Microsoft's Emergency Internet Explorer Patch Renders Some Lenovo Laptops Unbootable (betanews.com)

Earlier this month, Microsoft issued an emergency patch for Internet Explorer to fix a zero-day vulnerability in the web browser. The problem affects versions of Internet Explorer from 9 to 11 across multiple versions of Windows, but it seems that the patch has been causing problems for many people. Specifically, people with some Lenovo laptop have found that after installing the KB4467691 patch they are unable to start Windows, reports BetaNews.

Comments

WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

If an OS stops booting because of a web browser then you know it's built on shit coding practices.

Re:WTF

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Well, while I agree Microsoft probably weaved bits of IE deep into the OS go gain unfair advantages over competing browsers, the issue in question might also run deeper than the browser. For instance, they might have modified or extended a kernel API call to truly secure whatever runs on top of the kernel. So they might have patched the browser and the kernel to fix the issue, and fucked up the kernel bit of the patch.

The real issue is that Microsoft views their users are computer idiots (with some reason) and bundles OS and application layer diffs in one single patch, and you don't really know what a Microsoft patch does or modifies.

Re:WTF

[ShanghaiBill]

If an OS stops booting because of a web browser then you know it's built on shit coding practices.

That depends on your objectives. If you want a system to be secure and robust, then it is shitty practice. If you want to maximize profit based on customer lock-in to a complex integrated monolithic system, it is good practice.

Microsoft made $110B in profit during the last fiscal year. That is up 14% on a year earlier, and a record high.

Laptop is bootable, Windows is not...

[b0s0z0ku]

Remove Windows, install real OS. Problem solved.

Where is the separation of functionality ?

[Alain Williams]

I could understand if a patch to MS-IE were to make IE not work with some hardware configuration ... but why should this stop a machine from booting ? This was a security issue ... it appears that MS has code spanning user & kernel space and, what should be, a user space fix is partly in the kernel. Presumably this is to try to squeeze a bit of performance, but all that it does is to produce fragile systems.

Separation of different code modules that do different things is one of the really basic concepts in programming, it appears that this does not happen at MS. Why not ? What on earth are these guys smoking ? (Cue the MS apologists who will burble some sorts of excuse.)

Because Microsoft tied IE directly into the OS

[rsilvergun]

so they could skirt around European anti-trust rules that said they couldn't bundle a competitive product with an unrelated product (since that would be an abuse of their defacto OS monopoly). This way they could go to the EU and say "See, it's not that we're bundling IE with Windows in order to leverage our monopoly and break open Internet standards, it's just every so crucial to our OS". Worked too. The downside is everytime IE breaks it takes everything with it.

Take a bad engineering decision by Microsoft and you'll almost always fine evil, and not incompetence, at the heart of it.

I just don't understand how that's possible

[arcctgx]

So according to https://support.microsoft.com/... it's:

1. Vendor-specific (Lenovo only)
2. Dependent on the amount of memory (systems with less than 8 GB of RAM are affected)
3. Somehow related to Secure Boot (disabling Secure Boot is listed as a workaround)

And all the trouble is caused by patching a web browser (however deeply integrated with the operating system)? What the hell?

Re:Again demonstrates what I mean about IE being d

[rtb61]

The sick reason why this is so. They built elements of internet explorer into the OS so that firefox and chrome would appear to load and run slower than internet explorer because elements of internet explorer are already running in windows. This was like delayed start for service in windows, ohh, look windows loads faster but whoops, it won't run apps tied to those services that have not started yet but M$ can brag how fast the windows GUI boots even though you can not run apps, until delayed start services have started.

Re:Bad design indicates insufficient management.

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. It's more likely that some Lenovo crapware had it's hooks into Windows AND IE and when Microsoft fixed the issue, the Lenovo crapware broke the system. Let's not forget Superfish....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish#Lenovo_security_incident

Re:That's one reason. History of COM, ActiveX, Act

[rtb61]

What is mind boggling is why they were so stubborn to change course and made themselves become increasingly more unpopular as they tried to force the ideas they wanted on everyone who did not want it. Really lost their customer focus and become unreliable suppliers. I liked all things M$ once, no longer, they seem not to be able to correct their mistakes and take on a greater customer focus. Instead, locked into forcing what they want on their customers but then they are not the only tech company to fall into exactly the same hole and just keep digging and digging as fast as they can, same crap warranties, same marketing lies, same dodging responsibility for major failures and same attitude to change, only when it is too late to work, only once they are forced.