Microsoft has been busy updating their various products on this February 13, 2018 “Patch Tuesday”. Given the horror show in January of this year, many tech-savvy people are recommending that you defer these updates until the unpaid beta-testers have finished grumbling about how these patches have broken their machines. (I usually defer updates for about 14 days, but many suggest you wait longer.)
For a taste of what is being offered, here is a list of “Improvements and Fixes” on today’s menu at the Microsoft Support Site. On that page you can also check out updates/patches for other Windows versions as well. MS Office has a slew of patches in the works, too.
Cumulative Update KB KB4074588 (OS Build 16299.248) – Improvements And Fixes
This update includes quality improvements. No new operating system features are being introduced in this update. Key changes include:
- Addresses issue where child accounts are able to access InPrivate mode on ARM devices even though their browsing and search history is sent to their parents. This occurs only on Microsoft accounts belonging to children that are managed using the Microsoft Family service and for which parents have enabled activity reporting. This applies to Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer.
- Addresses issue with docking and undocking Internet Explorer windows.
- Addresses issue in Internet Explorer where pressing the delete key inserted a new line in input boxes in an application.
- Addresses issue in Internet Explorer where selected elements wouldn’t update under certain circumstances.
- Addresses issue where some users may have experienced issues logging into some websites when using third-party account credentials in Microsoft Edge.
- Updates time zone information.
- Addresses issue with browser Compatibility View settings that occurs during updates.
- Addresses issue where, in certain hardware configurations, the frame rates of DirectX Games were unintentionally limited to a factor of the display’s vertical synchronization.
- Addresses issue that causes delays when switching keyboard languages using Alt+Shift.
- Addresses issue where surround sound audio endpoints reverted to stereo after restarting.
- Improves and reduces conditions where certain Bluetooth keyboards drop keys during reconnection scenarios.
- Corrects mouse delays for devices that incorrectly report the battery level status.
- Addresses issue where MMC application snap-ins—such as Services, Local Policy Admin, and Printer Management—fail to run when Windows Defender Application Control (Device Guard) is turned on. The error is “Object doesn’t support this property or method”.
- Prevents use of the Pre-production Onesettings endpoint for Windows Setup when test signing is enabled.
- Addresses issue where installations of Windows Server, version 1709 are not automatically activated using the Automated Virtual Machine Activation (AVMA) feature on Hyper-V hosts that have been activated.
- Addresses issue with the Auto-register Inbox templates feature for UEV where the Scheduled Task didn’t have the proper trigger.
- Addresses issue where the App-V client didn’t read the policy for SyncOnBatteriesEnabled when the policy was set using a Group Policy Object (GPO).
- Addresses issue where the Supported On field for the Enable App-V Client policy is blank in the Group Policy editor.
- Addresses issue where the user’s hive data in the registry is not maintained correctly when some App-V packages belong to the connection group.
- Provides additional logging for administrators to take action, such as picking a proper configuration for their App-V package, when there are multiple configuration files for a single package.
- Addresses issue with App-V packages that aren’t compatible with registry virtualization using kernel containers. To address the issue, we changed the registry virtualization to use the earlier (non-container) method by default. Customers who would like to use the new (kernel container) method for registry virtualization can still switch to it by setting the following registry value to 1:
- Path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftAppVClientCompatibility
- Setting: ContainerRegistryEnabled
- DataType: DWORD
- Security updates to Microsoft Scripting Engine, Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Windows Search component, Windows Kernel, Windows Authentication, Device Guard, Common Log File System driver, and the Windows storage and file systems.
Thoughts
In the above list is one problem I have experienced with the audio, which is how the settings revert to stereo after a reboot. Audio?! Again?! Still?! Since Windows 10’s beginnings, I have suffered with audio problems in one form or another. Arghhh! They range from keeping my computer from going to sleep (read Windows 10 Won’t Sleep – Solved!) to the most recent, which is a five-second lag between when a video begins and the sound begins. Double Arghhh!
Unless you specifically need a particular patch, I would suggest you hold off for at least a few days until the expected bugs have been exterminated. Don’t be one of those unwitting, unpaid, Microsoft beta testers.
Considering Microsoft’s poor record where “improvements”,”fixes”, and “patches” are concerned, I think this is only common-sense advice. I would rather have a bug that can be lived with, than a computer that doesn’t work anymore because it was “improved”.