'Recommended' Windows 7 Update Is Breaking PCs With ASUS Motherboards (betanews.com)

Microsoft has made a bizarre tweak to an update for Windows 7 that can prevent some systems from booting. The Windows 7 update KB3133977 was switched from 'Optional' to 'Recommended' and Microsoft knew ahead of time the update would cause problems for some users but decided to do nothing about it. The update fixes a problem that stops BitLocker encrypting drives because of service crashes in svhost.exe. The update only causes a problem with ASUS motherboards. Microsoft says, "After you install update 3133977 on a Windows 7 x64-based system that includes an ASUS-based main board, the system does not start, and it generates a Secure Boot error on the ASUS BIOS screen. This problem occurs because ASUS allowed the main board to enable the Secure Boot process even though Windows 7 does not support this feature." The update wasn't causing many issues while it was optional. But now that it's recommended, more users have downloaded the update, and more users have experienced problems with the update. ASUS has provided a solution to the problem. Microsoft has also provided a solution, but you might not like it. Their solution in a nutshell: update to Windows 10.

Comments

Another solution

[NotInHere]

Install linux.

Re: Another solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I upgraded to 10 to solve this as Microsoft suggested... err well OS X. Close enough, and it did the trick. Suddenly my computer doesn't suck.

Re: Another solution

[Luthair]

Really? The fisher price GUI w/ slow animations sucks quite a bit.

Re:Another solution

[zlives]

nope, you can still run a dosbox inside osx

Re:Another solution

[ArmoredDragon]

No, it's always been the case. I remember even during the Job's era, I had to use a mac at the library because all of the PCs were being used. I stuck a USB drive in it, and the mac just froze. It didn't even give the pinwheel of death, it just plain stopped working. Meanwhile the USB drive worked fine in every other machine I put it in afterwards, including a Linux PC.

I still remember Jobs excusing the iPhone grip of death by going on stage and showing other bugs in competitor phones (which weren't as bad, by the way, in that you could at least talk on them and still continue doing most things that required a signal.)

Re:Another solution

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

And say goodbye to every piece of Windows only software that you own.

Actually, there seems to be a *lot* of stuff that runs just fine under Wine, and even more stuff that works under Crossover.

Re:Another solution

[thegarbz]

Install linux.

To do that you need to disable UEFI secure boot. If you do that ... you don't actually need to install Linux any more because that eliminates the problem.

Re:Another solution

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

What Linux really needs is full support by major software vendors.

I agree 100%, but in the meantime Wine is a viable solution for a quite a few people. Not everyone, obviously, but for a lot of people it'll bridge the gap.

Re:Another solution

[NotInHere]

No, you don't need to do it. Most bigger distros ship these days with bootloaders that work with secure boot.

Re:Another solution

[chipschap]

Install linux.

And say goodbye to every piece of Windows only software that you own.

Contrary to popular belief the world does not run on Web Browsers.

That's considered a feature by some :)

Re:Another solution

[Opportunist]

Pretty much where I'm moving right now. Given the crap they're pulling with Win10 I eventually had to do it anyway. This now gives me a pretty good reason to not postpone it any further.

Most programs I need are either available for Linux or are platform independent. And everything else runs fine in a VM where it's not only trivial to revert to a former state if an update fucks it up, it's also nothing that needs to be connected to the internet or has to get any private information that it might leak.

Good riddance. Sorry, MS. You managed to turn yourself from required to redundant and now finally to simply dangerous to my data. And that your "solution" to the problem is telling your users to migrate to a platform that not only breaks compatibility but is also less appealing is the icing on the cake. What about those that CANNOT migrate?

You are aware that at my current position it is actually EASIER to migrate to Linux than to Win10?

Re:Another solution

[Opportunist]

I actually do have a lot of Windows-only software in use. There are still a few areas where Linux is lacking, mostly DTP and PCB design.

But in neither of these cases I have found an application that I couldn't get to run in a Linux environment. If everything fails, you still have the option to run them in a VM. Yes, that means you still need Windows, but you have it in a controlled environment where you not only have complete control over what kind of connection this VM makes to the internet, you can also simply cut it off the internet without losing your internet connectivity for your other applications, and if an update like this one fubars it, there's snapshots that easily take care of that problem.

And unlike Windows' "Update rollback" function, those snapshots actually work.

Re:Another solution

[dwywit]

You're right about that. If Adobe were motivated to port CS to Debian, I'd be there in a heartbeat.

I think they'd have to spin their own distro, though. CS is a complex suite and has enough trouble running on Windows. I can't imagine it being certified to work under even the top ten most popular distros.

Just imagine the reaction from the FOSS community if Adobe were to put out AdobeOS.

Re:Another solution

[dwywit]

Premiere Pro/After Effects.

1. No serious Linux competitor
2. Maybe, but doubtful
3. Video rendering needs grunt - why would you want to reduce performance?

Re:Another solution

[CanadianMacFan]

Or get rid of Adobe for open software alternatives such as GIMP which is available for most operating systems.

Re:Another solution

[OzPeter]

nope, you can still run a dosbox inside osx

Then you are just shifting the problem, not solving it

Re:Another solution

[Opportunist]

Virtualisation took a huge leap in the past couple years. Doing something in a VM isn't anymore the performance hit it used to be. The ONLY thing that VMs still suck at is 3D acceleration graphics and sound support. But anything running off the CPU is nearing 1:1 performance to the bare metal.

Re: Another solution

[Anonymous Coward]

You fucking retard, do you even read?

Re:Another solution

[dwywit]

GIMP is fine for simple things, but it's really no match for Photoshop.

And I said CS - Creative Suite - in my case Prelude, Premiere Pro, Audition, SpeedGrade, After Effects, Encore, etc. There's no comparable toolchain in Linuxworld.

I couldn't even get ImageMagick to compile on vanilla Debian. You might argue that's my problem, not the software, but - dependency failure after dependency failure, and I eventually gave up because my time is too valuable to spend it trying to build a toolchain, as opposed to actually using a toolchain.

Re:Another solution

[phrostie]

Version 2.9.2
"native support for PNG, TIFF, PSD, and FITS files in GIMP has been upgraded to read and write 16/32bit per color channel data."

https://www.gimp.org/news/2015...

Re:Another solution

[dwywit]

I've had a lot of positive experience running Linux VMs under Windows. In fact, ffmpeg running in a Linux VM under windows is faster than Windows-native ffmpeg, so I'm happy to use Linux where it works. Haven't tried running a Windows VM under Linux - yet.

As I said in another comment - there's just no toolchain in Linux that is comparable to Creative Suite in Windows. Sure, there are tools that do the the same job or nearly so, but nothing that is as tightly integrated. PPro also relies on proprietary nVidia graphics drivers, I'm not confident they'd work through a VM.

I'd love to see CS for Linux, but it would still be proprietary, so its uptake wouldn't be worth the development costs.

Re:Another solution

[phrostie]

apt-get install imagemagick

Re:Another solution

[mark-t]

What it "needs" and what it actually gets are going to remain two very different things for all of the foreseeable future.

Re:Another solution

[dwywit]

Why do you think I was trying to compile from source?

Hint: it wouldn't install because of dependency failures.

