Windows 10: What You Need to Know

[Rockin Robbins]

Well, it was update Tuesday yesterday and here's the news as I understand it today. Woody at askwoody.com has instituted a MS-DEFCON system. As he has it:

• MS-DEFCON 1 is Current Microsoft patches are causing havoc. Don't patch.
• MS-DEFCON 2 is Patch reliability is unclear. Unless you have an immediate, pressing need to install a specific patch, don't do it.
• MS-DEFCON 3 is Patch reliability is unclear, but widespread attacks make patching prudent. Go ahead and patch, but watch out for potential problems.
• MS-DEFCON 4 is There are isolated problems with current patches, but they are well-known and documented here. Check this site to see if you're affected and if things look OK, go ahead and patch.
• MS-DEFCON 5 is All's clear. Patch while it's safe.

Interestingly he has Windows 10 at MS-DEFCON 5. He says that the quality of the cumulative updates has been good. Lower the shields, take the cap off your internet connection and damn the torpedoes, full speed head. Download and install the updates. As if you had a choice.

But for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 he has the alert at MS-DEFCON 2. Patch reliability is unclear. Unless you have specific problems that a patch relates to don't install.

So what's on the menu this month:
KB3100773 is a Internet Exploder update. It's huge. Exploder updates have also been very unreliable lately. Your fix is to switch to Firefox or Chrome and don't bother to download.

KB3097989, KB3097996, KB3098781 are all .NET Framework updates. Those have been clean for malicious software and generally safe. My personal recommendation is to greenlight those and install.

KB3081320, KB3092601, KB3100213, KB3101246, KB3101722, KB3101746 are labeled as Windows 7 x16 security updates. These are the ones that have been labled as security updates in the past but have depressingly often turned into malware, nagware and spyware. Although I know nothing specifically wrong about these particular updates not, I'm taking Woody's advice and not installing them now.

And then there's KB3097877. This is a baddie. It's been blamed for Outlook crashes, sign-in screen blackouts, Windows sidebar and gadgets are removed and Asus audio center dies. That's one to hide so it never gets offered again.

Also it appears that Microsoft has pulled KB3104540. If you have it on your download list, don't install that.

All this presupposes that you are in "trust Microsoft about as far as you can toss a hippopotamus" mode as I am and have turned automatic updates off. This is no time to start trusting Microsoft. They have a lot of 'splainin' to do before I trust 'em to tell me what time it is.

So there you have it for now. I'll keep you posted when I find something new.