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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?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday May 20 2014, @01:36AM
Alternative suggestions?
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Wednesday May 21 2014, @10:10PM
Depends on your priorities.
I personally found Bodhi Linux to be a nice Windows substitute for web browsing/research purposes. I particularly like how E17 (Enlightenment) as a GUI has a nice balance between function and an interface with a bit of modern polish and skinnability. KDE was great last I tried it, but attempt to use a dark theme for ease of night viewing and you may find that certain GUI elements fail to invert to remain visible (text boxes, etc.). E17 has no trouble with that so far as I've seen. Even with compositing turned on it doesn't seem to give your hardware too much of an overhead hit either.
If you want something with a bit of real security, I've been itching to take a stab at Qubes OS, using Xen for process virtualization and sandboxing. Pretty barebones GUI though.
Or if you're after mainline supportability, it's hard to beat Xubuntu: all the refined usability of XFCE with Ubuntu underneath which is the most common userland support target as far as I can tell (at least, certain things like my 3D printer software specifically targets Ubuntu for installation instructions for example).
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