Re: Another solution

[Darinbob]

True. There are a lot of development tools companies that don't seem to understand that OSX or Linux exist, not to mention less popular operating systems. This is a major boost to VMware and the like.

Re:Another solution

[donaldm]

Install linux.

And say goodbye to every piece of Windows only software that you own.

Contrary to popular belief the world does not run on Web Browsers.

Counting the Windows only software that I actually own .... Err give me a bit more time ... Don't rush me ... Ok I have counted and the total is "0". :-)

Re:Another solution

[donaldm]

And even more that doesn't. The "just use Wine" solution is garbage. What Linux really needs is full support by major software vendors.

Please tell me what Microsoft centric software I need to run on my PC that I can't already run an Linux equivalent for?

Re:Another solution

[tombak]

amen!

Re:Another solution

[donaldm]

You're right about that. If Adobe were motivated to port CS to Debian, I'd be there in a heartbeat.

I think they'd have to spin their own distro, though. CS is a complex suite and has enough trouble running on Windows. I can't imagine it being certified to work under even the top ten most popular distros.

Just imagine the reaction from the FOSS community if Adobe were to put out AdobeOS.

Well you could look at Linux equivalents to Adobe's Creative Suite/Cloud here . If you really insist on Adobe because it's Adobe then I really can't help, after all it's your money.

Re:Another solution

[TheReaperD]

I actually like OS X but, I refuse to buy a Mac to use it. They sell overpriced and underpowered computers in shiny boxes just to get a decent operating system. If they offer OS X standalone for PCs for around $100, I'd gladly buy and use it. I'm sure I'm not alone.

Re:Another solution

[donaldm]

Why do you think I was trying to compile from source?

Hint: it wouldn't install because of dependency failures.

Then you have a problem with your Debian installation if you have dependency failures.

Not sure what since you have not given us much to go on but I just tested out the "sudo apt-get install imagemagick" on Linux Mint which I run in a virtual machine and I had no problems. Of course I could have run the GUI install but for completeness I just went for the command line.

The whole installation took less than a minute and this includes all dependences as well as imagemagick.

It should be noted that "app-get" should report on the dependency failures and the packages they pertain to which would most likely be a one or more third party packages.

Re:Another solution

[drinkypoo]

The ONLY thing that VMs still suck at is 3D acceleration graphics and sound support

Actually, vmware is moderately decent at that these days. Games which do seriously wacky things will often make it crap itself, but many of them work just fine. Simcity 4 used to really make it blow its stack, now it works OK. Same for Civ IV. Haven't tried V. These are not amazingly graphics-intensive titles but I've actually watched vmware improve to the point where it would run them correctly...

Re:Another solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you are just shifting the problem, not solving it

As opposed to what option? Microsoft wants users to upgrade to Win10. Some users don't want to. So what alternatives are there?

1. Get new software to provide what you need. (May require relearning your workflow if it's interface is too different than what you are used to.)

2. Get new versions of existing software for your new system. (If OSS / freeware not much of an issue here, but if it's proprietary, expect to pay for it again. Regardless, this assumes that there IS a version of that software for the new system.)

3. Run the existing software in a VM. (Not the best option unless you have the storage space to spare for the VM. Also assumes you are not using anything that's CPU / GPU intensive. The GPU in particular will have issues in VMs, as it requires support in the VM software to work and not all VM software gives good GPU support. (Games in particular are an issue.))

4. Run the existing software in some API wrapper. (That has it's own issues, as people expect the API wrapper to "just work", where as in reality the API wrapper has to be configured correctly and most people refuse to even bother with it. Not to mention the API wrapper has to support the APIs used by the software or support enough of the APIs to allow a workaround to be used. (Installing needed codecs from the target API vs using the API wrapper to access the system's codecs for example.))

Those are the options if you don't want to (or are unable to) use the new update / version from the developer. If anything, the fact that people would consider moving away from their current software typically means it's developer has screwed up enough that moving elsewhere is the easier option.

Developers need to remember that if they want others to use their software, they have to please those other people. Microsoft has apparently forgotten this, and will pay the price for it. More and more people are moving to smart devices (a market Microsoft has no real influence in.), businesses need control over their workstations (and Microsoft keeps taking that control away, while simultaneously installing spyware on the machines of those who WILL CARE about them doing so.), computer nerds like control and customization of their systems (they left along time ago, or are holding on to the old version as long as they can.), and finally, people in general don't like being forced to trust someone who doesn't trust them. (Secure Boot enforces that situation, while Microsoft keeps abusing it.)

Many people would prefer that Microsoft stopped with their BS, but unless you have access to Microsoft's source code / are an old school ASM hacker (and have Microsoft's signing keys for Secure Boot enabled systems), you can't change anything, and Microsoft seems perfectly happy to keep chugging along with abusing it's user-base. So unfortunately because "solving the problem" is not possible, "shifting the problem" is all that can be done.

Re:Another solution

[L4m3rthanyou]

Amusingly, the Windows 7 installation on my dual-boot Asus system has been trying and failing to install this update for a few weeks now, presumably because GRUB is in the way. :)

Re:Another solution

[dwywit]

You're absolutely right - yet it didn't work for me, and I spent more time *building* the toolchain (trying to, anyway), than *using* the toolchain.

I put it back in the "tinker with it when I have time" pile.

Re:Another solution

[dwywit]

Yep - got it in a VM. Some very useful tools there, and some that don't work at all.

The thing about CS is, it's integrated. I've not found a Linux equivalent. There are linux equivalents for individual tools, but not an integrated solution.

I browse distrowatch and livecdlist every couple of months to see what's new, and I'll try out whatever looks interesting. I'm willing to try most anything - I even installed Gentoo from scratch once, and I have a great deal of respect for those who write this software.

P.S. academic pricing is a wonderful thing - CS 5.5 cost me about 1/4 of retail, that's a big deal anywhere, but it's yuuuge in Australia.

Re:Another solution

[Bearhouse]

Or BSD :)

Re:Another solution

[Aighearach]

It's not my favorite *nix, but it would clearly solve this problem.

Re:Another solution

[Aighearach]

Indeed, that is a bigger benefit than he imagines.

There are a minority of people who still believe that linux users are unable to do work on their computers. I find it baffling, but the answer of course is that most of these people have no idea what software is even used to do work on a computer. If they had any idea of the number of choices available for every task, they'd be embarrassed at the absurdity of the idea.

They just can't make the jump from, "gosh all the software by boss chose runs on windows, which is the OS my boss chose" to "if my boss chose a different OS, I'd be using different software." Instead they somehow end up at, "gosh, my job couldn't exist if microsoft hadn't made computers possible!"

Re:Another solution

[thegarbz]

You? Probably nothing from the sounds of things. But the interesting thing about computers is that not everyone uses them for the same way. In the mean time Adobe Lightroom gets a "garbage" rating on WineHQ, and not even the current rolling release version.

Re:Another solution

[thegarbz]

Comparing GIMP to Photoshop is like comparing the intelligence of your janitor to Steven Hawking. They are in such different leagues they aren't even playing the same sport.

Re:Another solution

[Dahamma]

All of this is pretty irrelevant to the main point, though. ImageMagick is an awesome tool but it's just not remotely the same things as Photoshop/Adobe CS.

