Microsoft yanks buggy speed-up patch KB 3161608, replaces it with KB 3172605 and 3172614

[Karlston]

Microsoft and Intel are in a standoff when it comes to Bluetooth bugs in the Windows Update speed-up fix, leaving users in the lurch

Microsoft has surreptitiously replaced its old Windows 7 Update speed-up fix with a new version that still breaks Bluetooth, leaving many users bewildered -- and a few of us fuming.

 

One month ago I lauded Microsoft for finally fixing its abysmal problems with Windows Update. Prior to the fix, most Windows 7 customers had to wait hours – sometimes many, many hours – for Windows Update to complete its scan. That check ran at least one core of multi-core PCs at up to 50 percent or even 100 percent red-line utilization, while apparently accomplishing nothing, After installing the fix, KB 3161608, scan times dropped down to minutes.

 

With a billion or so systems affected, I figure Microsoft's fix saved enough electricity to power a small city. 

 

Unfortunately, KB 3161608 had at least three problems.

 

• In order to install the Windows Update speed-up part of KB 3161608, you had to install at least six completely unrelated patches. I discussed that "feature" last month.
• It wasn't clear at the time if the fix would last. Now it appears KB 3161608 was a one-time-only fix. If you try to scan for July patches with Windows 7 or 8.1, expect to spend many hours waiting for your system to return from la-la-land.
• KB 3161608 breaks many products, including throwing bad TLS connections, memory leaks, SoftPhone failures, Cisco Finesse and GE PACS Universal Viewer crashes, and many others. For examples, see the Microsoft Answers forum thread.

 

There have been numerous reports of clashes between KB 3161608 and Intel Bluetooth drivers on the AskWoody forum. Intel has gone so far as to release an official statement on its support forum:

We have confirmed that KB3161608 causes problems with Bluetooth* and currently, the only workaround available is to remove the update. At this time, we do not have a way to have KB3161608 installed and Bluetooth* working at the same time.

This situation has been reported to the appropriate resources and we expect it to be resolved in the near future. Please keep in mind that Windows* updates are a Microsoft* feature and Intel does not have inherence on these contents, so we cannot provide a specific time for resolution.

Sounds like Intel really nailed Microsoft, doesn't it?

 

Yesterday, Microsoft suddenly pulled all of the patches in KB 3161608. It didn't pull down the KB article, mind you – you can still see it by clicking on the link. Instead, Microsoft yanked all of the downloads listed on the page. Try to download the "June 2016 update rollup for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1" and you just get a handful of Page not found errors.

 

In its place, there are a pair of new patches, KB 3172605 for Windows 7, and KB 3172614 for Windows 8.1. Both are optional, unchecked, and should appear in your Windows Update buckets this morning -- if, that is, your machine has had an hour or four or six to work out its update angst.

 

There's this little love note from Microsoft in the KB 3172605 "July 2016 update rollup for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1" documentation:

Known issues in this update

Issue 1

Symptom

After you install KB 3133977, the software for Intel Bluetooth devices may not be fully functional because of existing software issues in the Intel Bluetooth driver software. These issues may affect Bluetooth keyboards, mice, audio streaming devices, and voice headsets. You may also not be able to pair new Bluetooth devices. Intel is currently working on an update to address their software incompatibilities.

Workaround

If you require Intel Bluetooth support on Windows 7 before the revised software is available, the only known workaround at this time is to uninstall this update temporarily and then reinstall it after Intel has updated their software.

 

Kinda makes you feel like you're caught in the crossfire between Microsoft and Intel, doesn't it?

 

It's too early to tell if both the Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 patches work without incident, but Microsoft hints that the Win7 patch brings along those six extra patches as added baggage, whether you want them or not.

 

I don't know about you, but I'm getting very sick of Microsoft's repeated bungling in this Windows 7 Update debacle. If the company put one-thousandth the effort into fixing Win7 Update as it has into enticing users to install Windows 10, the problem would've been fixed months ago. 

 

One billion machines running two or four or six hours a month, doing nothing. 

 

At this point, I suggest you just ignore Microsoft and use the method described by an astute German blogger named Dalai. He has a description of the July fix to the Windows Update woes for Windows 7 and Vista. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to fix Windows 8.1 if you're looking at hours and hours of Windows Update scans.

 

As much fun as it is watching Microsoft and Intel pursue their standoff, if you want to actually, you know, get Windows 7 or Vista to work, best leave the boys to play their little games and get the job done without Microsoft's "help."

