Microsoft withdraws bad Windows 7 update that broke future Windows 7 updates

Microsoft withdraws bad Windows 7 update that broke future Windows 7 updates

One of this week's Patch Tuesday updates for Windows 7 has been withdrawn after some users discovered that it blocked installation of software containing digital signatures, including first- and third-party software, and even other Windows updates.

The problem update is called KB3004394. The purpose of this update was to change how Windows updates its collection of root certificates used to authenticate SSL and TLS connections. Without the update, Windows is meant to poll for certificate updates once a week. With the update, this frequency is increased to once a day.

Unfortunately, this apparently simple change has had severe consequences for some users of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1, with users reporting that Windows Update, drivers from both Nvidia and AMD, and some third-party software including Virtual Box are all unable to install correctly. The error code 0x8004FF91 seems to be a common finding.

Microsoft has issued a second update to remove the bad update from affected machines and has withdrawn the original update for Windows 7. However, the company continues to offer, and recommend, the patch for Windows 8, 8.1, Windows Server 2012, and 2012 R2.

This withdrawn update is the latest of several updates that Redmond has pulled this year. The certificate update isn't the only patch from this Tuesday that was withdrawn; an Exchange 2013 update was also withdrawn temporarily after problems were discovered by end users. The Exchange patch has now been updated and reissued. It's unclear how widespread the certificate problem—or any of the previous problems that have caused patches to be reissued—really is, but there's nonetheless a growing sense among many Windows users that patches are less reliable, and more frequently withdrawn, than they used to be. This concern is compounded by Microsoft's decision to lay off many dedicated software testers earlier in the year.

With Windows Update so important to keeping Windows users secure, a loss of confidence would be very bad news. But if this kind of problem continues, that seems like an inevitable outcome. While IT departments might be able to test updates in a lab before deploying them, providing some protection against faulty fixes, home users have no such luxury. Users have to have confidence that installing an update won't break their machine. Broken, withdrawn updates shake that confidence.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/12/microsoft-withdraws-bad-windows-7-update-that-broke-future-windows-7-updates/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed: arstechnica/index (Ars Technica - All content)

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Microsoft pulls a patch and How to remove installed Windows Updates and block them afterwards

http://forums.afterdawn.com/threads...ows-updates-and-block-them-afterwards.752732/

 

This problem was solved the next day with KB3024777 on 12/11/14.

 

Any way to find out if a particular update has ben installed - short of slogging through the list of numbers that Microsoft hasn't figured out how to put in numerical order.

 

Windows 7 KB3004394 Update Causes Driver Issues For Many

Overnight we got word from AMD that a recent Microsoft Windows update has been causing video card driver installation failures. Gamers have been telling us that they are having issues installing AMD’s recently released Catalyst Omega driver and it looks like the driver was to be blamed. AMD has been looking into the issue and has tracked the fault back to KB 3004394. AMD calls it a broken update that’s blocking the installation of graphics drivers on certain system configurations and it seems to affect both AMD and NVIDIA users. AMD advises removing the update until Microsoft can figure out a fix and issue a replacement. Microsoft is aware of the issue and has issues KB 3024777 in response and all it does is remove KB 30004394 from your system.

The KB 3004394 update that was dated December 10, 2014 can cause additional problems on computers that are running Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. This includes the inability to install future updates. This new update is available to remove KB 3004394 from your computer.

KB 3004394 is the December 2014 update for Windows Root Certificate Program in Windows. The update modifies the Windows Root Certificate checker so that it looks for bad root certificates daily. Something isn’t working quite right with the checker and it blocks other Windows Updates, VirtualBox stops working and you can’t install video card drivers from AMD and NVIDIA. Removing the faulty update fixes the issue, so if you have a system that is giving you trouble this is likely what is causing it. It appears this issue is impacting Windows 7 users only.

http://www.legitreviews.com/windows-7-kb3004394-update-causes-driver-issues-many_155145

 

Easier to search by date.........