Re:Another solution

[Dahamma]

Some do, because they gave up and paid for a key to sign their bootloaders. So I suppose you could say it works - but so does disabling the features in the BIOS that prevents you from creating/modifying your own bootloader.

Re:Another solution

[thegarbz]

Part right, part wrong. You don't need to disable secure boot. But then you don't need to do that to get Windows 7 working again either. The ASUS motherboards ship with a custom Secureboot routine for Windows 8+ systems. Whether you want to install Linux or you want to just get your Windows 7 to work post this update you need to change this setting to "Other OS".

So again. What's easier? Changing a BIOS setting, installing a whole new OS and cracking open a beer, or just changing that BIOS setting and cracking open a beer?

Re: Another solution

[jawtheshark]

Maybe. However to get something done quickly and cheaply, I'd take the janitor over Prof. Hawking any day.

Re:Another solution

[AmiMoJo]

This is Microsoft's standard solution to all unfixable problems. I once asked how to disable the software midi output in Windows because it blocks other software from outputting sound, and their "engineer" told me to disable my sound card completely.

Re:Another solution

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a dyslexic away from having a prophetic username...

Re: Another solution

[cellocgw]

The "I am easily Whooshed" factor is very strong in this one, Obi-Wan.

Re:Another solution

[LynnwoodRooster]

I tend to use Solidworks a fair amount. Altium as well. Kind of hard to run either of those on Linux, and TTBOMK there isn't a single Linux option even close to the power of Solidworks or Altium.

Re:Another solution

[LynnwoodRooster]

Is there a good 3D parametric CAD package a la Solidworks or Creo that is available on Linux?

Re: Another solution

[KGIII]

I am willing to be the janitor mops better than Hawking does. He's probably better at mixing cleaning chemicals than Hawking is. Hell, he probably dances better than Hawking does.

Re:Another solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the better question. What's the ease of use for the Linux equivalents versus their Windows counterparts, and you'll have your reason why so few make the switch or end up back in the MS fold.

Re:Another solution

[IWantMoreSpamPlease]

Bionumeriux
MiSeq
SmartCycler
ABI
__

These are just a few I interact with on a daily basis. Nothing like them exists *anywhere* but in the Windows environment. They do not run under Wine, or a VM, or anything like that. They touch the bare metal, or they don't run. Why? Because the US gov't certifies that when installed on a Windows system, with a certain level of updates, that the results they provide will stand up in a court of law.

So, there you have it, switching to Linux is not a solution that you so easily tout.

Re:Another solution

[zwarte piet]

and there I thought is was a bash shell

Re:Another solution

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

Microsoft asks more than $100 for their so-called "operating system", so OS X would be worth it even at $200.

Re: Another solution

[Opportunist]

As I said, there is exactly one reason to run Windows on metal: If you need graphics hardware acceleration. I.e. games. And a handful of 3D modeling applications.

Windows has no reason to run on the bare metal anymore outside those applications. And once VMs can do that too, there is zero reason left to use Windows for anything but the few applications you can't find replacements for on a sensible OS.

Re:Another solution

[Opportunist]

Correct, they're getting there. Still, anything newer than about 2 years with heavy graphics use (i.e. anything FPS) will make it blow chunks.

Re:Another solution

[Opportunist]

Sold!

Brb, installing Mint.

Re: Another solution

[Opportunist]

With UEFI I would not consider even that an impossibility anymore.

But yes, there's that. Better have a USB-Stick ready to boot from. Then again... forget that. Since that happens SO often that you need to tinker with flashing, it's probably faster to just redo the USB-Bootstick than trying to find out which of your sticks holds the image...

Re: Another solution

[Opportunist]

Both of them?

Re: Another solution

[thegarbz]

Define quick and cheap. The arse backwards completely different than any other package interface and methods of doing tasks with GIMP do not equate to quickly or cheaply when other tools are available.

Re:Another solution

[dbreeze]

I haven't owned, or needed, any Microsoft products for near 2 decades now. I'm making a living partly on using GPL tools to reverse engineer industrial electronics. To anyone still "stuck" to Microsoft products I can only say, sucks to be you buddy...

Re:Another solution

[JillElf]

And yet in most people's daily lives, the janitor is more useful and come with a much lower cost. GIMP isn't Photoshop but most people, repeat after me, don't need Photoshop and don't use it to its full potential even if they have it.

Re:Another solution

[vandamme]

And get free stuff instead.

Re: Another solution

[thundercattt]

Runs only on Windows? Big deal. OpenOffice is just as good as MS. Majority of games now work on Linux (newer). I have an Asus laptop and fully run Debian. I keep Virtual box handy with other OS's but Windows isn't really needed.

Re:Another solution

[thegarbz]

Yep, good enough for some, must mean good enough. The classic Linux line: It works for me so why are you complaining and not using Linux yet. Ok so you didn't say exactly that but really that's the problem everytime someone mentions Linux on Slashdot. Everyone assumes that everyone else works exactly like they do.

GIMP works for some people. Those people are not the ones who fork out a monthly fee to a Photoshop subscription (> 7million people), or the exorbitant price for a standalone version in the first place (on top of those 7million). Also not using it to its full potential does not mean GIMP is an alternative. I don't use much if any of Photoshop's path forming or freestyle creation tools, which is something GIMP is apparently okay at. But it's a frigging woeful photo editor.

It's also only one example. Linux is severely lacking in the creative content creation department. Partially due to licensing issues, but majorly due to lack of support from big players.

Re:Another solution

[inode_buddha]

I certified on Solidworks and Mastercam in 2013. That said, I'm looking at FreeCad. Still no replacement for MasterCam tho. And I'm willing to bet that SolidWorks is far more featureful, stable and powerful. I'm a linux guy all the way, but I'm honest enough to admit when a proprietary package on win actually is superior. At home I've been on nothing but linux since 1997. Work is a different story, nobody wants to jump through hoops to make 10 grand worth of software functional.

Re: Another solution

[macs4all]

Really? The fisher price GUI w/ slow animations sucks quite a bit.

True. But I thought we were talking about OS X, not Windows.

Re:Another solution

[macs4all]

And even more that doesn't. The "just use Wine" solution is garbage. What Linux really needs is full support by major software vendors.

In the words of Dana Carvey (as George H.W. Bush) "Not gonna happen."

Re:Another solution

[macs4all]

apt-get install imagemagick

Hmmm. Isn't that the package that /. JUST had an article on about longstanding vulnerabilities?

Re:Another solution

[macs4all]

Comparing GIMP to Photoshop is like comparing the intelligence of your janitor to Steven Hawking. They are in such different leagues they aren't even playing the same sport.

Unless it is this janitor...

Re:Another solution

[bingoUV]

Linux doesn't need anything. People too unfortunate/stupid to lock themselves into bad software need things- including a greater support by the said bad software vendors.

