The February 2019 Microsoft Patch Tuesday: 99 Vulnerabilities

LASER_oneXM

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The February 2019 Microsoft Patch Tuesday brings patches for a total of 99 vulnerabilities in products developed by the software giant, including for 12 security flaws rated as critical.

No less than 7 of the 12 critical vulnerabilities affect browsers and scripting engines, while 2 concern the Remote Desktop Client. Businesses are recommended to prioritize the deployment of these patches first.

One particular highlight this month is the scripting engine memory corruption vulnerability in Internet Explorer. Tracked as CVE-2020-0674, this security flaw is already being actively exploited in the wild, with Microsoft warning that a successful attack could give a cybercriminal full control of a compromised host.
 

South Park

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Born City: "There are reports that cumulative update KB4532693 for Windows 10 versions 1903 and 1909 dated February 11, 2020, is causing significant issues for some users. Desktop gone, files gone, icons gone and more." Ask Woody implies the problem may be caused by 3rd-party AV, notably Avira or AVG.


I usually hold off installing updates for 3 or 4 days and haven't installed this one yet.
 

Divine_Barakah

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Yesterday I updated, and there are no problems, apparently, but I have read that some people have had problems.

I have always installed updates the time they were release and never have had any "serious" issue. Usually, those who encounter issues either heavily configure Windows settings or run complex combination of programmes. I know that Microsoft sometimes ship "faulty" updates, but users' configurations come in too.
 

Gandalf_The_Grey

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February Win10 1903 and 1909 cumulative update causing desktops to disappear
Reports are starting to pour in about a bug — or maybe a conflict — with the February cumulative update for Win10 1903 and 1909, KB 4532693. Installing the patch may leave your machine with a swapped-out main profile, removing all of your desktop icons and moving files into obscure places. Fingers now point to Avira. There’s a fix.
Did your desktop disappear after installing this month’s patches? Are you running Avira or Avast? Please let us know on AskWoody.
I swear, if somebody tells me again how Windows patches are getting better, I’m gonna bust a blood vessel.
 

show-Zi

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Update completed. No problem.

It is customary for Japanese bulletin boards to post a large number of safety confirmation reports immediately after the update is distributed. It is similar to the situation immediately after the earthquake.
 

Protomartyr

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Sep 23, 2019
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I experienced the bug yesterday. After rebooting from finishing Windows updates, the system loaded a temp profile. Thankfully another reboot restored my user profile to normal.

Double checked my C:\Users folder and there were no unusual profiles listed in the directory. No files were moved either. It seems all is well!
 

South Park

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I installed it today on an i3 laptop with 4 GB RAM, WD AV. It took 40 minutes, and restarted with a message I've never seen before saying "Initializing user desktop." It eventually loaded my normal desktop icons, although the volume control applet wasn't working and I had to restart Windows Explorer to fix it. No other problems noticed so far.
 

shmu26

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I don't quite understand why so many people who experienced no bugs with this update have uninstalled it anyways, out of fear that they might have an issue running Windows Reset, thus forfeiting their protection from 99 known vulnerabilities.

Look, most of us make system image backups, using Macrium Reflect or other software. Those who don't, should.
And if restoring an image isn't what you want, you can just download a fresh Windows ISO and run an in-place update. And if you don't like that idea either, and you insist on running a Windows Reset, which will just reinstall all the bloatware your computer came with, you can simply uninstall the problematic update before Resetting, in the very unlikely event that you will need to Reset your computer before a patch is issued.
 

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