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Microsoft Black Tuesday Patches Bring Blue Screens of Death

Posted by timothy on from the but-wait-for-the-patch dept.

snydeq (1272828) writes "Two of Microsoft's kernel-mode driver updates — which often cause problems — are triggering a BSOD error message on some Windows systems, InfoWorld reports. 'Details at this point are sparse, but it looks like three different patches from this week's Black Tuesday crop are causing Blue Screens with a Stop 0x50 error on some systems. If you're hitting a BSOD, you can help diagnose the problem (and perhaps prod Microsoft to find a solution) by adding your voice to the Microsoft Answers Forum thread on the subject.'"

179 comments

  1. The suck, it burns .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    This is why you should NEVER apply patches that ANY vendor has just released.

    Fresh patches are barely beyond alpha tested, if that.

    Yes, there's zillions of platforms, but how much of this suck is a result of how Microsoft has architected this crap?

    Their years of stealing other people's ideas and then doing a piss poor job of implementing them means they publish so much un-maintainable crap it isn't funny.

    Let's face it, Microsoft releases shitty code all of the time. This is nothing new.

    1. Re:The suck, it burns .... by bobbied · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Gee, I don't like Micro$oft as much as the next Linux Zealot, but let's be fair here...

      M$ is darned if they do and darned if they don't. When they hold up patching stuff they get pillaged in the press for not getting the gaping security holes in their OS fixed soon enough. When they release stuff too soon and stuff like this happens, they get racked over the coals for not knowing what they are doing, cannot develop/test/integrate their software. M$ has ebbed and flowed on the quality of their patches in the past, they've been slow, they've released some really disruptive software. Being fair, they don't do too bad on either responsiveness or on the introduction of new bugs.

      So lighten up on Micro$oft, at least on this front. Now Windows 8 metro and removing the 'start' button? Fire away at that garbage....

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    2. Re:The suck, it burns .... by 0123456 · · Score: 1

      So lighten up on Micro$oft, at least on this front.

      Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Microsoft just lay off a large number of testers?

    3. Re:The suck, it burns .... by imgod2u · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think the criticism isn't so much that they're too responsive to consumers or not -- they obviously listen. The criticism is that there are so many holes to begin with and that their attempts to fix things that are obviously broken -- things that their competitors seem to be able to make work just fine -- often don't work or cause other problems. Knowing the Microsoft engineering culture, their stuff is mostly a patchwork of different groups not talking to each other. In the Windows API, there are something like 17 different representations of strings depending on which engineer/department wrote the code!

      When you're disorganized like that in a giant company with a giant piece of software, it's easy to see how bugs can get out of hand.

    4. Re:The suck, it burns .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Now Windows 8 metro and removing the 'start' button? Fire away at that garbage....

      No, instead, fuck the idiots crying about these. Most of the dumb niggers bitching about the lack of Start Menu NEVER knew how to customize it and instead relied on a splattering of shortcuts on the desktop. Not to mention the stupidity of installing a program to have it create yet another yellow folder with it's own name filled with at least 4 other bullshit shortcuts you don't need or want. The Start Screen fixes this, putting everything on one unified screen and filtering out the bullshit. Stupid motherfucking assholes will cry, but that's just what they do. They've been crying since day one.

    5. Re:The suck, it burns .... by sjames · · Score: 2

      On the other hand, Apple, Debian and Redhat manage to release timely security patches that don't cause crashing en-masse.

    6. Re:The suck, it burns .... by bobbied · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Microsoft has competitors in the OS market???? Uh, no, no they don't. At least nobody that approaches even 1/4 of the market share.

      But really the OS market is not Microsoft's primary concern, but a means to an end. There clamp on the market is Office in the corporate environment, which drives Windows to the desktop, both professionally and for home computers. They have no real competitors in either the OS or Office worlds. You might claim Red Hat/Linux has made inroads, but only in the server market.

      Yea, I know.. All the Apple zealots are foaming at the mouth now... Sorry, didn't mean to take a swipe at the sacred OSx/IOs cow, but it really doesn't have that large of a market share and most of those systems still run windows on the side...

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    7. Re:The suck, it burns .... by bobbied · · Score: 1, Insightful

      On the other hand, Apple, Debian and Redhat manage to release timely security patches that don't cause crashing en-masse.

      Perhaps, but they have a much smaller market share and support much less diverse hardware configurations, especially Apple.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    8. Re:The suck, it burns .... by symbolset · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Android Linux moved a billion hardware units last year and this year surpassed the Windows all-time installed base. It is selling above 6x Windows. People using Android have never seen an update mangling this severe, but on Windows it seems a quarterly thing. This whole "Windows rules the world" thing is becoming absurd. Windows rules a small and shrinking backwater - the realm where people are willing to tolerate stuff like this.

      --
      Help stamp out iliturcy.
    9. Re:The suck, it burns .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Perhaps, but they have a much smaller market share and solely in the case of Apple support much less diverse hardware configurations.

      Fixed that for you since Debian and Redhat support more CPU archs than Microsoft plus the x86 world that Microsoft supports.

    10. Re:The suck, it burns .... by sillybilly · · Score: 1

      Last time I installed Google Chrome on my netbook, and used it at the library wireless, every time I went online my packet numbers were huge, and it turned out to be Chrome pulling a daily 50 MB+ update on itself. I quickly stopped any Google related software on my XP netbook. Win XP at least you had the option to download 100-200MB service packs once in a blue Moon, like once a year, and block windows update from constantly fucking with your computer, there is an option for that, but you can't do that with Chrome, they don't give you an option. Which is why I'm not interested in any kind of Google Linux either, if I have to go online with it.

    11. Re:The suck, it burns .... by benjymouse · · Score: 1

      On the other hand, Apple, Debian and Redhat manage to release timely security patches that don't cause crashing en-masse.

      Perspective, please. This seems to be a *very* limited problem and an (as usual) over-zealous Woody Leonhard trying to stir up a controversy.

      Infoworld *is* the fox news of tech.

      --
      Reading slashdot one-liner: (irm http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot).rdf.item | fl title,desc*
    12. Re:The suck, it burns .... by phrostie · · Score: 1

      maybe they should try letting people pick a level of code that they want to update to.

      you could have the really overly tested stuff that doesn't break. we'll call this Stable.

      then you could have the stuff that fixes the last problem, but might break something new. we'll call this Testing.

      then you could have the bleeding edge stuff that you run just because you want the bragging rights of running some truly unstable shit. we'll call this Siri, Sydney or maybe Sid for short.

      i'll bet M$ could even patent it.

    13. Re:The suck, it burns .... by xeoron · · Score: 2

      Yes, but that is because the developers are now required to test their own code before it goes to testing, so that things don't break as much during each sprint of coding.

    14. Re:The suck, it burns .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Gee, I don't like Micro$oft as much as the next Linux Zealot, but let's be fair here...

      ...

      So lighten up on Micro$oft, at least on this front.

      Still using the dollar sign? Why do you think someone will pay attention to anything you have to say? Particularly when you're recommending people "lighten up". How about you grow up?

    15. Re:The suck, it burns .... by Richy_T · · Score: 1

      What could possibly go wrong? Oh wait...