Re:Another solution

[JLouisBiz]

You caused me to escape my enjoyable eww environment, just to answer you back:

• - of course ImageMagick has dependencies
• - dependency failure is not failure of ImageMagick, it is yours, just yours,
• - try to compile ANY software without dependencies, it will fail, that is why it is named "dependency"
• - I have compiled 500+ packages for GNU/Linux and running on the whole system - self-compiled
• - ImageMagic included and working very well, doing magic with it, I guess that is why they named it so

Re:Another solution

[JLouisBiz]

GIMP is GNU Image Manipulation Program. GNU is Not Unix - free operating system.
GIMP is there not to replace Adobe. It is there to provide free, as in freedom, software for image manipulations. That means, you can modify it, you can see how it runs, you can learn from it, you can make your extensions, you can sell it, profit on it, license is basically yours, as long as you provide same freedom to others.
Adobe Photoshop is like Guantanamo prison -- there is no way you can re-sell it, modify it, re-compile it, see how it works, share to others for free.

Re:Another solution

[dwywit]

Well, the problem was, as I explained elsewhere, it wouldn't install with apt-get. This is vanilla debian 8. So, I tried to track the dependencies, and resolve them. Remember, this is occupying my time *making* a toolchain, and not *using* said toolchain. Many hours later, I decided that *it wasn't working for me*, and my time would be better spent doing something else.

I never said it was a failure of ImageMagick, I accepted it was *my* problem. It was a problem that I decided not to spend any more time resolving. That doesn't make it *not* a problem.

500 packages? Good for you. I've installed Gentoo from scratch. Neither of those facts will make ImageMagick work on my computer.

It won't install, it won't compile, I have better and more valuable things to do with my time. I charge money for my time editing and processing video, I already have the Adobe suite, but I like to give FOSS alternatives a go. Sometimes, the FOSS alternatives don't work.

Re: Another solution

[jawtheshark]

Get the job done at no cost. Gimp is fine, I manage to do anything I need to do.

Re: Another solution

[PingSpike]

Have you tried PCI passthrough of a firewire PCI card? ESXi and KVM could probably do it.

Re: Another solution

[Coren22]

You could also be doing it very right...

Re: Another solution

[thegarbz]

Get the job done at no cost.

No such thing, unless you ignore the cost of using different software. I actually had someone in my office try and sell me the idea of using GIMP for image editing (admittedly an early version). I asked him to do a basic black and white conversion with contrast adjustment sharpening and fix the vignetting of an image.

He figured it out in about 3 minutes in Lightroom. Half an hour later he admitted defeat on GIMP when the shithouse internet we have here went down and he hadn't yet finished Googling how the heck to do it in GIMP.

So if you have a very simple use case, and you're willing to sit down an use a .... unique program. Then more power to you. For the rest of us GIMP is either too limited or too costly to figure out, a view reflected in 15 years worth of complaints about it's damn UI.

Simple question

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't it appear like M$ is breaking Windows 7 and 8 to try to force "upgrades" to 10?

Re:Simple question

[Anonymous Coward]

It does appear that way. On the other hand, I am running Win7 x64 on an Asus motherboard, and have had KB3133977 installed since mid-April, and have not had any problems booting. So maybe the problem isn't as simple as "lol we bricked all PCs with an Asus motherboard!".

"Anecdote != evidence!"

I'm not trying to claim it does. But something is keeping me from experiencing this problem, despite TFS implying that I should be experiencing this problem. I am simply wondering how wide spread this problem actually is, I'm not making any claims that it is not wide-spread.

Re:Simple question

[thegarbz]

Doesn't it appear like M$ is breaking Windows 7 and 8 to try to force "upgrades" to 10?

Not at all. It appears as though Microsoft is supporting Windows 7 fully and patching bugs like they always do.

Now as to why ASUS motherboards didn't have an issue before this update that is a real interesting question, but since the solution is to disable a BIOS feature that was incompatible with Windows 7 in the first place the answer is no it doesn't appear like that at all.

Re:Simple question

[Opportunist]

Don't attribute to malice what can be sufficiently explained with incompetence.

So, MS, what is it? Either you're unable to provide a working OS or you're unwilling.

Re:Simple question

[hannibalmoot]

"Microsoft knew ahead of time the update would cause problems for some users but decided to do nothing about it." - this is what pisses me off the most. Maybe it was a legit bugfix and all but the fact they knew the possibility of bricking was there and didn't bother to tell their customers is beyond sleazy.

Re:Simple question

[DaHat]

Is it really bricking when a tweak of the bios is required to recover?

Re:Simple question

[Darinbob]

Yes and no. Most Windows users don't understand any of this. They just know that things stopped working and they have no where to turn. Many are more likely to buy a brand new computer than to find someone who can fix it in five minutes. And Microsoft knows this.

Re:Simple question

[Darinbob]

Microsoft is a perfect storm of malice plus incompetence.

Re:Simple question

[Holi]

Come on, Bricking is permanently disabling hardware, this is easily recoverable. Let's cut down on the hyperbole.

Re:Simple question

[e432776]

Not sure if they are "breaking" win7, but they don't seem to be in a hurry to fix problems with updates to keep win7 usable to the owners of ASUS boards...

Re:Simple question

[toddestan]

Microsoft certainly doesn't seem in any hurry to fix Windows Update on Windows 7 either. It's been broken now for like a year.

Re:Simple question

[barc0001]

> Not at all. It appears as though Microsoft is supporting Windows 7 fully and patching bugs like they always do.

Yeah. "Fixing".

This was the same company that used to have an internal slogan of "the job's not done until Lotus won't run".

Re:Simple question

[thegarbz]

"Microsoft knew ahead of time the update would cause problems for some users but decided to do nothing about it." - this is what pisses me off the most. Maybe it was a legit bugfix and all but the fact they knew the possibility of bricking was there and didn't bother to tell their customers is beyond sleazy.

Oh please, what's to tell. Computer reboots and a red screen pops up with instructions for customers to do exactly what Microsoft would have told them to do anyway which is disable a BIOS feature that's not supported by Windows but somehow has gotten a pass this far. Beyond lazy would have been not fixing a bug at all because it may affect some systems due to a 3rd party issue and a user who didn't setup their computer correctly.

Re:Simple question

[thegarbz]

You're right. Microsoft has a real killer strategy of ... not ... making.... Microsoft software run?

errr are you off your meds?

Re:Simple question

[Rockoon]

When I was still running XP and microsoft was pushing Vista and beta'ing Win7, I had noticed that I was getting screen artifacts where a part of program windows (menu bar frequently) sometimes wouldnt update right. This was a new issue and it clearly had something to do with changes to the OS because it was suddely happening in many programs.

When I upgrades to windows 7 this problem went away completely.

Fast forward to today, I am now noticing the same problem, but this time with Windows 7.

This observation isnt proof of wrongdoing on Microsoft part, but I dont need proof to assume wrongdoing.

Re:Simple question

[Trogre]

Lotus, as in Lotus 1-2-3, the primary competitor to Microsoft's spreadsheet program, Excel.

 

Re:Simple question

[Anonymous Coward]

This! So much this! Geeks always tend to forget that the majority of PC users are not power users/programmers/geeks like them. What's a 5 minute fix for us, is a "Damn, something's wrong with my hard drive. I guess I need a new computer." for the majority of users.

Re:Simple question

[thegarbz]

Which has precisely what to do with the topic of Microsoft's update causing windows issues on ASUS motherboards?

Or are you just throwing in random words for for the Googlebot to eat?

