Windows 7 Updates To Avoid

[Lacy Tortelli]

TheseOS updates are critical to maintaining security of enterprise organizations, but they are notoriously flawed and cause new problems that require additional patches. Windows 10 is no better than previous versions, and there are still issues that come up with Windows updates.

Component updates may or may not all be in the cumulative updates. Therefore, if you install a new device and problems occur, you should look for specific driver update from Microsoft to ensure they deliver it.

Windows 10 settings permit you to download and install Cumulative Updates within 24 hours of release on Patch Tuesday. This is fine for consumers, but in the enterprise, you should test these OSes in a lab to ensure compatibility with hardware and enterprise applications prior to rolling them out to the users.

You should delay these downloads until you test them and ensure Microsoft has not yet released a subsequent update to fix issues with the newly released update. That said, security updates are critical, and you should always try to apply them promptly to protect assets from viruses and malware. With these conflicting factors, you must test all updates, but the testing must take place promptly after the updates' release.

A great example of the importance of managing these updates is the disastrous May 12, 2020 cumulative update. In spite of Microsoft's pre-release program, which allows select customers to install the updates early and report on issues so Microsoft can fix them, the May 12, 2020 update still had a lot of problems. Organizations that installed this update and experienced the problems associated with the update (Table 1) had to install all the interim updates that Microsoft pushed out or consider one of the uninstall options -- noted later in this article.

The fixes that Microsoft offers typically denote the patch that they relate to, indicating that sometimes Microsoft's patches are part of the problems. In addition, Microsoft acknowledged the problems reported by users for the May 12 update with KB4556799.

Microsoft has multiple versions of Windows 10 and updates may cover one or more versions. This can be quite confusing, but you simply need to remember that once they update the PC to a new version, Microsoft supports that version for 18 months. These different versions can run simultaneously, and Windows will trigger the Windows Update service unless you disable it.

The automatic update tool will figure all the patches and versions out, but if you need a specific update you must find the correct version to install. To determine which Windows version and build are currently installed on a computer, go to the search bar and enter winver (Figure 1).

Microsoft identifies its patches with a knowledge base (KB) number and each KB identifies the OS number and the OS version that that patch applies to. The page shows, for example, a sample KB doc of the May 12, 2020 update, which in this case is for version 1903 (Figure 2).

Users should identify the updates released after the May 12, 2020 release of OS version 2004, which caused many of the recent Windows update issues (Table 2). Other versions of the data may have different patch numbers for updates. Each item in the KB column includes a links to the KB documents. It is important to study these docs as they include critical information such as:

There may be updates that the Windows admin avoids due to various reasons, including if there is a specified delay by an admin, insufficient disk space and network failure. You can manually install the update in several ways:

You may need individual updates for specific drivers or software programs that fail, causing errors in a business application or even blue screen crashes. An internet search for key words or error codes will usually identify the KB patch to fix it. You can also manually download and install these updates with the Windows Catalog.

In some cases, you may want to uninstall a problematic Windows update, such as the May 12, 2020 Windows update. You should consider this step if it is causing unacceptable performance or stability problems and there is no fix in sight. To uninstall an update, there are several options:

Restore points are not automatic; you have to manually create and enable them. Thus, you should create a restore point prior to software or hardware updates. You should delete restore points when you're done with them to save disk space.

I frequently have long running tasks that can take days or even weeks running on my Windows 11 pro PC. Because of this, it MUST NOT EVER restart without asking me first. My solution is to disable the windows update service, but I keep forgetting to reenable it and check for updates before starting another long running task. As such, I either never end up getting any updates, or I end up losing progress on a task that has been running for a week+.

Apparently, enabling the option "Notify me when a restart is required to finish updating" in Windows Update > Advanced options also implicitly prevents the restart from occurring automatically. I would not have assumed this just from reading the text of the setting and description!