    16. Re:The suck, it burns .... by sillybilly · · Score: 0

      I've seen people with shortcuts on the desktop over 50% of the area. I think it's healthy to cover 25% of your desktop with shortcuts, but once it gets to 80%+, that means you have a severe case of depression, and lack of motivation to clean up your computer desktop. If you're a bachelor, without a woman to clean and pick up after you, then I can only wonder what your pad might look like. But sometimes being depressed has very good excuses. Like I noticed this really smart guy, supporting computers, back in like 2001, and it surprised me that his desktop would be full of shortcuts 95%, and obviously a lot of them garbage. I had no idea that he'd be that depressed, and then I realized what a burden he carried on his back, when, recently switching from commercial Unix to Windows, and touting all the advantages and cost savings that would mean, being a huge Microsoft fan, but suddenly shocked at the core, when all the business applications written in Access 97 stopped functioning just 3 years down the road, when Access 2000 came out without backwards compatibility, and broke everything, so you lived in a dual world where new computers came with Access 2000, and apps written for them, but at the same desk there was a 2nd computer, with Access 97 installed, to run the old apps, and interaction between all the business data split incompatible like that was a depressing huge mess. There was tremendous amount of wealth invested into those old apps, hoping they'd last a business career, not a mere 3 years. That's as good an excuse as any to be depressed. Yeah I know commercial Unix was raping everyone in the butt with per seat licenses, so did Oracle, and Microsoft seemed like such a breath of fresh air, back in the day, in pricing, compared to commercial Unix and commercial SQL database vendors, but then they go and totally ignore the customer and his protecting his wealth, as if the customer did not matter. You can't win, Unix rapes you in the ass with cost, Microsoft, when they give you a low cost, they rape you in the ass with fucking up the things that used to work. Even as late as XP there was still a sense of backwards compatibility at Microsoft, but these days they see backwards compatibility as their biggest threat in making a living, competing against themselves and their old products, people unwilling to upgrade upgrade upgrade every friggin 2 years, that stops the money flow at Microsoft, and that's their prime objective, making money, not making the customer happy, and sometimes these two things do not mean the same thing, but are exact opposites of each other. All I can say they haven't really provided a good reason to upgrade, at least nothing along the lines of win 3.1 to win 95 with over 8.3 file names, or office 7 to office 97 with VBA, etc. If anything, they are castrating the users ability to get done the things they are used to doing, know how to do, and the newer ways of doing them take two clicks instead of a single click, like a print preview does in Office 2010 vs. Office 97, because they lost the good old menu bar, with that stupid ribbon. That ribbon is not what I call an improvement, to the contrary. So why should I upgrade, when it's worse? At least gimme the same thing, with different colors, like a tuned down version of xp that has 150 KB kernel and still gets everything done, looking and acting exactly the same as the 200 MB version of 2002. That's what I'd call an improvement, speed, where I can keep 50 browser tabs open with animate gifs and flash advertising spinning in all of them, and not slow the computer to a crawl. I can use my terrabyte harddisk for other things than code, such as storing high resolution high color images of butterflies, video footages, data, and not code that works on that data. The bigger the code the more complex and less secure I feel using it. I would actually go out and pay money for a version of XP that was super high tuned on speed and ability, super low size on code, never crashed, and let me keep the user interface and the way I'm used to doing things, on an HP Mini 200 Laptop, because even this thing has way too much computing power already, and anything more only increases the possible future occurrence of AI that may or may not eat me alive for breakfast

    17. Re:The suck, it burns .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Micro$oft? M$? Really? It's like I'm reading a comment my pre-teen self made 10 years ago.

    18. Re:The suck, it burns .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No. And HELL NO!
      While they keep telling people on why proprietary software is superior to open-source, then they have to take their knocks like everyone else does.

    19. Re:The suck, it burns .... by lgw · · Score: 1

      There are updates to Android on phones? I'm not sure my 5-year-old phone has ever received one, and I'm sure its security flaws are legion, just given the history of flaws over the past few years.

      Still, it really makes you wonder how this BSOD slipped through - it's not like MS doesn't have vast test automation for stuff like this. It really makes you wonder about the recent massive layoff of QA (and the restructuring behind it). Given the timing, that change starts to seem ill-advised.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    20. Re: The suck, it burns .... by Redbehrend · · Score: 1

      I agree android and linux is moving by leaps and bounds and the best part is almost any company can compile it. Hardware is even running smart altered Linux software these days with built in apps and gui. Windows is on the verge of imploding because they can't seem to do things effectively with all their dang employees lol. Every time they start going in the right direction they screw it up.

    21. Re:The suck, it burns .... by dave562 · · Score: 2

      Microsoft gets no pass! I generally give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt, but there are too many instances of this. I am going to go off on a bit of a tangent here, but the fail to eat their own dog food. They come up with Best Practices, and they do not even follow them internally. There is not an internal body at Microsoft that enforces uniform standards. They have it setup that way to mitigate risk to the company. If they had a single body responsible for maintaining order, they open themselves up to the risks associated with the failure of that body. So instead, they just compartmentalize and each team ends up doing their own thing. Therefore the inevitable fallout is contained.

      That organization strategy causes problems like this. They restrict their ability to test patches across the groups. They have damned themselves. And they have done it to cover their own asses. Therefore, they get zero sympathy.

      It is never going to happen, but they need to modify their business model. Instead of forcing people onto the upgrade treadmill, they should move over to a maintenance subscription model. Doing that would allow them to continue to improve the products, and stop focusing on pushing out new features all the time. For the most part, Windows, Office, Exchange and SQL server are "good enough" in terms of feature set. Now they just need to focus on making them stable, and improving the tooling that is already there.

    22. Re:The suck, it burns .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, but that is because the developers are now required to test their own code before it goes to testing,

      Well that explains things. Apparently prior to this, developers would just deploy their code without ever testing it. No wonder they had so many bugs!

      Out in the real world, developers test their code before submitting it to source control. They write unit tests to verify the functionality. QA verifies that the functionality works after that, still finding bugs that weren't obvious to the developers. For example, what happens when you run code on a variety of chipsets. If you're really lucky, a SDE-T might write some of the unit tests for you.

      A BSOD that only happens to some people is a great example of something that rigorous QA should catch but that developers are likely to miss. Developer testing is not a replacement for QA. They should be doing both.

    23. Re:The suck, it burns .... by Skuld-Chan · · Score: 1

      As someone who manages about 1500+ Mac's with JAMF Casper (and another 6000+ windows machines with System Center) - you are talking out of your arse.

      In my experience - MS actually issues more patches and actually has a better track record than Apple - for example I've seen them issue firmware patches that have bricked machines (to the point where they had to be repaired) - its enough of a problem I actually now wait a month before releasing firmware patches Apple delivers to see if any issues arise. I've also seen them release patches that break core OS functionality like SMB, and printing - or release patches that seemingly munged Wifi prefs.

      Last year I recall one patch MS released that could cause some machines to stop booting. So far this year is the only warning I've seen from any patch they've released.

      Considering the kinds of hardware MS has to support - I think thats a pretty darn good track record.

    24. Re:The suck, it burns .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Android is an OS for toys, it doesn't count.

    25. Re:The suck, it burns .... by techno-vampire · · Score: 1

      ... there are something like 17 different representations of strings depending on which engineer/department wrote the code!

      That can't possibly be a good thing. What's worse is, there's no reason to think that any of the code checks to see which type of string it's been passed instead of just assuming that it's been sent the One True String.

      --
      Good, inexpensive web hosting
    26. Re:The suck, it burns .... by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      Only problem with that is that MS mixes the security and feature updates. If you don't install the latest "service pack" your pants are down and your netbook is a zombie. Presumably you know that and don't mind, as long as it hides its network traffic from you...

    27. Re:The suck, it burns .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      90% of Android users don't see an upgrade, period.

    28. Re:The suck, it burns .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      You know the old software development adage that says developers shouldn't be just the one testing their own code...?

      Whichever management genius that went in, saw what was happening and thought to him/herself, "Gee why do we have another redundant group of people testing this when we can just make the developers do it?" and then proceeded to implement his/her evil plan and give him/herself a pat in the back should be fired..

    29. Re:The suck, it burns .... by Culture20 · · Score: 1

      Gee, I don't like Micro$oft as much as the next Linux Zealot, but let's be fair here... M$ is darned if they do and darned if they don't.

      Unless you said the bolded portion gleefully while grinning and rubbing your hands together, you don't really hate Microsoft as much as the next Linux Zealot.

      /Linux sorta-Zealot

    30. Re:The suck, it burns .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You grew up and $tarted buying people, didn't you, you money $ucking whore.

    31. Re:The suck, it burns .... by bobbied · · Score: 1

      you don't really hate Microsoft as much as the next Linux Zealot. /Linux sorta-Zealot

      I never said I "hate" Microsoft. I said I don't like them. I have been actively advocating Linux professionally for nearly 15 years now, so I consider myself a Zealot because I would NEVER suggest to a customer that they use windows except, perhaps, on the desktop. But you have to admit that Windows is here, it's what folks understand how to use and you have to do what the customer asks, even if you think something else is better. So Zealot I am, but I'm tolerant of those who don't see things as clearly as I do.