Re:Simple question

[Hognoxious]

The one where it just spins for an hour and then says it was unable to connect or something retarded like that?

Re:Simple question

[cwsumner]

They could always, you know, check the hardware against a list of ASUS boards known to have issues, i.e. the ones with UEFI secure boot. Then if the user has said hardware, give them a warning that the update could cause the PC to not boot.

I think the answer to that is to quote an old saying:
"If Engineers built buildings the way Programmers write programs, the next woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization!"

Re:Simple question

[Trogre]

It was the GP who quoted "the job's not done until Lotus won't run", to which you made a presumably sarcastic comment about Microsoft not making Microsoft software run. The implication there being that you either failed to parse the word "Lotus" or believed it to be a Microsoft product. I corrected that misconception.

But perhaps you had best just believe that all of this is orchestrated to confuse a search engine if that makes you feel more comfortable.

Re:Simple question

[harryjohnston]

Jesus, did you even read the article? There's nothing wrong with the update. Some ASUS boards were shipped with a misconfiguration.

There wasn't anything Microsoft could have done, short of simply never updating any part of Windows 7 that might trigger the problem. That doesn't exactly sound like a sensible solution to me.

A new twist on ransomware

[Anonymous Coward]

So, Microsoft is now deliberately bricking computers, in an attempt to force Windows 10 onto them.

Attention victim: We have locked your computer, and you won't be getting access to it anytime soon, unless you....what? No, we don't want bitcoins. We want you to install Windows 10. Give us your computer and nobody gets hurt. We swear we'll only spy on you a little.

Re:A new twist on ransomware

[Locke2005]

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence." It does cost Microsoft a lot of money to continue to maintain Windows 7 and 8, so it is in their best interest to "encourage" everyone to upgrade to 10, however.

Re:A new twist on ransomware

[smooth wombat]

So? People paid for Windows 7 and Microsoft should support it, not destroy people's systems to make more money.

Do you see any car manufacturer deliberately bricking people's cars and telling them they have to buy a new one?

I will have a party when the class action lawsuits (plural) start coming down on Microsoft for these stunts they're pulling. If people thought the IE lawsuits were bad, they haven't seen anything.

Re:A new twist on ransomware

[NotInHere]

Do you see any car manufacturer deliberately bricking people's cars and telling them they have to buy a new one?

Yes, that's called planned obsolescence. But it isn't as rude as Microsoft is doing it.

Re:A new twist on ransomware

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

So, Microsoft is now deliberately bricking computers, in an attempt to force Windows 10 onto them.

Attention victim: We have locked your computer, and you won't be getting access to it anytime soon, unless you....what? No, we don't want bitcoins. We want you to install Windows 10. Give us your computer and nobody gets hurt. We swear we'll only spy on you a little.

Seriously, there's not a lot of difference between Win 10 and ransomware.

Microsoft isn't asking for money yet, but as I understand it that's going to change in June or July.

Re:A new twist on ransomware

[Dutch Gun]

Microsoft is only committed to maintaining Windows 7 and 8 for a fixed length of time. It costs them exactly the same to pay developers to patch and maintain that old code no matter how many or how few people are using it. Beside which, Microsoft has already been paid in advance for that support when people purchased those OSes.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons for them to want to move everyone to Windows 10, of course: There's the store, which they control and earn revenue with. Windows 10 is built on a unified OS core, making it easier to patch vulnerabilities across all their devices. Universal Windows apps can be easily ported across all Windows 10 devices, making their ecosystem more attractive to developers. Windows 10 has a lot of cloud and service integration built-in, which they see as the future for them, etc, etc.

All that being said, I tend to doubt this is deliberate (and there are fixes and work-arounds available). It's not like this is the first time an update has accidentally bricked user's computers. Unfortunately, Microsoft doesn't have a lot of good faith built up with Windows 7 or 8 users right now due to the incredibly pushy way they're trying to encourage upgrading to Windows 10. So, it's not like I can blame people for being suspicious.

Re:A new twist on ransomware

[thegarbz]

So, Microsoft is now deliberately bricking computers, in an attempt to force Windows 10 onto them.

Two points:
1. The computer isn't bricked.
2. Windows 7 doesn't support secure boot. This is an ASUS bug in that it attempts to run Secure Boot after the patch is applied. Prior to this it doesn't work for some unknown reason (probably also an ASUS bug, but one that was cancelled by a now fixed Windows bug). All the user needs to do is change his BIOS setting to the one he should have always been using and everything is fine.

As for the attempt to force Windows 10 onto someone I highly suggest you upgrade to one of these: http://zapatopi.net/afdb/

Re:A new twist on ransomware

[thegarbz]

Do you see any car manufacturer deliberately bricking people's cars and telling them they have to buy a new one?

Do you see Microsoft doing the same? If you do then maybe you should RTFA.

Re:A new twist on ransomware

[Opportunist]

So... to get rid of one kind of malware I have to accept another kind?

Re:A new twist on ransomware

[Shadow99_1]

Actually cars are a bad example of 'planned obsolescence', mostly because while some parts may fail the entire car does not. I have a car from the 1999 model year (so somewhere between July 1998 and June 1999 for production) and while it always had weird electrical bugs that caused the interior lights to flicker randomly at night at certain humility levels, and the Aluminium block engine broke after about 150k miles and needed to be replaced, and the A/C died for reasons unknown, and the transmission failed once and needed rebuilt.... Well after all of that the car still works nearly a decade after it was made.

Sadly the 'road salt' here in the snow belt has caused the underbelly to begin to rust and so sometime soon it will fail inspection for the state, but even that doesn't mean the vehicle is unusable (just illegal to drive in my state). From the outside it still looks to be in very good condition and the engine (from a model several years newer) is in excellent shape. Even if we do consider that the end, 'wear and tear' is not the same as 'planned obsolescence'. I'm sure if I wanted to spend several times the value of the car I could 'save' it from needing to be scrapped even. If I never drove it during the winter and had a garage for it's entire lifetime I bet it would be just fine today as well.

So no, the traditional car is not simply going to fail after a specific point in time because it was designed that way. However plenty of other things will. Electronics often more so than other areas. That said, MS is supporting Windows... By offering Windows 10 to users of 7 & 8. If you want continued support than install the latest version for no charge. Apple does this very thing, but we don't seem very concerned about that. How many versions of Mac OS X are we up to now? 12? 13? Several of those have bricked older hardware or simply not supported it. Not a popular thing to say on Slashdot, but to me I don't see a big difference.

Re:A new twist on ransomware

[Darinbob]

It costs time and money to do this, so it is in the Windows 7&8 users's best interest to refuse to switch to Windows 10.

Seriously, who gives a shit what's in Microsoft's best interest? Are there really people are there so stupid that they feel sorry for Microsoft and will do the upgrade out of a sense of charity?

It's also in Nabisco's best interests to include only one Oreo in every package of Oreos. Because we haven't had an Oreo metaphor in awhile.

Re:A new twist on ransomware

[Darinbob]

Third definition of "legitimate" in Merriam-Webster is "fair or reasonable", and Microsoft is neither. They are certainly not doing any of this out of a concern for the needs or desires of their customers.