 

Source: Microsoft yanks buggy speed-up patch KB 3161608, replaces it with KB 3172605 and 3172614 (InfoWorld - Woody Leonhard)

 

InfoWorld - Woody on Windows

 

AskWoody.com - Woody Leonhard's no-bull news, tips and help for Windows and Office

[D1v1n3D]

MS users stop whining and get Linux or Mac and STFU. I am so Fing sick of hearing this bullshit all it is, is bullshit. You have an option to upgrade to 10 for free on your shit old computer and the price of new computers is so Fing low you should be able to afford a $200 laptop or a $300 17" laptop just STFU and upgrade one way or another your shit old computers aren't even supported by the Manufacturers anymore so who gives a shit about MS not giving proper support your BIOS is probably prone to being hacked the second you turn on your computer anyways specially if you are hard wired to broadband.

[steven36]

2 hours ago, D1v1n3D said:

MS users stop whining and get Linux

So  are you volunteering to buy  all the AMD  users new computers because  this want even load up on there PC because they dont have drivers for most AMD hardware ? Just yesterday i was over on a Linux site reading about how  Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS  fails to boot up  on peoples AMD computers .Stop acting like a elitist because Linux has more problems than windows has even.

 

And i used Linux a lot for like a year so i know . And i'm one those who catch on too things quick .While i have 2 Linux  distros on one of my HHD  i it found it exciting at 1st but after time and i starting seeing what shitty support they had for hardware  , elitist fighting with noobs and other issues  that i now went back to mostly using Windows because Linux has less to offer me than Windows do .

 

One time i was using kubuntu witch have a really crappy and unstable update manger called  muon it crashed and messed up my whole O/S  so hows that for update problems on Linux  .Now any new distros based on Ubuntu wont work right on my Gateway/AMD that came with Windows 8. Windows 10 works fine on it.

 

Ive not even bothered  to update the windows 7 pcs on my network this month . I waiting to see what happens after 7 more days with windows gwx update to windows 10 too see if i can trun auto updates back on .

[straycat19]

3 hours ago, D1v1n3D said:

MS users stop whining and get Linux or Mac and STFU. I am so Fing sick of hearing this bullshit all it is, is bullshit. You have an option to upgrade to 10 for free on your shit old computer and the price of new computers is so Fing low you should be able to afford a $200 laptop or a $300 17" laptop just STFU and upgrade one way or another your shit old computers aren't even supported by the Manufacturers anymore so who gives a shit about MS not giving proper support your BIOS is probably prone to being hacked the second you turn on your computer anyways specially if you are hard wired to broadband.

 

No one twisted your arm to read this so STFU.  For your information my last laptop, an M-Tech D8700 17.3"  cost $3200.  Personally, I don't have a problem with updates, I don't install them. 

[D1v1n3D]

That is your choice to spend that on a laptop i bet you anything my desktop that cost less then a third of your 3200 price tag out performs your laptop all day every day and will continue to do so for the next 3 years or longer with me being able to swap out the GPU at will but that is one sweet laptop.

 

As for AMD/ATI they have a lot of catching up to do financially as they kept making retarded business decisions for the last 6 years at least so when have they turned a profit shit I can't even remember can you without googling it. I use to be AMD exclusive guy but now I'm Intel CPU/ AMD GPU and so far my 6950hd with phenom ii 6 core has no problems with linux and neither does my intel 4790k with hd 280x  but i don't run Ubuntu i personally think it is garbage these days.

 

I am not sure how I am so lucky but I am. considering my 4790k outperforms even the latest lga 1151 CPU the 6700k the 4790k is a great model and I feel DDR4 still isn't worth the upgrade I will be waiting for zen 8 core 95w with ddr4 benchmarks to see if that is the route to go. For me I only build Mini itx computers anymore I don't care for xfire or sli they have to many anomalies i wont even buy a dual chip single card just not worth that extra few hundred with their problems.

 

Fury 2 and 490 are about to be announced and I'm sure they both will outperform the 1080 as custom pcb rx480's4 are looking like they can do just that with factory overclock and 6+2 phase VRM. So if you are still running like myself a 6950hd or older get rid of that shit it is garbage next month their will be rx480 8gb's flooding the market from reference to custom pcb and I recommend custom pcb's because that 6 phase vrm is just asking for issues, again another brilliant business plan by AMD I hope they don't botch Zen FX or APU series but knowing AMD they most definitely will.

