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posted by martyb on Monday May 19 2014, @11:51AM   Printer-friendly
from the updates-got-you-down? dept.

Woody Leonhard of Infoworld summarizes the current state of Microsoft KB 2919355, the ambiguously-titled 'Windows 8.1 Update' (not to be confused with the update _to_ Windows 8.1).

In short: Microsoft has frozen two discussion threads on KB2919355 issues (after 103 and 116 pages of comments), and updated the Knowledge Base article with workarounds for seven major errors... some of which don't work.

In last week's Patch Tuesday, Microsoft changed their deadline for this Update until June (formerly they were requiring all Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 systems worldwide to have installed the Update in order to receive new patches).

Meanwhile, if you run a WSUS server, you may notice that the package for KB291355 (last reissued for the third time on 6 May) was apparently silently reissued over the weekend with a new release date of '15 May 2014', but there's no indication of any software updates in the KB article. The article revision number, however, now stands at '21.0'. Yes, twenty-one revisions. With no changelog.

Anyone else with interesting stories about your deployment issues with this Update?

 
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  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday May 19 2014, @02:49PM

    by kaszz (4211) on Monday May 19 2014, @02:49PM (#45235) Journal

    Any tip for what to do with computers that are only offered with Win8 ..?

    Even if one has clue, if there's a choice of Win8 with 3GHz or Win8 with 3.1GHz. It will still be Win8..

    Starting Score:    1  point
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  • (Score: 2) by Dunbal on Monday May 19 2014, @02:55PM

    by Dunbal (3515) on Monday May 19 2014, @02:55PM (#45237)

    Yes - don't buy them.

    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday May 19 2014, @04:18PM

      by kaszz (4211) on Monday May 19 2014, @04:18PM (#45271) Journal

      So if your stuck with Win8 laptop. What do you do then?
      (I know Linux is a possibility or BSD. But in some cases windows is what one has to deal with.)

      • (Score: 2) by etherscythe on Monday May 19 2014, @11:53PM

        by etherscythe (937) on Monday May 19 2014, @11:53PM (#45437) Journal

        Classic shell. Do not depend on Linux or even Windows 7 working with the BIOS on a Windows 8 computer. Secure Boot and short (or entirely missing) time windows to press "alternate start" keys can be your undoing. Windows 7 stops shipping in October on OEM machines; I'm desperately hoping to have a decent job outside that support market by then.

        --
        "Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Nerdfest on Monday May 19 2014, @03:04PM

    by Nerdfest (80) on Monday May 19 2014, @03:04PM (#45238)

    System76 [system76.com] or similar. You could also buy a Mac, but that's funding a different flavour of the same sort of abuse. I have a System76 laptop and will be buying another shortly.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by number6x on Monday May 19 2014, @03:35PM

    by number6x (903) on Monday May 19 2014, @03:35PM (#45253)

    I bought a new laptop last week. It came with Windows. Windows 8.1 I think.

    I never booted Windows. My first boot was with a USB stick that had Clonezilla [clonezilla.org] on it. I copied the contents of the SSD to a USB drive.

    Then I booted Linux Mint 17 RC1 off of a USB drive and installed it. It's been working smooth. I'll try a few more distros before settling on whichever one plays nicest with the hardware. (Fedora 20, Debian Wheezy, OpenSuse 13.1, Ubuntu Gnome 14.04, Arch, manjaro...). It's still not hard to find a Windows 7 machine. You may have to check the business or professional sections of retailers offerings.