered via google to resolve this one.

 

Yesterday i installed the Feb Updates from last tuesday. Today WU gave me KB3034196 to install. Is this good to install or any problems.