      Besides, life's too short to hate any thing except real evil and M$ is not the corporate embodiment of evil some seem to think it is.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    32. Re:The suck, it burns .... by sjames · · Score: 1

      I hadn't heard of the big problems w/ Apple. So scratch them off the list.

      That leaves the various Linux and *BSDs as managing to not cause mass crashing. Note I don't claim they're perfect, since nothing is. I just claim they do much better at it.

    33. Re:The suck, it burns .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've seen people with shortcuts on the desktop over 50% of the area. I think it's healthy to cover 25% of your desktop with shortcuts, but once it gets to 80%+, that means you have a severe case of depression, and lack of motivation to clean up your computer desktop.

      Actually at my last job I frequently would fill up probably 25% of my desktop (1280x1024) in a day... saving java heap dumps to analyze, terminal session logs, etc - so that by the 'end of the work day' I'd have a pile of things to dig through and 'resolve'... certain things might stick around a few days in case I was asked questions (example: I'd analyze java heap/thread dumps, dig into their code to point out some issue(s), keep it around a day or two in case they had questions). Was a good reminder to have them on the desktop "right in front of me" - and after a day or two I might move them elsewhere to save for a few days, or just delete them, depending on importance.

      Yeah, it could get 'cluttered' at times, especially on a "SHTF" type day where "anything and everything" went wrong and I was off in a dozen different directions - you 'fix' them by getting it running again and promise to 'dig into it' and email them later with your 'findings'. Actually some days I was way more productive after 5pm when everyone started to go home than I was during the day "putting out fires".

    34. Re:The suck, it burns .... by sjames · · Score: 1

      Really? Debian supports x86 (32 and 64), various arm, mips, etc AND s390 among others. In other words, a much LARGER variety of hardware than Windows. The cherry on top is that it's a volunteer effort.

    35. Re:The suck, it burns .... by sjames · · Score: 1

      There seems to be a new limited problem every month.

    36. Re:The suck, it burns .... by sillybilly · · Score: 1

      There is something running on this computer, that comes directly from HP, on their recovery DVD, I mean I tried to uninstall all the crap and garbage software and leave it almost bare bones, then there are some folders like C:\ae343455df3fbb332c23a33d... etc, that you cannot erase even in safe mode, and you have to boot into Lighthouse Puppy 4.1.2rc1 and nuke it from there, together with system volume information, and recycled, and while you're at it, go under C:\Program Files\xerox (like why the heck would I need that?) and Microsoft Frontpage, and netmeeting, and msn gaming zone, and outlook express and windows media player, and erase those folders too, that you cannot from windows, even in safe mode, and you can't simply erase them because on next boot they reappear, so you have to place blank files called C:\Program Files\xerox so that no directories with the same C:\Program Files\xerox can be created on bootup. Simply trick saves a lot of headaches, and then you can go through C:\Documents and Settings\... and clean up that too, but when you think you cleaned everything up, plus have the last nondotnet version of zonealarm (of course dotnet, windows live, practically everything uninstalled except the video, sound and network driver), and block every friggin thing that runs on the computer under program control, except csrss, and similar. I also left "Microsoft Works" there because neither openoffice nor gnumeric for windows can handle csv files properly. I also run Opera 12.10(it's showing its age), not anything newer, and even Opera wants to autoupdate, so does flashplayerupdate, but have zonealarm hose them too, same with ctfmon, never run internet explorer and the like that have built in backdoors. And I don't run virus scanners, what a waste of time that is. But even after a full cleanup to barebones plus zonealarm, fully blocking media player and internet explorer, something still starts chewing the harddrive in the background, and sometimes somebody logs on to your computer and modifies your file names to silly names, so it's still not secure, but oh well, c'est la vie, I did what I could. If they really want to snoop on me let them snoop on me, I don't really care, as long as they do it without my consent. Because I'm not consenting hereby. But the NSA would really freak out if they could not find a way to snoop on somebody logged onto the internet, browsing the web and residing within the US. I mean you can probably run offline computers that they may not be able to snoop on, but a whole lot of those have spying chips built into them that spy on you wirelessly, and give access to where they can modify files, or block actions on your computer, even while you're in DOS or Linux, oldschool, newschool, whatever, so what. Don't ever think nobody's watching you you can get away with something dirty. The computer is always watching, or more like 1984, big brother is always watching you through the computer. I still put a piece of tape over the camera and microphone holes on this netbook, because I know even when it says it's off and the LED next to it does not shine, it's still on, and watching you. It's a spying totalitarian's power's dream come true, cameras on every intersection, cameras looking at the user on every laptop, making the user think he's not being watched, cameras on every cell phone. Hey I got an old verizon LG that has no camera. What a gem. But the newer LG for tmobile gets a piece of duct tape over the camera hole. They are watching you and all that, messing with your computer files, oh well, but you don't have to cooperate or consent to it. So that's where that game stands.

    37. Re:The suck, it burns .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well that's something that mega corp definitely needs more of, is people on slashdot who leap to the ready when they feel Microsoft's honor has been sullied.

    38. Re:The suck, it burns .... by ozmanjusri · · Score: 1

      Android is an OS for toys, it doesn't count.

      Yes it does.

      https://play.google.com/store/...

      --
      "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
    39. Re:The suck, it burns .... by symbolset · · Score: 2

      The upgrades come in Google Play Services now, so OEMS and carriers can't block them. 85% of Android devices are updated by Google now.

      --
      Help stamp out iliturcy.
    40. Re:The suck, it burns .... by Kaenneth · · Score: 1

      No, it was mostly marketing and middle managers.

    41. Re:The suck, it burns .... by Kaenneth · · Score: 2

      Jesus Christ, you fuck up your computer like that, and still try to blame MS?

    42. Re:The suck, it burns .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      No, it doesn't. It has a minuscule number of programs compared to Windows and none of them can be used to do anything remotely productive. Show me a professional who uses some dinky Android "app" instead of a proper computer and programs.

    43. Re:The suck, it burns .... by Kaenneth · · Score: 1

      I'm not aware of QA layoffs, I just started a new QA position at MS!

      the layoffs were mainly Nokia, marketing, and middle managers from what I've read.

    44. Re:The suck, it burns .... by cbiltcliffe · · Score: 1

      Android is an OS for toys, it doesn't count.

      Yes it does.

      https://play.google.com/store/...

      Well, aren't you just the smartass? :)

      --
      "City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
    45. Re:The suck, it burns .... by symbolset · · Score: 1

      You might want to check out minimsft.blogspot.com

      --
      Help stamp out iliturcy.
    46. Re:The suck, it burns .... by symbolset · · Score: 1

      Actually the Android apps available to the average user on Google Play far outstrip anything that has been available on Windows. By a factor of 3x. With a trusted repository too, which is something Windows never had.

      --
      Help stamp out iliturcy.
    47. Re:The suck, it burns .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Haha, you need to get out more. Android is everywhere.

      I was in a refinery that produces paint pigment last week and watched the operators control the whole place from Android phones!

    48. Re:The suck, it burns .... by tomofumi · · Score: 1

      I remember I have problem with kernel updates in RHEL5, that caused the server unable to boot too.
      Fortunately it is easy to recover by just reboot and choose another entry in GRUB...

    49. Re: The suck, it burns .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Boy, you get real touchy when people speak the truth. The truth is that Micro$haft has significantly raised prices on EVERYTHING, and then delivered nothing but junk. They have taken every opportunity to reduce productivity and then crow about their wares as if they are the best in breed. The truth is that they are just a huge money pit and the quality of their stuff has significantly gone down. Today's latest screw up is just another indication of this.