Re:A new twist on ransomware

[HiThere]

I actually *do* see evidence that MS is breaking installed systems on purpose. In fact there's proof. Now as to whether the way that they are doing it is legally actionable, I have no clue. Corporations seem to be able to get away with lots of things that would be criminal if an individual did so.

P.S.: (from the summary)
"...Microsoft knew ahead of time the update would cause problems for some users but decided to do nothing about it. The update fixes a problem that stops BitLocker encrypting drives because of service crashes in svhost.exe. The update only causes a problem with ASUS ..."

Re:A new twist on ransomware

[thegarbz]

I actually *do* see evidence that MS is breaking installed systems on purpose.

P.S.: (from the summary)
"...Microsoft knew ahead of time the update would cause problems for some users but decided to do nothing about it. The update fixes a problem that stops BitLocker encrypting drives because of service crashes in svhost.exe. The update only causes a problem with ASUS ..."

Under normal circumstances I would berate you for not reading the article, but right now I'm just going to call you out on your inability to read the to the end of a paragraph.

P.S: (also from the summary)
"This problem occurs because ASUS allowed the main board to enable the Secure Boot process even though Windows 7 does not support this feature."

You're saying MS is breaking an installed system on purpose by fixing a bug which triggers an issue that was previously silent cased by a different vendor and a user who set a BIOS setting that was incompatible with Windows 7 and always has been in the first place. This is the kind of stretch that causes people to stop taking anything you say seriously because derp derp MS BAD derp derp right?

Now a more important question is just how good is ASUS's secure boot feature if while it was enabled and set to Windows UEFI it let a the computer boot a version of windows that didn't support UEFI Secure Boot and didn't have a signed kernel. But hey bashing ASUS isn't anywhere near as fun as bashing Microsoft amirite!

Re:A new twist on ransomware

[AmiMoJo]

No, not at all. Asus BIOS code has a bug where it enables Secure Boot even if the OS doesn't support it. It didn't come to light until Microsoft fixed their bug.

Microsoft pull a lot of shit, but this time it's not the case. The onus is on Asus to fix it, and they have.

Re:A new twist on ransomware

[HiThere]

But they knew about it ahead of time, so they intentionally broke some users systems. You can claim that the users systems were operating in an unsupported manner, but that doesn't deny the claim that they intentionally broke them.

Re:A new twist on ransomware

[thegarbz]

Actually it sounds like they intentionally fixed a bug in their software. Note the word intentionally. As in what was the intention of what they were doing.

Re:A new twist on ransomware

[harryjohnston]

What would you have suggested they do instead?

Nothing broken

[trailerparkcassanova]

Change the BIOS to not expect Windows UEFI. And I hate Microsoft as much as anyone.

Resistance will not be tolerated.

[Hylandr]

You will upgrade to windows 10 or Microsoft will begin to brick your hardware.

This wasn't an accident.

Re:Resistance will not be tolerated.

[Darinbob]

Or Microsoft just happens to be more accident prone than the Ford Pinto?

Re:Resistance will not be tolerated.

[Aighearach]

Or Microsoft just happens to be more accident prone than the Ford Pinto?

The Ford Pinto was never more accident-prone. It merely had an unintended failure state. But that failure state could only be reached after there was already an accident.

Re:Resistance will not be tolerated.

[thegarbz]

This wasn't an accident.

You're right. This wasn't an accident. It was an ASUS Secureboot bug that somehow let the BIOS boot a version of Windows not compatible with secure boot.

It's all a conspiracy, just not a Microsoft one.

Also:
brick:
verb
"cause (a smartphone or other electronic device) to become completely unable to function, typically on a permanent basis."

So no Microsoft didn't brick anything. Unless you think changing a BIOS setting to the one it should always have been on constitutes as a brick, in which case maybe some English language lessons are in order for you.

Re:Resistance will not be tolerated.

[Hylandr]

Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, shame on you.

The problem with your mostly logical assertions is the pattern of deceptive and anti-competitive practices Microsoft has been found guilty of multiple times in court, and multiple other times where for whatever reason weren't brought to a civil action.

Without debating the merits of any of the un-tried cases it's safe to say that MS has itself to blame for the rampant lack of trust.

If you can't acknowledge the truth of the above statements you're either a MS astro-turfer or hopelessly naive or just hopelessly young and trusting, or all of the above.

Re:Resistance will not be tolerated.

[thegarbz]

Yeah, and that guy who was convicted of a violent crime couldn't possibly have a conversation with someone without punching them right? Because if you do something once that's the ONLY way to live your life right?

I see your "hopelessly naive" and raise you "have a working brain"

Re:Resistance will not be tolerated.

[Hylandr]

You will recall I was discussing 'Trust'. Lets stick to that using your example.

Sure they can have a conversation without hitting someone, but the chances are known to be much higher with convicts that punching could be a possibility.

I would not, nor am I compelled to trust them, or bring them into my home, or hire them. Etc. We label people for a reason.

As the owner of an ASUS motherboard

[Dunbal]

Thanks Microsoft for giving me yet another reason to be glad I turned off Windows Update.

not really broken

[Anonymous Coward]

Having to change a BIOS setting that was wrong to begin with is not "bricking" anything.

Making the full-disk encryption feature work as designed IS progress. The fact that now allows an incorrect-by-default BIOS setting to be enforced is unfortunate, but since it can simply be set to the correct value, trying to equate it to forcing Windows 10 or making a computer useless is ridiculous.

Re:not really broken

[thegarbz]

Having to change a BIOS setting that was wrong to begin with is not "bricking" anything.

The only person who has used the word "bricking" is you.

Re:not really broken

[tom229]

Precisely. I imagine the OP wouldn't have the same opinion if he got up tomorrow and his car failed to start - even worse if it was caused by Ford sneaking into the garage at night and "fixing" something that wasn't broken (for him at least). This "I know what's best for you" mentality seems to have no limits. This should have been kept as an optional update if it had this serious of a problem - only an irresponsible, out of touch idiot would think otherwise.

Re:not really broken

[mark-t]

And the irony is that at that point, installing windows 10 doesn't even seem to be any kind of option, since their computer won't boot.

Re:not really broken

[mark-t]

How is saying that the OS-type is "Windows" instead of "Other OS" a wrong BIOS setting when one is actually booting Windows?

Sue them

[Alain Williams]

If MS knew that it would screw some machines, then those machines' owners should sue MS for their time lost (+ consequential losses) for fixing this problem - for some people that will be a lot of money. Trying to shift the blame elsewhere is the sort of line that you get from a 2 bit fly by night outfit. However: I expect that they will hide behind their EULA or lawyers or similar.

this is why we can't have nice things

[TheGratefulNet]

er, uhm, I mean, this is why its beyond stupid to accept MS 'updates' these days. MS has jumped the shark (the old shark has a headache by now, I would guess) and is now sending malware to its users on a semi regular basis.

I have disabled all updates to win7 since ftdi-gate, last year. that was the final straw for me.

I have backups and I can restore. I don't do stupid shit online when on windows.

microsoft can go fuck themselves. for a while, they were an OK company and google/apple were the bad guys. now, sigh, all 3 are bad guys again. damn.

Has it come to sabotage?

[burtosis]

Maybe it's my paranoid brain, but I have suspected Microsoft may want to sabotage older OS like 7 to force people to "upgrade".

