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This category is meant to publish things, that I would like to share but do not necessarily have something to do with work or programming.
Hope you find something you like :0).
Version History
| Version | Date | Description |
| 0.1 | 2015-04-20 | Initial Commit. |
| 0.2 | 2015-05-01 | Added how to on hiding unwanted Windows Updates. |
Bug Description
Yesterday I started my laptop not knowing that a new Patchday (patch tuesday, crash wednesday) had been scheduled by Microsoft.
My Microsoft updates was using the default setting, which is download and install updates automatically. Huuuiii ... and here comes trouble.
Microsoft had released about 20 new pathces, which all have been installed at once. Not only does it take forever, it also failed this time. The installation apparently went fine, but after restarting my laptop I realized that it kept on restarting.
Searching google shows that I am not the only person affected by this security update and the types of experienced bugs caused by KB3045999 range from simple tweaks to bluescreens.
How to fix the bug
Luckily Microsoft offers to start Windows in safe mode for analysis and repair after a failed startup. After the third restart I choose this option and let the wizard do its magic, which in the end was restoring a backup of my instalation from a restore point that was set automatically by windows before applying the update.
Restoring obviously also takes quite long.
After changing my update settings to choosing updates for installation manually, I installed all patches one by one until I faced the restart loop again.
Turned out it was the security patch KB3045999 causing my laptop to restart over and over again.
All other patches installed without errors.
How to prevent the update from beeing installed again.
Well, some people might call me optimistic, but I thought:
"Naaa, give it some weeks and Microsoft will fix the bug and provide me with a working update for the identified security issue."
Nope!
Not only did they NOT provide a new security patch, they leave me alone with getting rid of the malicious patch.
The security patch is not only still listed in my available important updates, also at every startup it is automatically selected for installation before power down although I changed the update settings to automated download but manual installation.
Sigh, ... I faced the reboot loop again.
In order to prevent "important", malicious Windows updates from beeing installed, right click on its name in the update wizard and select hide update.
After this the update will not be installed automatically again and hopefully Microsoft will soon replace it.
Restoring / Unhiding hidden updates
If you have hidden an update, you can restore it for installation by clicking the link show hidden updates in the left pane of the update wizard.
Do I need this "important" security update?
Not necessarily. This update prevents intruders, who have are already logged onto your computer from changing user rights.
If they already have this kind of access to your computer it is too late anyway :0).
What can I do besides to remove Microsoft Updates?
There are several articles on the internet listing some actions, which do not seem to be recommendable.
First of all you need to be a more experienced user of Windows, secondly they seem to be incomplete reagarding a consistent fix.
For example some advice to delete all files in certain folders in the Windows root directory, which can also cause other issues since the software needs to be made aware of certain changes or relies on certain files to be there. I recommend not to delete files without knowing how they are used by your operating system.
Having that said, you can safely delete the downloded updates. This will not uninstall already installed updates from your computer, but only remove the downloaded files and some updates from the update wizards list of available updates.
So, if you want to get rid of all currently offered updates and also speedup your system at startup, go to the following directory and delete all files from it. This will also speed up your system at startup, since Microsoft stores all old update files in this folder (Yes, I am still using an HDD instead of a SSD in my MAC).
C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download
You can also reset Microsoft Update, but this seems only appropiate for really bad cases and not this security patch. Hiding it and clearing the contents of C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download does it for me.
However, below a link on how to reset Microsoft Update.
https://support.microsoft.com/de-de/kb/971058/en-us
Hope it helps.
- Hits: 12545
Gosh! Look at what Microsoft Edge did with my input in Joomla.
What should have been a simple paragraph turned into a desaster I had to cleanup manually in the HTML view of my Joomla editor.
I am definitely sticking with my old fashioned looking Mozilla Firefox.
Let the others go crazy over fancy looking stuff. Firefox at least works properly whatever you do.
- Hits: 11116
In this article I want to collect useful windows shell commands.
Shell commands
| Command | Description |
| rename *.txt *.new_ext | Changing file name for one or more files of same file type in current directory. |
| dir > print.txt | Printing all details on files like file size, name and creation date in current directory into a new file called print.txt. |
| dir /b > print.txt | Printing only file names from current directory into a new file called print.txt. |
| dir /s /b > print.txt | Printing only file names from current directory and all sub directories into a new file called print.txt. |
|
copy /a *.txt concat.txt |
Concatenates all files in current directory into one file. The /a indicates an ASCII text file. |
Power Shell commands
| Command | Description |
| Get-ChildItem -Filter "*current*" -Recurse | Rename-Item -NewName {$_.name -replace 'current','old' } | Rename files in batch. This does work much more reliable than using wildcards in rename in old shell commands. |
- Hits: 9417
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