    50. Re:The suck, it burns .... by sillybilly · · Score: 1

      Oh no, it's not fucked up at all. I love it like this. But somehow disabling msdrm_v2.dll or something similar named also kills my IDT audio, I mean it acts like it works as far as the drivers are concerned, volume control, etc, but no sound comes through the speakers. Damn drm. I like peace and quiet though, in fact the radio hasn't worked in like my last 3 cars. But that's the only thing I hate about this netbook, the IDT sound chip, but it's a worthy sacrifice in the name of running an Intel Atom ver 2 chipset using like 5 or 8 watts of total power, not just the CPU, but the whole friggin chipset + CPU, and get like 7 hrs on pure batteries at the library, even without a socket. If I could ask for anything, it would be that they make a detachable screen, where I can take the small one on the road, but when I use this thing at home, I could hook up a 21 inch screen to it, of course offset a little farther back. In fact that's what you'd call a docking station, or this thing does have a video out, but the little screen is in the way, else how do I type, with the screen down? Even if I could flip it all the way around back and tuck it under, with a protective cover, that would be nice. And if they had one of these 21 inch screens foldable into 4 where I could put it in my backpack together with the HP Mini 200 with a fully back flippable screen, and fold it open at the library, or anywhere I can sit at a desk, that'd be awesome. I'm the customer after all, and I have needs and wishes.

    51. Re:The suck, it burns .... by sillybilly · · Score: 1

      Yeah well those are obviously not shortcuts to program icons. Your icons would look all similar, being the same filetype, which is a totally different case, than different colored actual icons pointing to programs. I've been in a habit of putting all recent stuff I work on into C:\000 instead of the desktop (or D:\000 partition labeled DATA when I was dual using linux and windows, but now I don't want to reserve like 10GB for XP in a working partition, when most of that would be empty, because I do fill up the 160 GB harddisk with data so I need those last GB's before having to backup, and reinstall the computer fresh and empty), that way it's easy to find, or archive, and I ended up with C:\000\001\, C:\000\002, C:\000\012, etc. Recently I switched to C:\aaa\a01, a02 as the archive, and C:\000 as the garbage working folder. Anybody is like that, has a temp directory where the garbage piles up, or a desk where the papers pile up, but on a computer there is a difference between stuff you're working on, and has all the same icons, compared to different colored pretty icons, which means you installed some app off the Internet or something, and never bothered to uninstall it. I have yet to meet a person whose computer needs require filling the whole desktop with icons, as opposed to tucking them neatly away in the start menu, and just keeping a few of them on the desktop. It's all a matter of style, and taste, I guess, and you can't really argue about that, but I don't think a desktop completely full of icons looks pretty. But I like searching for things alphabetically in a list format, as in Windows Explorer I always have Show Details, and then I can quickly scan down the filenames if sorted by name, and find what I need, as opposed to zigzagging my eyes side to side across the screen looking for where N ends and O begins in the names, they are not neatly lined up under each other. Though Lighthouse Puppy 4.1.2rc1 besides KDE 3.5.10, which I used like Windows Explorer, it also has the speedy IceWM file manager, which is impossible to use this way, and you have to use it as icons, not via show details list, and I do use it, but I don't like it. I don't think it gets any better than show details in Windows Explorer in XP or Konqueror in KDE 3.5 (which is whole lot slower, but has a bit more features - but when backing up command prompt runs circles around both) when it comes to file management.

    52. Re: The suck, it burns .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you ever heard of paragraphs?

      Use them...don't be lazy.

  2. Laugh.. by koan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Someone right now is looking at that error and figuring out how to exploit it.

    --
    "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
    1. Re:Laugh.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you can help diagnose the problem (and perhaps prod Microsoft to find a solution) by adding your voice to the Microsoft Answers Forum thread on the subject.

      How do you post on a forum thread with a non-functioning PC?

    2. Re:Laugh.. by courteaudotbiz · · Score: 1

      In fact, how can you even read this with a non-functioning PC?

    3. Re: Laugh.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That would be me. Now, just pay me a little money (I take Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, and Bitcoin) and I'll share my exploits with you. ;)

    4. Re:Laugh.. by RavenLrD20k · · Score: 2

      Boot into your Linux Partition, of course. Wait... you mean to tell me that you're cruising /. and don't dual boot or at least have a LiveCD rolling around? What kind of tech are you into again?

    5. Re:Laugh.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, for crying out loud. I don't use Windows; I was ridiculing the idea that Windows users who are experiencing the problem could just post about it!

    6. Re:Laugh.. by hairyfeet · · Score: 1, Troll

      If he had a Linux partition he has dealt with so many fucked drivers thanks to Torvalds shittastic driver model (which no other OS on the planet uses, its THAT good) that he'd have no problem diagnosing the Windows driver problem and fixing it so...hey what do you know, Linux IS good for something after all!

      Seriously between last known good config and being able to run system restore off the DVD this is really not a problem. BTW anybody know what weird fucked up hardware combo is causing this? Because I got hundreds of Win 7 systems in the field and haven't heard a peep from a single customer about BSODs, I also updated all the systems in the shop, again no BSODs, so it has to be some funky as hell hardware if I don't have any of 'em.

      But I just have to laugh because what the average Linux user deals with every distro release (go to their forums sometime right after release, its really funny) is so rare on the Windows side it makes front page news when it happens. IRL its as rare as hens teeth, thanks to a solid driver model with BC and the ability to silently restart drivers if one hangs Windows has never been more stable and solid. I almost wish the FOSSie delusion of Windows still being like Win9X was real, there are times in the shop I feel like the Maytag repairman in the commercials, sitting there waiting for repair calls that never come.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    7. Re:Laugh.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Boot into your Linux Partition, of course. Wait... you mean to tell me that you're cruising /. and don't dual boot or at least have a LiveCD rolling around? What kind of tech are you into again?

      Nah, have a windows xp partition always at hand.
      Microsoft can't fuck up anymore windows xp, at least it's some kind of advantage.

    8. Re:Laugh.. by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I mean, what sort of user has more than one connected device these days? Maybe some rich guy with a premium cardboard box in a quiet alley, whose uncle gets him free wifi at the library. Oh, wait...

    9. Re:Laugh.. by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Because I got hundreds of Win 7 systems in the field and haven't heard a peep from a single customer about BSODs

      Sadly people take it as part of using computers and are just happy it doesn't do it anywhere near as often as XP used to so they don't bother to complain.

    10. Re:Laugh.. by cavebison · · Score: 1

      Lucky I'm on XP and don't have to worry. It's been 100% stable for months now.

    11. Re:Laugh.. by Christopher_T. · · Score: 1

      A VERY casual scan of the link in the story to the thread, at least in the first 5 pages where someone mentioned their hardware seems to note a lot of HP machines. I am not pointing the finger at anyone. I am not an engineer. No one has ever mistaken me for a deity (well, there was that one girl who said "Oh, God" and laughed, but I'd rather forget that.) But I just noticed that. FWIW

    12. Re:Laugh.. by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

      Imaginary problems kill Windows...ahh a classic, haven't gotten that one in a few years, thanks. And if you think MY customers won't call if they get a BSOD? BWA HA HA HA HA HA..damn, thanks again friend! Hell I am the only guy in the county that does house calls...do you have ANY idea how in demand that makes me? If they have ANY problem, anything at all, they can pick up the phone and have me fix it on the spot. Believe me if they were seeing BSODs? My dance card would be full!

      the other poster says its HP crap...wow, color me surprised, ever since they bought ComPuke their quality has gone to shit, its the same with Seagate buying Maxtor. This is why I sell Asus lappys and build my own desktops, because I don't have a bit of problem with buying/building quality but you go with them $299 HP specials? yeah...good luck with that.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  3. THANK GOD for "automatic updates" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Auto Update on by default, one of the updates bricks your server.

    1. Re: THANK GOD for "automatic updates" by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2

      so funny ... if you were competent enough to review all the patches and keep your server secure enough to be a good Internet citizen, unchecking 'automatic ' would not be a hurdle.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    2. Re: THANK GOD for "automatic updates" by greenwow · · Score: 1, Informative

      Selecting "Download updates but let me choose whether to install them" instead of the default "Install updates automatically (recommended)" doesn't always work. We have about forty Window servers, and around half of them will crash nearly weekly from Microsoft shoving patches down our throats. We've tried everything we can think of and everything Microsoft suggested, but these Microsoft servers still crash for updates. It doesn't always work, and fixing it isn't as simple as you so flippantly suggest.

    3. Re: THANK GOD for "automatic updates" by cogeek · · Score: 2

      You have 40+ Windows servers and aren't using WSUS? Deploy WSUS, pull the patches down on Tuesday, push them on Monday night. Gives nearly a whole week for the rest of the world to figure out they're not working for you.