In Settings, Windows Update, Advanced there is a setting "Get me up to date" which when enabled searches frequently for updates, downloads them and restarts so you are always updated with minimum or no waiting when restarting/shutdown. But this can restart your computer at any time without a warning before you have time to save your work! If you usually leave your computer on to complete some tasks overnight a sudden restart will stop whatever the computer was doing. I leave it on for downloads or video rendering, so a sudden restart would interrupt this so I never enable this setting. On the contrary I enable the "Notify me when a restart is required to finish updating" to prevent it restarting automatically.

although it is unclear from that whether there are limits to how far out you can select a time or how long you are allowed to snooze. But it sounds like it will get you basically back to the status quo I remember from Win10.

With lots of bad events occurring this past week and one happening right now. I went to create a policy for patch management so that a computer could be assigned to a policy that would prevent windows updates until issues can be resolved.

So I have set it to not install under all conditions. It requires me to set a schedule. Is this schedule the dates on which Pulseway will check and refresh the Windows update policy in the event they have changed on the PC or does this schedule apply to anything in this case ? I guess I'm wondering how the policy is enforced. If I set it to repeat daily does it update the windows update settings once a day or is this checked before any update can occur.

I arranged then alphanumerically for easier use. Note that if you perform a search in your installed Windows updates, make sure to include the letters KB before the number of the update, otherwise the search may come back falsely negative.

Around 5 years ago, Microsoft began cleaning up its Updates. So many of the updates you have listed have been superseded by newer updates. If you do not install the old ones, you will at least get their functionality in the newer ones that have superseded them.

If your plans are to bring the computer in question up to date to protect it from vulnerabilities, you should go ahead and install the updates until EOL. To avoid the telemetry, turn off CEIP and follow the instructions in AKB2000012. Install IE11 and update it to the latest patch, but do not use it for a browser. Choose another browser like Firefox, Chrome, or even Edge, and keep it updated. Install a good anti-virus and keep it updated. And last of all, practice safe browsing on the Internet.

Out of curiosity, do legacy Win7 systems that are fully up to date through EoS like you described continue to have to deal with nagging to update to Win10 and/or the hijacking and forced update to Win10 that caused so much consternation when Win10 came out? If so, can it be avoided or mitigated like the telemetry can be?

why are we even having this discussion, my computer is mine, microsoft literally has 0 rights to reboot outside of when I manually say to do so

I am a tech enthusiast, but not a corporation capable of paying for features intended to be locked behind a "pro" license

this means as a gamer I have one machine that absolutely MUST run 24/7 unless a 100% MANUAL reboot is authorized(due to having to babysit AU, due to the occasional broken update destroying the MBR, it happened at least once to me)

so why is there not a simple "do not ever automatically restart for any reason, I must decide when directly every single time" option?

sorry but I did actually update older windows(at least windows 7, when I ran xp I did not have internet to even allow automatic downloads while not online due to dial-up being the norm for me(no broadband cable providers existed at the time) so I am the case of "I decide when and if to update/restart, not someone who didn't pay money to build a computer"

this is not a question, this is a simple demand that microsoft will fulfill or be destroyed by class action lawsuits, these completely unjustified forced automatic reboots and driver changes have actually damaged the productivity of businesses and even students(who should never have had any issues)

this is not even a "do it while I am asleep" thing, because laptops exist, devices with finite runtime often turned on for minutes and shut down/hibernated and only updated manually because you need to be 100% sure you won't need to unplug anytime soon(updates should never run on battery, for any reason)

this is just a company deciding(wrongly we all agree) that they have any say in when the actual users reboot(they actually have no legal right to force reboots)

fix it now, and for all previous currently supported builds of windows, or leave the door open to the inevitable consequences

it will either be >50% of all current windows users suing you for lost time, or it will be a complete decimation in your market share to a linux+wine solution(because people will not tolerate your bullying for long)

I dabbled in linux for a bit, though I only tried a single build that was intended to mimic windows and had driver issues as a result, but I am actually on the verge of going full ubuntu, just to delete forced non-kernel update reboots as even something to consider as possible

the pain of my 0% downtime devices going down for hours/days when I am not able to fix them due to physical proximity is like months of systematic torture compared to the mild ramen water burn of learning an os that is not at all under microsoft control

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