 

So a 1060 is in an affordable price range if not wait for 1050 or rx450 or rx460 besides that you can use a different distro then Ubuntu 16.04 like 14.04, or Fedora, Mint 17, Opensuse, Arch Linux, Elementary Os, Solus, steamOS, Lubuntu, however Linus Torvalds, Ubuntu team and AMD promise to have hybrid stacks by end of year for older hardware for Ubuntu 16.04 to give back performance and proper boot, so you might just have to wait for that if you must run U16 and clones.

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3043044/linux/why-linux-gamers-with-radeon-gpus-may-want-to-avoid-ubuntu-1604-lts.html

http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/linux

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RadeonDriver

[steven36]

Im not going to go out and pay money for new hardware tell i buy a new PC  ..  A lot people used Linux and stuff because it could run old hardware in the past , Now days  it want run hardware that came with windows 8 and 8.1 . When you go to a Linux forum nowadays it went from i took my old PC and upgraded  and it works fine in 2015 .  Linux in 2016 is always you need to buy this or that ..that's a lot of buying for a free O/S . When I can just use winders and not buy shit . They only way  the drivers work  on my pc is if you hold back the stack  or use a older LTS release  . Ditros based on arch  are the best Linux has because you can hold back the stack  and it has  newer apps . Ubuntu and Mint  unless you can find a 3rd party PPA you're apps are way out of date .

[Karlston]

8 hours ago, Karlston said:

It wasn't clear at the time if the fix would last. Now it appears KB 3161608 was a one-time-only fix. If you try to scan for July patches with Windows 7 or 8.1, expect to spend many hours waiting for your system to return from la-la-land

 

Woody has (on AskWoody.com) corrected this statement...

 

Quote

I stand corrected. Those who had the foresight to install 3161608 last month, and didn’t rip it out because of incompatibilities, are still seeing reasonable Windows Update times.

 

This month.

 

Source: https://www.askwoody.com/2016/ms-pulls-buggy-kb-3161608-windows-update-speed-up-patch/comment-page-1/#comment-93259

[D1v1n3D]

On 7/22/2016 at 9:40 PM, steven36 said:

Im not going to go out and pay money for new hardware tell i buy a new PC  ..  A lot people used Linux and stuff because it could run old hardware in the past , Now days  it want run hardware that came with windows 8 and 8.1 . When you go to a Linux forum nowadays it went from i took my old PC and upgraded  and it works fine in 2015 .  Linux in 2016 is always you need to buy this or that ..that's a lot of buying for a free O/S . When I can just use winders and not buy shit . They only way  the drivers work  on my pc is if you hold back the stack  or use a older LTS release  . Ditros based on arch  are the best Linux has because you can hold back the stack  and it has  newer apps . Ubuntu and Mint  unless you can find a 3rd party PPA you're apps are way out of date .

I suggest waiting for the Hybrid stack that Linus promises will be coming to before end of year and hopefully it also brings much needed performance boosts with current gen gpu's as well because im just about to buy myself a rx 480 custom pcb to turn my shoebox into a VR ready machine.

[luisam]

Interesting discussion, but... I downloaded KB 3172605 for Windows 7 and it returned that can't be installed for my Windows 7 SP1 computer; so I'll just remember it for some future encounter. Actually, KB 3161608 was not present so probably that was the reason: there was nothing to be replaced

[steven36]

53 minutes ago, D1v1n3D said:

I suggest waiting for the Hybrid stack that Linus promises will be coming to before end of year and hopefully it also brings much needed performance boosts with current gen gpu's as well because im just about to buy myself a rx 480 custom pcb to turn my shoebox into a VR ready machine.

I will believe Linux will have new drivers for legacy AMD cards when it gets here ,  I worry about the here and now and what works today . Another problem i have is with Wine in older distros i can get some windows apps  too work fine i used in Linux before  ..I cant get them too work in newer versions  even with play on Linux  witch you can install any version of Wine.  As far as games Wine dont have support  for DX 10 games yet let alone DX11 or 12 . That's why it only has a 2% marketshare  .

[Vjcobra]

Uninstalled KB3161608 on my W7 x64 SP1 Ultimate and replaced it with KB3172605  so far so good.

[D1v1n3D]

not many games were built on dx10 they kind of skipped it to dx11 and again nvidia cards are still best on linux with or without wine and that is becuase Linus told Nvidia fuck you with a big middle finger for not giving support that sure changed their attituded about Linux.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_DirectX_10_support