But Trust Them....

[Luthair]

to have sole control over when your Windows 10 updates itself!

its friday

[zlives]

Fuck microsoft

it needs to be said

Re:its friday

[Aighearach]

Well, it is Friday, but it has been over 15 years since I implemented a Microsoft Free Fridays apache module.

I'm glad somebody is still holding down the fort.

Microsoft COULD have done the right thing...

[dpbsmith]

...the update could have detected that it was running on a misconfigured motherboard. It could have issued a warning, containing directions on how to make the appropriate settings... with a PRINT option. It could have refused to install on a system that Microsoft knew it the update would damage.

Microsoft chose to do none of these things. Microsoft chose to hurt people who had paid money for their operating system.

Re:Microsoft COULD have done the right thing...

[harryjohnston]

Could the update actually detect BIOS settings? How would that work, exactly?

Not the first time they've done this

[blindseer]

When I was in college I worked as a computer tech for a print and video publishing department of the university. They had a large number of Macintosh computers running Microsoft software. This was back in the day when Apple was making their transition to PowerPC processors.

The version of Microsoft Word available at the time was known to be crash happy and a new version had just come out or was going to be released soon. An interesting bug in the program would delete open files if saved too often and it would prevent saving the file under a different name. If someone reached this save limit then the file was effectively lost. It remained in memory so long as the file was open but it could not be saved to disk. At best it might be able to print it.

This was an interesting bug when it came to me and I was responsible to resolve the problem for the people working in the department. Microsoft just told people to get the next version. As this was a bug that hit an OS limitation it was possible to reduce the probability of hitting the bug by upgrading the OS. If your computer did not meet the system requirements for the next OS version, or the next Word version, the solution was buying a new computer. Every solution that Microsoft offered was going to cost money. One might place some blame on Apple for this but the problem was that Word had a memory leak, upgrading the computer or OS just meant that it was much more difficult to hit the limit before Word locked you out of saving your files and deleted what was already on the disk. When I presented the "solutions" to my supervisor I was instructed to remove Word from the affected computers, meaning the student employees had to switch around computers to get their work done.

At around this same time Microsoft had released a new version of Office. Because of some delays in publishing Microsoft offered the old version of Office to people that bought the new version, which on some level was fortunate for me. I installed the new version of Office and tried to run Word but any attempt to open an existing file or create a new one would immediately crash the computer. Complaints to Microsoft was answered with the options of using the old version or getting a new computer that did not expose this bug. As I already had a working copy of WordPerfect I only bought Office so that I could use the latest version of Word since I was getting files that were in that format. WordPerfect was IMHO a much better program and could already open the older Word files. My only consolation was that I got Excel out of the deal which came in handy for some of my math and engineering homework. I could have used other software to get the homework done but Excel was easier at the time.

Re:Not the first time they've done this

[thegarbz]

That's a nice story but....

Every solution that Microsoft offered was going to cost money.

Have you tried just setting the BIOS to the setting it was supposed to be set at? Or do you routinely blame Microsoft for 3rd party bugs that cause a feature that was not supported by a certain version of windows to not work when enabled?

Microsoft's reponse is right on the money: Either disable Secureboot which Windows doesn't support, or upgrade to a version of Windows which supports Secureboot. They literally gave you EVERY option to fix this non issue and you criticise them for it.

But I guess it is Friday so what better things to do than bash Microsoft.

Note: Your bug sounds very real and unfortunate. But the title you chose for this story shows you don't understand or didn't think about the current issue at hand at all.

Re:Not the first time they've done this

[blindseer]

Have you tried just setting the BIOS to the setting it was supposed to be set at? Or do you routinely blame Microsoft for 3rd party bugs that cause a feature that was not supported by a certain version of windows to not work when enabled?

What? I was explaining how Microsoft has a history of offering half ass "solutions" to problems they created. The problems I described were on Apple computers which don't have a BIOS. I called the problem a "memory leak" which isn't quite accurate but the mechanics are similar. The bug would run up an internal OS counter that should normally be cleared, with the older MacOS version it was something like an 8-bit number which could be easily hit in a busy day working, the newer OS had this number as 32-bit which is something that no human could run up in even a month. I'm going from memory here but the problem was Microsoft released a program with bad code, they admitted it was bad code, but rather than fixing it they gave people some so called "options" all of which cost money.

I agree that this is not completely analogous to the issue on topic here as there is a no cost solution to this ASUS motherboard problem but it does show a very dismissive attitude of problems experienced by their customers. My example was to show that this attitude has existed for at least 25 years.

I feel that Microsoft needs an attitude adjustment because they've made the lives of many people like me much more difficult and stressful than it needs to be. I had some hope that Microsoft would feel some pressure to treat their customers better with more people switching to Linux and Apple but, just like back then, Microsoft rules the business PC and therefore they continue to not give a shit.

Daily I work with computers that run Apple, Microsoft, and Linux based operating systems. I'd probably be Microsoft certified by now if I'd only take the tests. I prefer Apples and Linux because they don't get in my way like Microsoft does. All of the operating systems will nag me about updates that I should probably get, and at some point likely will but it's only Microsoft that goes above and beyond to nag endlessly. I also have to fight Windows to get things like printers, scanners, video cards, network adapters, etc. to work. With MacOS and Ubuntu I can get things working without near as much effort.

But I guess it is Friday so what better things to do than bash Microsoft.

What are you talking about? I bash Microsoft every day. With any luck I will be free of this hell desk work in the next month and get back to writing code. At that point I believe I'll calm down because I won't have to deal with computers that mysteriously won't boot, missing drivers, and printers that inexplicably print gibberish on the page.

Re:Not the first time they've done this

[bingoUV]

When was Windows renamed to "Other OS" ?

And now, let's for a moment imagine this in Win10

[Opportunist]

Just ponder this for a moment what would happen if you ran Win10 on an ASUS boarded PC.

Updates brick your PC.
You cannot avoid updates.

Is MS going to pay for a new board? Or at least the cost for repairs if I can't do it myself?

Somehow I HIGHLY doubt that.

Re: And with the rate microsoft is breaking things

[Miamicanes]

Just wait until Microsoft fucks up the desktop Windows UI enough to make people install KDE for Windows & for apps like Photoshop to be ported to use it.

Microsoft Recommended == Don't do it!

[rcase5]

Whenever Microsoft recommends something, do the opposite! When will people learn?

Malware protection didn't work

[krelvin]

To protect user's systems from malware attacks, ASUS motherboards implement the Microsoft Secure Boot feature by default. This feature performs a legal loader check to boot into the OS. As Windows 7 does not support Secure Boot (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh824987.aspx), with the update of KB3133977, the system might detect inconsistent OS loader keys, resulting in boot failure.

Apparenltly the Secure Boot feature to protect from malware by ASUS didn't work.

Re:ASUS Mobo+SecureBoot+BitLocker

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just waiting for when they break TPM 1.1 modules and demand everybody run 2.0 modules (Which REQUIRE a different motherboard thanks to changes made :l Meaning all the other DRM cpu/mobo cruft that the past 8 years has entailed.)

