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Windows 10 Update Broke DHCP, Knocked Users Off the Internet (arstechnica.com)
Microsoft has quietly fixed a software update it released last week, which effectively prevented Windows 10 users from connecting to the Internet or joining a local network. From a report on ArsTechnica: It's unclear exactly which automatic update caused the problem or exactly when it was released -- current (unconfirmed) signs point to KB3201845 released on December 9 -- but whatever it was appeared to break DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol), preventing Windows 10 from automatically acquiring an IP address from the network. There's also little detail on how many people were affected or why, but multiple cases have been confirmed across Europe by many ISPs. A Microsoft spokesperson has meanwhile confirmed that "some customers" had been experiencing "difficulties" getting online, but that's about it for public statements at present. However, a moderator on the company's forums has said the fix was included in a patch released on Tuesday called KB3206632.
The stability and security of Microsoft products has always been (insert pejorative here), but this is getting really serious. They need to reassemble at least a small portion of the QA team that was flushed.
They've been soundly beaten in every area of innovation they've tried so all that's left is corporate lock-in of Windows and Office. If they continue to risk that monopoly revenue stream shareholders are not going to stand for it.
Captcha: upkeep
And who rapidly pulled a "Not my problem" approach.
I got a call from a friend who was desperate for support (and no money to pay for it). Since her daughter's tablet could connect just fine Comcast's answer was it's the computer; not our problem.
I had to ask them multiple times to just give me the base settings for the damn router (they can query from their end) so I would know what scope to configure a static IP for this person's PC in. Bunch of unhelpful twats.
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Yeah, I had my Windows 10 machines go down a few weeks ago for bad WiFi driver updates. Rolling back solved it, and this one I fixed by rolling back also. Sadly, Windows gets network problems more often than ever few decades.
If you meant something else, hey, throw it against the wall.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
How do people get the update fixing the update when you've broken their fucking network you dumbasses?
I'm sure the Microsoft people never thought of this and the Slashdot people are smarter. After all we only ran a story a few days ago about how this problem is transient and doesn't persist through a full restart, which is precisely what Microsoft is telling people to do. (It was also mentioned in TFA)
This is one of those issues which will affect some Slashdot users more than mum and dad's, not because the Slashdot users are more technically minded and mess with their machines, but because they seem incapable of doing something as simple as reading.
Reports mention that the failure to acquire an address is, at least sometimes, tied to the "Connected Devices Platform Service" crashing. Apparently this service is "used for Connected Devices and Universal Glass scenarios", which really clears things up.
Nobody seems to have much to say on what exactly the 'connected devices platform' is; but it sounds like the problem isn't with the DHCP client itself; but with some questionably sensible abstraction layer failing at automagic above it, in the service of some windows-everywhere-in-the-connected-home fever dream.
Sort of like the time they broke all those webcams, not by monkeying with UVC support; but by quietly inserting a poorly thought out frameserver without telling anyone because being able to log in with your face is obviously more important than Directshow working as expected.