    4. Re:THANK GOD for "automatic updates" by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      I don't mind this. A client with important servers is running a different OS. Nearly any other OS actually, there are a wide variety of quality choices on a server these days.

      Auto update shields the admin from being responsible for MS screwups. Those are MS's fault, not the admin, and are related to the customers choice of technologies. If a client starts to complain about the problems, that is a premium time to discuss the extra charges for fixing the screwup. That shifts their focus onto MS, because if they get mad and call somebody else, they'll find out, "yeah, everybody with windows is dealing with that one right now."

      So just leave auto-update on, and if there are hiccups now and then... well, windows gets the hiccups regularly, it is not a special thing associated with updates. Even worse than the broken updates are the long list gaping in-the-wild security holes that that update probably patches.

    5. Re: THANK GOD for "automatic updates" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have 40+ Windows servers and aren't using WSUS? Deploy WSUS, pull the patches down on Tuesday, push them on Monday night. Gives nearly a whole week for the rest of the world to figure out they're not working for you.

      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^What he said.
      If you have many servers, then you use WSUS.

    6. Re: THANK GOD for "automatic updates" by cheater512 · · Score: 1

      You'd also be competent enough to not use Windows.

  4. I just ran an update and don't have any problems.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Oh wait, I'm on Linux.

  5. Phew. by ledow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I work in schools, preparing for a huge summer deployment, just re-imaged every PC on-site.

    Fortunately, although I pushed the updates out over WSUS, my image was taken BEFORE patch Tuesday. Anything that hasn't been out for a least a month is in beta testing, as far as I'm concerned, and after a month it either "works" (for some definition) or something like this will come to my attention.

    Have all the PC's imaged in my rooms, but only have a handful actually deployed at the moment while I test. The very first blue-screen I see, any kernel-mode patch this month will be changed to "Declined" so no further PC's get it.

    Yet again, those people who get all stroppy about "you should install updates the SECOND they come out".... real life hits you again. And the downtime from a potential "zero-day" that I'll probably never witeness is nothing compared to potentially rolling out faulty updates to hundreds of PC's that would then have to be re-imaged, and/or having a faulty update inside your images forcing you to reverse changes (in my case, to pre-summer images which is a HUGE step backwards) and re-deploy.

    1. Re:Phew. by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yet again, those people who get all stroppy about "you should install updates the SECOND they come out".... real life hits you again.

      I've never understood that mentality ... usually I give patches from any vendor a few weeks or more to have a shakedown period.

      Let someone else do the beta testing.

      I've seen more problems caused by applying fresh steaming patches than I have seen problems solved by it.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    2. Re:Phew. by sandytaru · · Score: 2

      Yup, back when I did the patches for about a thousand computers, I'd always roll them out sloooooowly. First my test system, then my system, then the rest of my office (we know not to panic), then our smallest clients, and then snowballing up to a final massive push to 500 or so systems at our biggest client just before the next round of patches came out. If there was ever a problem anywhere along the line, we could halt before too much damage happened.

      --
      Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
    3. Re:Phew. by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

      you need to update drivers as well. Don't use the ones on the dell website (other then with some laptop that will not take the full ones)

      Also drives on windows update can be very hit or miss.

    4. Re:Phew. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Like Herd-immunity that only works if most people don't do it. Once most people wait a few weeks, you'll have to wait longer than that to shake out the issues...

    5. Re:Phew. by steelfood · · Score: 1

      That only works if you either 1) have a test system you can test patches on or 2) turn off automatic updates. Either way, you need to be savvier than your average Windows user.

      Fortunately, the big corps that give Microsoft the majority of its sales tend to have sufficiently capable tech teams. It's the small businesses that really lose (the personal/home users can mostly hit the reboot button or hold the power button down for 5 seconds or whatever passes for a hard reset these days).

      --
      "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
    6. Re:Phew. by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      Like Herd-immunity that only works if most people don't do it.

      Sure, and there will always be those who do it right away.

      But I have no intention of being the first lemming off the cliff. I've been in IT way too long to trust a fresh patch for any vendor.

      There was a time when release cycles were much longer, nowadays, you're just as likely to end up in the situation of a busted environment.

      At the very least you have non-prod systems which you use as guinea pigs. But I've met people who apply new patches to Production machines right away -- and almost invariably end up getting burned by it.

      I'll stick with my old school, overly paranoid approach to release engineering/configuration management. What others do with systems they're in charge of is their own problem.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    7. Re:Phew. by marcroelofs · · Score: 0

      You'd think the guys at M$ had already done that. Isn't that why you pay the yearly extortion fees?

    8. Re:Phew. by antdude · · Score: 1

      Even if they are zero/0 days?

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    9. Re:Phew. by nabsltd · · Score: 1

      You'd think the guys at M$ had already done that. Isn't that why you pay the yearly extortion fees?

      Nobody pays Microsoft any money for OS updates as long as the OS is in general support.

    10. Re:Phew. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I do it with Fedora every other version ... that beta testing.

      And I'm happy to.

    11. Re:Phew. by techno-vampire · · Score: 1

      Either way, you need to be savvier than your average Windows user.

      That's not exactly setting the bar very high, is it?

      --
      Good, inexpensive web hosting
    12. Re:Phew. by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      In all honesty, I've had to deal with very few of them, and only indirectly. Most notably the heartbleed thing recently. And you know what? It was senior management and IT managers who made that call and accepted the risks. (I'm primarily inside the firewall, so usually not my issue.)

      There are times when you have to weigh risks and make choices.

      But generally speaking, I don't apply a patch which is fresh and steaming immediately, and then I deploy to a lab and do some testing first.

      Assume the worst, and do your best to plan against it. I learned this at the knee of an old neckbeard who'd seen it all, and I think it's served me quite well.

      Occasionally, someone accuses me of being a worrier and overly paranoid -- and infrequently someone will override me. On a few of those occasions when it blew up in our faces, I was the one saying this is why I don't do it that way.

      There's probably a larger number of times where it would have probably worked just fine.

      But I don't get paid to take risks with someone else's stuff, and I work on stuff with a pretty low risk threshold.

      So, for me, I will always err on the side of caution of it's an important system.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    13. Re:Phew. by sandytaru · · Score: 1

      Microsoft won't and can't test all of the hundreds of thousands of applications out there. It's not a problem with the OS, it's a problem with the in-house apps that interaction with the OS or whatever component of it that Microsoft updated. For example, my company is finally going to Office 2013, and I've spent some quality time this week verifying that an application we build that reads Word doc templates and spits them out as PDFs didn't choke on Word 2013. There's no way Microsoft could have tested that application, because maybe 15 computers in the world have it installed.

      --
      Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
    14. Re:Phew. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because the moment a patch is released, the malware authors star a clock (call it 8 hours) before they weaponize the automatically identified exploit.

      http://bitblaze.cs.berkeley.edu/papers/apeg.pdf

      This is old news in the security community.

  6. Fault in gdi32.dll by DigiShaman · · Score: 5, Informative

    So it looks like certain video drivers are barfing the system (itching the gdi32.dll the wrong way). If you can, roll back to an earlier system restore point, update the video drivers, then re-apply the updates again.

    --
    Life is not for the lazy.
    1. Re:Fault in gdi32.dll by postmortem · · Score: 2

      It is not a bug, it is a feature..

      It was supposed to always BSOD in this case! MS fixed the bug so it finally BSODs. ;)

    2. Re:Fault in gdi32.dll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's got nothing to do with the video drivers. It's an old bug in Windows 7 where it segfaults if it detects an error in the font cache, and two updates, one modifying the font loading routines, and another adding a new Ruble glyph, conflicting with that.

    3. Re:Fault in gdi32.dll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      MOD PARENT DOWN.

      Video drivers have nothing to do with it. The fault is in win32k. gdi32 may in fact be passing bogus data to win32k, but it doesn't matter. Kernel-mode code is responsible for validating user-mode requests, and bears the blame if anything goes wrong.

    4. Re:Fault in gdi32.dll by Kaenneth · · Score: 1

      Potentially true, a BSOD is preferable to a rootkit.

