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Microsoft Kills Many Critical Flaws, Some 0-Days, Un-Trusts One Wildcard Cert

Posted by samzenpus on from the protect-ya-neck dept.

An anonymous reader writes: For this December Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has released twelve security bulletins, eight of which have been rated critical. Those refer to the cumulative security updates for Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, JScript and VBScript, and updates for Microsoft Windows DNS, Microsoft Graphics Component, Silverlight, Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Uniscribe. Microsoft also released a security advisory announcing the removal of a digital certificate from the Certificate Trust list (CTL).

3 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Any spyware in this batch? by SeaFox · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Saw that there were several "important" updates available to me last night. I've disabled Automatic Updates, since I can't really trust Microsoft to not try and install Windows 10 behind my back, and instead have Windows Updates a startup item now so I can stay on top of new updates more easily.

    Haven't had a chance to go through what's listed there -- doesn't anyone know if there are any I need to be hiding from this batch?

  2. Windows 7 updates slow these days by ITRambo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It almost seems that Microsoft has intentionally slowed updates for Windows 7. It's been taking 30 to 60 minutes to check and get a repsonse using Windows update on our Windows 7 machines. Windows 10, on the other hand, is rapid, but buggy with more than one failed update that required running a script in an elevated command prompt to get it removed, when not needed, or installed. Having experienced annoying and on one PC serious issues with Windows 10, our Windows 7 PC's are staying with Windows 7, with automatic updates disabled. I manually check now, with recommended updates turned off, since I lost all trust in Microsoft in the past few months thanks to sloppy work and buggy updates. I have been installing GWX Control Panel in most of our customer computers that are still running Windows 7 or 8.1, with their blessings and often at their request since they like their PC the way it is.

    1. Re:Windows 7 updates slow these days by QuietLagoon · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It almost seems that Microsoft has intentionally slowed updates for Windows 7...

      I wonder if it has something to do with Microsoft no longer doing service packs.

      .
      Nowadays, the Windows 7 windows update client has to pour through everything since SP1 to find the dependencies and omissions, in order to determine what updates need to be installed. It is almost as if the service pack team didn't tell the windows update team that service packs would be discontinued, so now the windows update process is basically flopping around in a dependency tree so large that is is falling over on itself. If Microsoft were to issue a SP2 for Windows 7, then the dependency tree would be small again and windows update would move more quickly.

      .
      Windows 10 doesn't have the slowness problem (yet) because the dependency tree is much smaller on the newer OS.

      Or, it could be just as you say, Microsoft is intentionally slowing down the update process for Windows 7, trying to put a hurt on the customer experience.