Tech market 2001: "No way anybody would accept such an upgrade. It would basically wipe out thousands of person-hours of download time to reacquire the scrambled data, and another thousand hours of CPU time to re-encode it."
Tech market 2021: "So what, your licenses to read that book, or listen to that piece of music, or watch that movie were all in the cloud. If you relied on that multi-terabyte hard drive to actually store data, or that multi-gigahertz CPU to process it, you're out of luck. Shoulda just used the cloud. Cloud."

Stallman was an optimist. Sigh.

Tech proficiency

[tom229]

There's been a very obvious decrease in proficiency of technicians and developers in this generation. Anyone that has been in the industry longer than 10 years can easily see this. Actually, the quality of the users on this site is direct evidence of this. Just today I encountered someone named "macs4all" *facepalm*... My beautiful lawn...

Re:Tech proficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

In fairness, there were fewer platforms and less software 20+ years ago when many of us old timers were in school. When there are more platforms and they have shorter lifespans it makes sense that fewer people will devote the time necessary to achieve a depth in any one platform, software or technology. More and more these days the employers seem to reward the jack of all trades rather than the specialist, so the incentives favor broad and shallow learning and experience which is what we're seeing.

Re:Wait a second...

[ChunderDownunder]

Sure, why not?

GRUB runs just as smoothly using uefi than via a 'legacy' bios, at least on my hardware.

updating to the downgrade

[khz6955]

"Microsoft knew ahead of time the update would cause problems for some users but decided to do nothing about it."

Have you given serious consideration to the thought that they deliberately caused KB3133977 to fail to enthuse users to upgrade to Windows 10. If this strikes you as being a little paranoid, MS did exactly this, as in causing Windows apps to crash on OS/2, causing windows clients to not play nice with Netware ref ref and throwing up an error when Windows 3.1 was installed under DR-DOS.

"As Windows 7 does not support Secure Boot, with the update of KB3133977"

How does 'upgrading' an OS cause it to lose functionality?

Re:updating to the downgrade

[HiThere]

You've got a long memory. I'd nearly forgotten about those episodes.

What's the missing word:
"Windows isn't done until _________ won't run." I can't remember. I want to say Lotus, but I'm not sure.

Re:updating to the downgrade

[khz6955]

"You've got a long memory. I'd nearly forgotten about those episodes."

I found references to these emails on Groklaw in regards to the Comes v. Microsoft case . I understand that ever since Microsoft's policy is to wipe overtones email once a month :)

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[khz6955]

Anonymous Troll: "I don't blame Microsoft for this. Clearly it sounds like ASUS made a booboo in their BIOS and up to this point has not caused any noticeable effects. Now it is, and they need to fix it, and they did."

Not only that, Asus invented a tachyon transmitter and sent a msg back in time before Windows 7 telling the Asus engineers to deliberately insert the design flaws.

Does no one know about computers? really?

[n3r0.m4dski11z]

A bios enforcing secure boot is not "bricking" your computer. Having secure boot on or off, as they say, does not affect windows 7 at all. So the solution, is to turn off the feature that you are not using anyway.

Sometimes bios updates change these sorts of settings or reset the UEFI or legacy settings. Its good to know enough about how a computer works to know about secure boot, the newer (not that new anymore) UEFI boot process and the hardware / operating system integration in newer OS's. The people on slashdot are the first people I would expect to be knowledgeable about this, yet 90% of the first 100 or so posts are like "brick this" and F-M$ that... when in reality, windows 7 is getting older but yet is so stable that this is the biggest problem its had in years :) That's the real take away for me.

It's just inevitable that when running newer hardware with older OS's, some bios settings may need to be changed from their defaults. I am happy that I can boot my skylake platform with UEFI on because asrock provided a windows 7 installer patch. It may seem extreme to some, but I am happily still running windows 7. This is another example of a work around for an older OS that doesn't "just work" on new hardware. Manufacturers often assume people are running the newest OS and set options accordingly.

I always turn secure boot off because its kind of pointless so this would not affect me or any computer I have built.

finally

[dimko]

Windows will have a taste of it's own medicine. This bullsh** with all security features that disables Linux from being installed, is now biting back. I am also glad that ASUS got this in their face. Disclaimer, using ASUS motherboard ATM(gift from friend, when I was unemployed, and my previous mobo died on me, due to me moving to different county)

WTF ASUS

[thegarbz]

Ok while we're all busy bashing MS, has anyone noticed the fact that an ASUS motherboard with UEFI Secure boot set to only boot windows somehow booted an unsigned kernel which didn't support UEFI Secureboot?

How is the real story here not that ASUS's Secureboot implementation is horribly broken and if that's the case WTF else is wrong with their BIOS?

Re:WTF ASUS

[cwsumner]

How is the real story here not that ASUS's Secureboot implementation is horribly broken and if that's the case WTF else is wrong with their BIOS?

I think they are saying that Windows 7 -did- support secure boot, until one particular Windows update installed a bootloader that was not signed. That sounds like "enemy action" to me.

As in: "Once is chance, twice is coincedence, but three times is enemy action!"

Re:WTF ASUS

[thegarbz]

I think they are saying that Windows 7 -did- support secure boot, until one particular Windows update installed a bootloader that was not signed.

Windows 7 was released 4 years before Secureboot was even proposed as part of the UEFI spec. Microsoft introduced Secureboot support with Windows 8 and did not backport it. If you look through manuals for various BIOS's or installation guides from Dell etc you'll see all of them mention you need to disable Secureboot in order to use Windows 7.

I have a hard time believing that this was enemy action as opposed to a horrendously crap fuckup in the way ASUS has implemented Secureboot that allowed unsigned code to run when the BIOS was set to required Windows UEFI Secureboot signatures.

Re:WTF ASUS

[cwsumner]

Or, was the W7 code actually signed, until one of the Windows updates? Like, Oops that's not supposed to support that- lets take it back out to "fix" it. It's actually happened before, years ago in XP.

I guess I better check my ASUS Mother Board...

Re:WTF ASUS

[thegarbz]

Nope, otherwise there wouldn't be guides all over the net with advice on how to install Windows 7 on systems that come with secure boot enabled by default. Also if it were some really large mistake and rolling back a function that it wasn't supposed to have then it wouldn't be just isolated to ASUS motherboards now would it?

Re:And now, let's for a moment imagine this in Win

[Opportunist]

So I can get my ... 0 cents that I paid for the license back?

Yeah, that's worth my time. Uhhuh!

There's a reason some people not even dual boot

[xonen]

There's a reason i quit booting windows.. And this just adds one more - as i would have been an effected user, by the looks of it.

I have windows license. I moved the * to a virtual machine. Which i can easily copy, move, boot from whatever i'm running at that moment (although i replace desktop OS only every so often).

I rarely use it (Windows). Primary reason to use it is because some other people use it and request me for help. I don't need or use windows at all, thank you, life is too short to waste time on that clickable crap. I keep the VM updated every so often. And i'm not even considering booting windows ever again, after it evolved a habit of randomly deleting any non-ntfs partitions, or making itself and the rest of the system unbootable, thank you.

Windows is not an OS, it's a data destruction system. They (MS) don't give a f* about your data. It was like that 20 years ago, it was like that 10 years ago and it is now. My data more important than any narcissistic OS. And i not even started about usability issues like convenience or 'just getting things done'.