    5. Re:Fault in gdi32.dll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I read that as "sucking a guy's dick is preferable to having him fuck me in the butt". Srsly? Especially when this is the norm, not the exception that keeps the guy from murdering you.

  7. Good Idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If your computer BSODs, then post on a forum about it. Of course, how does one post on a forum if they can't boot up? Might as well add in a www site for network connnectivity problems too.

    1. Re:Good Idea by ccanucs · · Score: 1

      Right - like - call your phone vendor if you experience loss of service... Never figured that one out either... ;-)

    2. Re:Good Idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right - like - call your phone vendor if you experience loss of service... Never figured that one out either... ;-)

      When I call Comcast, there's a recorded message saying "if you are experiencing an internet outage, check out www.comcast.net to see if there's an outage in your area.

    3. Re:Good Idea by LduN · · Score: 1

      for the wireless internet company I used to work out, we'd send an email alerting people of tower outages in their area...

    4. Re:Good Idea by symbolset · · Score: 1

      You can post on a forum from your mobile device over any available network.

      --
      Help stamp out iliturcy.
    5. Re:Good Idea by hurfy · · Score: 1

      Build a new computer. The instructions are right there on the CD that comes with the motherboard.....

  8. Bad Assumptions... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If I get the BSOD, I'm not going to have a computer that I can use to "drop by" the Microsoft Forum and report anything.

    1. Re: Bad Assumptions... by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2

      if you only have one computer you're not the kind of person who will be helpful in diagnosing a kernel driver bug (sorry if that stings).

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    2. Re:Bad Assumptions... by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

      It's like the power company.

      You can now track outages online (this back when cell phone only had very basic web)

  9. Fortunately there is Linux.... by XB-70 · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    The update crashed 100% on re-boot stopping at 10% install. Fortunately, I was able to disable UEFI, boot to my Ubuntu Linux partition, go online and figure out what to do... then go back and bang away 'till it booted. I ended up going back to a good install point and adding updates incrementally.

    Note to self: Always, always put a Linux partition on EVERY Windoze machine!

    Yeah, yeah, I could carry a bootable USB around, but this way, it's always IN the machine.

    My problem is this: WHO is going to PAY me for my time? Isn't it time that a consumer watchdog agency said: "Enough is enough, Microsoft. You have cost users countless BILLIONS of hours and money. If this were a car, Ford or GM or Toyota would be BANKRUPTED by the recalls."

    --
    *** Don't be dull.***
    1. Re:Fortunately there is Linux.... by PRMan · · Score: 1

      When my Ford car broke down, who is going to pay me for the time it took me to take it to the repair shop and rent a car? Nobody.

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    2. Re:Fortunately there is Linux.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      [ ] The above happened [X] The above did not happen

    3. Re:Fortunately there is Linux.... by amicusNYCL · · Score: 1, Insightful

      My problem is this: WHO is going to PAY me for my time?

      Goddamn, how entitled can you be? How about this question: how much time have you saved by using a computer running Windows to do your job? But, what, you expect Microsoft to shell out your hourly rate every time something on your computer doesn't work right? That must mean that you cut Microsoft a portion of every check you make from working on your Windows machine, right? Or wait, you keep all that money don't you? And Microsoft never expects you to cut them part of your check, do they? It's a one-time fee with a giant agreement saying that they are not 100% perfect, isn't that right?

      Now, WHO the hell is going to PAY me for having to spend MY TIME to reply to this crap?

      --
      "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
    4. Re:Fortunately there is Linux.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What makes you doubt him?

    5. Re: Fortunately there is Linux.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because he's a Microsoft shill

    6. Re:Fortunately there is Linux.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Coulda just kept your goddamn hands off the keyboard and not bother with it, fucktard.

    7. Re:Fortunately there is Linux.... by sjames · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's because it broke through normal wear and tear. If someone from Ford came out to your house one night and swapped parts and as a result your formerly running car wouldn't start in the morning, you would certainly be entitled to compensation for your time and trouble as well as a fix fro your car.

    8. Re:Fortunately there is Linux.... by sjames · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If it doesn't work right because of something MS did and they then leave him to fix it, why not?

      I'm pretty sure MS insists on being paid for each and every install of Windows.

      Since you were perfectly free to not reply at all, you're an unpaid volunteer.

    9. Re:Fortunately there is Linux.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You somehow find it impossible for a Ford to break down?

    10. Re:Fortunately there is Linux.... by amicusNYCL · · Score: 1

      If it doesn't work right because of something MS did and they then leave him to fix it, why not?

      You mean other than the license agreement which specifically indemnifies them against things like that?

      Is the first time that a Windows update has caused problems on certain configurations? No? It's not? Is it a fantastic idea to have automatic updates enabled if you're going to whine about being paid for your time to fix a problem that your computer had but most others did not?

      --
      "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
    11. Re:Fortunately there is Linux.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      apparently you have time to monitor this 'crap'. If you don't have something useful to add....go somewhere else and play with linux

    12. Re:Fortunately there is Linux.... by sjames · · Score: 1

      EULAs claim all sorts of wacky things.

    13. Re:Fortunately there is Linux.... by ultranova · · Score: 1

      You mean other than the license agreement which specifically indemnifies them against things like that?

      The one that tries to unilaterally alter a deal after the fact? Why would that make Microsoft not subject to consumer protection laws simply because they said they aren't?

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    14. Re:Fortunately there is Linux.... by amicusNYCL · · Score: 1

      Simply because there's no legal precedent that would say otherwise. Maybe there should be a class action lawsuit, I don't know, but I think it's kind of ridiculous for people to expect payment from Microsoft because an update caused problems on their machine. If an update causes problems on 25% of machines that's one thing. If the percentage is in the low single digits then I think it would be difficult for a judge with knowledge about computers to find Microsoft liable.

      --
      "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
    15. Re:Fortunately there is Linux.... by cbiltcliffe · · Score: 1

      You somehow find it impossible for a Ford to break down?

      Of course. That would require a Ford that actually runs in the first place.
      Buh dum, crash!
      Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week. Try the fish; it's delicious!

      (I don't really have anything against Ford, other than their miserable first gen Sync system, but it was just too good to pass up....)

      --
      "City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
  10. I have a solution for impacted users by djdanlib · · Score: 5, Informative

    This rollback procedure got my Win7 x64 system booting again:

    From another system with the same bit width and service pack level, grab the files C:\Windows\System32\gdi32.dll and C:\Windows\System32\Win32k.sys.

    Using HBCD or a similar boot disc, boot your defunct system. You can also snag the hard drive and plug it into another working computer.

    BACK UP the gdi32.dll and win32k.sys files from System32 to another location just in case. Overwrite those two files in System32 with the ones you grabbed from the other system.

    Your system is now bootable, having effectively rolled back the KB2982791 update. This is a quick and dirty procedure and leaves the update itself in an indeterminate state.

    1. Re:I have a solution for impacted users by thoriumbr · · Score: 2

      This is a quick and dirty procedure and leaves the update itself in an indeterminate state.

      Quick if you live in an area with lots of cloned Windows around.

      Not that quick if you have to call a few friends, ask they Windows' versions, get a match, grab a pendrive, drop by the friend's house, copy the files, use the friend's computer to download and burn a rescue disk, drive home, and proceed to step 2.

    2. Re:I have a solution for impacted users by djdanlib · · Score: 1

      Indeed.

      You could also boot with the install media and do a System Restore since Windows Update generates a checkpoint when you install updates.

      If you don't have that option, my original solution will get you up and running, inconvenient as it may be.

    3. Re:I have a solution for impacted users by Threni · · Score: 1

      Easier to boot from a Linux USB install, download and copy the files straight onto the windows drive then reboot.

    4. Re:I have a solution for impacted users by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      You could also boot with the install media and do a System Restore since Windows Update generates a checkpoint when you install updates.

      Or you can boot the recovery partition on Windows (startup repair), and you can use it to restore from a previous restore point.

      You should also be able to find a copy of the older gdi32.dll in the WinSxS directory (that's where all updates are stored - then the files are hard-linked to their final location in the Windows directory. You could, in theory just alter the hard link to point to the earlier version.

    5. Re:I have a solution for impacted users by djdanlib · · Score: 1

      Yep. That partition didn't exist on the affected machine because end user reasons, or I definitely would have tried it.

    6. Re:I have a solution for impacted users by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      As interesting as this technical solution is, why not just do a system restore?

      The default settings for windows are to create a restore point before any patches are applied, and if your computer BSODs during boot performing a recovery from a restore point is an option given to the user before next boot.

      Or is there something special about this BSOD that prevents that from happening?

    7. Re:I have a solution for impacted users by djdanlib · · Score: 1

      This system did not have a recovery partition, so no recovery mode on the HD, and it won't boot a restore disc... it was the perfect storm of garbage.

      Otherwise I absolutely would have done a system restore.

  11. Re:I just ran an update and don't have any problem by bobbied · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Oh wait, I'm on Linux.

    Which distribution? I have had issues with Linux patches too.. Not as often as with Microsoft patches, but problems none the less.

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  12. don't kill the persistent taskbar and add it + sta by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 0

    don't kill the persistent task bar and add it + start menu to windows 9.

  13. Re:I just ran an update and don't have any problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    On my private machines, I have been using Linux and *BSD for more than ten years, and I only once had a problem with an update (and that was on a Gentoo box that had not been updated for more than a year - in other words, it was to be expected). About one and a half years ago, I started working as a sysadmin at a Windows shop, and I have been enraged, shocked, scared, and surprised more or less continuously ever since.
    On the one hand, you want to keep your systems up to date. On the other hand, installing updates on Windows is like Russian roulette with five out of six chambers loaded. I am constantly torn between my deply ingrained reflex, acquired on Linux/BSD, to install any update as soon as it becomes available, and painful experiences I've had on Windows.
    Can't Microsoft just get their act together and do some freaking *TESTING* before shoveling their crap out of the door, instead of having their customers do it for them?

  14. Another reason to use Free Software over M$ Junk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    This is yet another reason all versions of Vista are failures. Doesn't surprise me as M$ is doing what they always do, using their illegal monopoly to distribbute sub-par, non-free software to its lusers. M$ also uses restricted boot to ensure all systems must use their non-free software. Without their power to reinforce their illegal monopoly people would be fleeing M$ Windoze with its bugs that cause Windoze machines to BSOD and going over to GNU/Linux and use nothing but free software over using non-free software.

    --
    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
    Friends do assist M$ addicted friends in committing suicide.

  15. You just had to be on the bleeding edge of tech by daveywest · · Score: 5, Funny

    So happy I'm running XP right now. No patch for me.

    1. Re:You just had to be on the bleeding edge of tech by sinij · · Score: 3, Funny

      No problem, Chinese People's Army will patch it for you.

    2. Re:You just had to be on the bleeding edge of tech by iggymanz · · Score: 3, Informative

      nonsense, plenty of current malware prevention and detection wares run on XP, better than Microsoft's.

      you are full of needless FUD

    3. Re:You just had to be on the bleeding edge of tech by Megane · · Score: 1

      Citizen, have you not yet received your monthly Malicious Software Removal Tool? Clearly you are telling an untruth about using XP and should report to a re-education center immediately!

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
    4. Re:You just had to be on the bleeding edge of tech by sinij · · Score: 1

      Malware detection is largely ineffective, as a result prevention is only effective when done by disabling functionality. If you think "I can run AV and be safe" you are hopelessly outdated in your thinking. You could secure any OS by air gap, but if you want to actually use it in a networked environment, you better update.

      Now, OS is generally not exploited head-on, but it makes it easier to leverage other vulnerabilities that would be largely mitigated on something newer.

      You are probably safe if you disable Java/Flash/Acrobat on your XP box, but I still wouldn't do anything mission-critical on it.

    5. Re:You just had to be on the bleeding edge of tech by stooo · · Score: 1

      "nonsense, plenty of current malware run on XP, better than Microsoft's."

      Corrected that for you.

      --
      aaaaaaa
    6. Re:You just had to be on the bleeding edge of tech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Air gapping is only going to be effective if you completely isolate the machine. Bad stuff can sneak in on any sort of removable media, not just through the interwebz.

    7. Re:You just had to be on the bleeding edge of tech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So happy I'm running XP right now. No patch for me.

      So, what's your IP address? (LOL, j/k)

    8. Re:You just had to be on the bleeding edge of tech by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      I am going to be infected by the three site I exclusively use with my Windows XP machine for busines reasons? no I am not. no reason to disable any functionality.

  16. Another reason to use Free Software over M$ Junk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Oh my god... is that Twitter?

  17. The mods are Microsoft fanbois by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You posted something bad about Windows so they very quickly buried you.

    I miss when this site had technical users instead of being run by Microsofties.

  18. Re:I just ran an update and don't have any problem by bobbied · · Score: 2

    I prefer to play Russian Roulette with a semi-auto with 3 out of 6 rounds loaded. The odds are better.

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  19. Who uses windows nowadays? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Who uses microsoft corporation's 'windows' product nowadays?
    Did this problem really affected someone?
    Or is it just some unimportant news for plebs, stuff that doesn't matter?

    1. Re:Who uses windows nowadays? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Office 2010 is intuitive and looks very damn nice compared to "1990's is calling" and wants libreoffice back including the buggy and crapping all over itself linux.

    2. Re:Who uses windows nowadays? by 0123456 · · Score: 1

      Did they finally take that ribbon crap out, then?

    3. Re:Who uses windows nowadays? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I knew there was going to be some angry Ribbon comment in response.

    4. Re:Who uses windows nowadays? by stooo · · Score: 1

      Angry ribbon? like angry birds?
      Ribbon is as crap as slashdot beta. LO is good :)

      --
      aaaaaaa
  20. 7/12/2014 Patches applied and no problem by Streetlight · · Score: 1

    I just checked my update history for my Dell XPS 15 running up to date Windows 7 SP 1 and the three patches listed in the OP post were installed and I have no problems. One was recommended and the other two were listed as important.

    --
    In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
  21. Re:I just ran an update and don't have any problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mod up. Anyone who has ever been cast from a professional *nix environment into an MS shop has experienced the same horror (raises hand).

    And the difference in tool and OS quality between the two environments produces a totally different mindset. Like designing a jet engine vs. building a castle in the sandbox.

  22. Re:I just ran an update and don't have any problem by bobbied · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oh, and if you are allowed a 15 round magazine, 3 out of 15 is even better!

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  23. Patch Tuesday updates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    My win7 desktop is bricked after patch Tuesday updates. Even my win7 install DVD is not working due to Master boot record being damaged. Supposedly the same DVD I used to fix my desktop a few months ago is now not the same version of windows that I installed.

    Stop errors 0x50 and 0xc000000f

    1. Re:Patch Tuesday updates by kesuki · · Score: 2

      here, http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ download, put to usb media... use BIOS to set usb and/or dvd to boot before the hdd. then boot and fix MBR then roll back updates. you can ever use the boot cd to replace the bad files using the copy on your boot dvd (just google the guides i'm lazy)

      --
      https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
  24. Sounds like it's... by sootman · · Score: 2

    ... Throwback Tuesday!

    --
    Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
  25. Re:I just ran an update and don't have any problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If it was a M$ gun it would lock up, or empty the entire magazine.

  26. Yo0 fAil it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    880 w/512 Megs of fucking confirmed: slings are limited, bought the farm... BSD had become that *BSD 0wned. took precedence obligated to care this is consistent OpenBSD wanker Theo

  27. Re:I just ran an update and don't have any problem by bobbied · · Score: 2

    If it was a M$ gun it would lock up, or empty the entire magazine.

    No, they'd just hide the trigger and require you to hit three separate buttons requiring at least two hands to fire it, then totally disassemble and reassemble it between shots... ([Ctl][Alt][Del] followed by reboot)

    Yea, I know, OLD NT joke.....But it's still funny.

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  28. Re:I just ran an update and don't have any problem by Anomalyst · · Score: 1

    If it was a M$ gun it would lock up, or empty the entire magazine.

    and auto-aim at one of your pedal extremities.

    --
    There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
  29. Second that by benjymouse · · Score: 1

    Updates Win 8.1 x64 all patches. No problems.

    --
    Reading slashdot one-liner: (irm http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot).rdf.item | fl title,desc*
  30. Lay off testers? This is what happens. by gestalt_n_pepper · · Score: 1

    Once again, Microsoft discovers what's obvious anyone else who's been in the business for 25 years or so.

    You have to have manual and automated GUI testers. Unit testing is nifty, but that's like testing just the spark plug, or maybe the spark plug and the ignition timing. Not a bad idea, but listen. If you knew about a new car, but knew that nobody had ever actually *driven* the car, much less taken it out on the road on a regular basis, would you buy that car?

    For that matter, would you fly in a plane tested that way?

    Developers testing their little piece of code isn't ever going to cut it. Neither is unit testing. Thinking it will is just managerial fantasy, or an idea that lets you fire a bunch of testers so the books look better and some manager or bean counter. can get a one time bonus.

    --
    Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
  31. Microsoft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Enterprise quality software.

  32. Kernel-mode drivers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I never understood why drivers had to be on the kernel ring anyway. Every single peripheral (GPU, sound card, etc.) driver I've ever encountered has had a history of stability problems. You'd think the largest point of failure on the computer could be moved to userland and restarted when necessary.

    1. Re:Kernel-mode drivers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It turns out that copying all data over from userland to kernelland is slower and people actually care about graphics performance.

    2. Re:Kernel-mode drivers by JDG1980 · · Score: 1

      I never understood why drivers had to be on the kernel ring anyway. Every single peripheral (GPU, sound card, etc.) driver I've ever encountered has had a history of stability problems. You'd think the largest point of failure on the computer could be moved to userland and restarted when necessary.

      Audio drivers were moved to user mode starting with Windows Vista. (That's why DirectSound 3D is no longer supported.) Video drivers, however, pretty much have to be in the kernel for performance reasons.

    3. Re:Kernel-mode drivers by PPH · · Score: 1

      All that data originates in userland. So somewhere its got to be copied over.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    4. Re: Kernel-mode drivers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Data and control messages from the card that aren't relevant to the software doing the rendering have zero need to be in userspace.

    5. Re: Kernel-mode drivers by PPH · · Score: 1

      that aren't relevant to the software doing the rendering

      And how much is that? Compared to the rendered graphics objects?

      Very little in a well designed system. Objects to be rendered come from user space. Everything else originates within and remains in the graphics drivers. Or GPU firmware. Or sometimes its not even resident on the same machine (think X servers and window managers).

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
  33. Re:I just ran an update and don't have any problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I run Ubuntu on my laptop and there are patches a few times a week for various items and I haven't had any trouble or issues post installation. I can't speak for all Linux flavors, but I can say that for a general purpose web browsing/office productivity laptop, Ubuntu is great.

  34. Slashdot and Windows? by mi · · Score: 0

    If you're hitting a BSOD, you can help diagnose the problem

    You should also close your /.-account — and never come back, for all I care...

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    1. Re:Slashdot and Windows? by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

      You must be new here.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
  35. Re:I just ran an update and don't have any problem by sillybilly · · Score: 1

    They want to force everyone onto smart phones that store all data on the cloud, and do not function off network. Once they capture all your data, it's easy to blackmail you. So Microsoft might deliberately be castrating themselves, to push the IBM mainframe-cloud in businesses, and smart phone could terminals, for everyday users. The cloud the cloud the cloud, you can't have your own data, like on a USB stick no more. Microsoft might be willing to offer themselves as a sacrifice to accomplish this. Which is why it might be an interesting idea to sell short, but that's a really lame way of making money. Ballmer in 2001 or 3 shouter at a dev conference "I love this company." Which means his mentality is not one of sacrifice for greater good, or greater money, but greater ego. Sometimes corporations, that are treated like people when it comes to taxes, take on a life of their own and want to survive even if there are other sub-collective faction interests, that would make the collective more exploitable, like there is a new set of greater predators that would be much better off with the old top predator gone, even if closely related by kinship to the old one, but the old top predator might want to survive anyway, without transformation. The transformation itself would mean Windows Phone always on the cloud, for everyday people, and Windows Mainframe cloud based servers, for businesses. So forget your old desktops, and your old business investments into apps, they are offered as a sacrifice Microsoft and gang to the Gods, burning on an altar, hoping to be forever gone from the world.

  36. ohhhh crap by slashmydots · · Score: 1

    THAT'S WHAT THAT WAS?! I thought it was just a problem with our new computer. For the record, it only happens upon login when a computer is running a fresh install of AutoCAD 2014. At least that's been my experience. I need to go block this from WSUS immediately.

  37. You just had to be on the bleeding edge of tech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Same here. XP became a whole lot more reliable when Microsoft stopped messing with it. I will upgrade my toy operating system when the next Windows version is no longer updated, and it runs as well as XP on my (then) current hardware.
    (and keep using Linux for more serious work, and when I don't feel like tying with an operating system)

  38. The fix is to delete the font cache by Anon+E.+Muss · · Score: 5, Informative

    The way to fix this is to delete \Windows\System32\FNTCACHE.DAT. The file will automatically be regenerated on the next boot.

    (Information found on Microsoft Support Forum and used to successfully fix my own system.)

    How do you delete the file if you can't boot?

    (1) Press F8 during boot to get to the Windows boot manager advanced options screen.
    (2) Select "Repair".
    (3) Provide password for a local account that's a member of the Administrator group.
    (4) Select "Command Prompt".
    (5) Find drive letter assigned to Windows partition (may not be C: in the repair environment!).
    (6) Delete \Windows\System32\FNTCACHE.DAT.
    (7) Exit command prompt and reboot system.
    (8) Fixed!

    ----------

    And now, since this is /., here is the required Windows bashing...

    This bug demonstrates the danger of running your GUI in kernel mode (win32k.sys). One stray pointer can ruin your whole day. In this case the pointer was sufficiently invalid to cause a bugcheck. A stray pointer that silently scribbles on other kernel data structures is even worse.

    "Those who would give up essential Safety, to purchase a little temporary Performance, deserve neither Performance nor Safety."

    --
    The key sequence to access my Slashdot bookmark in Firefox is Alt-B-S. I don't believe this is a coincidence.
  39. Patch Tuesday is not Black Tuesday by Aryeh+Goretsky · · Score: 2

    Hello,

    I know that Slashdot loves to bash Microsoft, but calling it's monthly patching cycle "Black Tuesday" is pushing it. Black Tuesday was the name for the stock market crash that preceded the Great Depression, and for all the negativism about Microsoft, I have yet to hear of someone committing suicide over a Microsoft patch.

    Frankly, using Woody "I'm a Windows victim" Leonhard as a source of information about Microsoft patches isn't a good idea, at least until he stops grinding whatever axe it is he has against Microsoft. Go read Microsoft's Security TechCenter if you want to know the patches are for, or at least blogs like ComputerWorld o ZDNet's r>Ed Bott, both of whom are more likely to put facts ahead of opinions. Even Paul Thurrott provides some good coverage, although I think he often is the opposite of Woody Leonhard, e.g.doesn't critical enough coverage.
    Regards,

    Aryeh Goretsky

    --
    Dexter is a good dog.
    1. Re: Patch Tuesday is not Black Tuesday by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A security update is rendering machines unbootable due to an existing bug (there's a hotfix for exactly the same issue: win7 crashes instead of resetting the font cache on inconsistencies). How is reporting this anti-MS bias? This is a gigantic fuckup.

  40. Just want it to work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I use my laptop at night. Last night I could not get in at all. Constant upgrades or updating. 45 000 it said. Then I was offline. Then once online again, my screen sent blank. What is this. Why am I paying for something that does not work. I need my laptop to be working all times.

  41. Imaginary? Look at the article FFS by dbIII · · Score: 1

    Very rare compared to how it used to be (situation normal on XP early on) maybe but not imaginary. I've had a couple of users with blue screens in the past few months, and there's only about a dozen MS workstations in the place. The problems went away after fully applying updates but they were real. Maybe it's the culture of people not rebooting their machines for months due to it being a *nix shop that resulted in the people on MS not shutting their machines down for updates every week.