Tagged: windows update

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Microsoft introduces new Component Firmware Update (CFU)

Microsoft on Wednesday described its Component Firmware Update (CFU) effort, which is a new open source protocol that Windows developers can leverage to keep their drivers and firmware properly updated. The CFU protocol is an open source project housed at the GitHub repository, providing driver and firmware code samples for testing. It’s the sort of thing that independent hardware vendors and original equipment manufacturers...

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Windows 10 October 2018 update released

The Windows 10 October 2018 Update is available now, and we’re also releasing new innovations in Office 365, To-Do and Outlook.com. These updates were designed to help you make the most of your time across work, home and everywhere in between. Offering tools for your whole life has never been more important as the lines between work and life have never been more blurred. Whether...

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Windows 10 updates get smaller

Microsoft has been promising smaller updates to Windows 10, through various methods, for what feels like years, but the company is now starting to test a new Unified Update Platform (UUP) that will make a big difference. “One of the biggest community and customer benefits of UUP is the reduction you’ll see in download size on PCs,” explains Bill Karagounis, a Windows program manager,...

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Microsoft will fix KB3194496 update loop

For well over a year, Microsoft has tried to position Windows 10 as a new type of operating system — one that’s continually updated without allowing for meaningful customer intervention, with security, driver, and software updates combined together by default and updated on Microsoft’s timeline. Pro customers can delay updates for a period of time, but non-enterprise users aren’t allowed to push them off...

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Microsoft pushes out a faulty Windows 10 update again

This week, Microsoft pushed out another cumulative update and reports of installation problems are widespread. While I don’t know how many users are impacted, based on comments sent to me, it’s certainly widespread enough that this is well beyond an isolated issue. The update that is causing the problem, KB3194496, is not installing correctly for users. The update, when it does fail, is causing...

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Microsoft is ending the pick-and-choose patching in Windows 7 and 8

Microsoft yesterday announced that beginning in October it will offer only cumulative security updates for Windows 7 and 8.1, ending the decades-old practice of letting customers choose which patches they apply. “Historically, we have released individual patches … which allowed you to be selective with the updates you deployed,” wrote Nathan Mercer, a senior product marketing manager, in a post to a company blog....

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Recover Tons of Disk Space with the New Windows Update Cleanup

Microsoft has released a Windows 7 update that adds a new option in the Disk Cleanup tool called Windows Update Cleanup. With it, you can free up several gigabytes of hard drive space from the bloated Windows Updates folder. Windows Updates can be terrible space hogs. Windows saves every security update and hotfix—even if they're superseded by new updates—in the WinSxS directory. You can't...

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Microsoft plans gigantic Patch Tuesday next week

Microsoft said it will deliver 10 security updates next week to patch a record-tying 34 vulnerabilities in Windows, Internet Explorer, Office, and SharePoint. The patches will also quash two bugs that Microsoft acknowledged in February and April. “I’d actually call this a moderate month,” said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Security. “Looking at the criticality of the bulletins, and the fact...

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Upcoming update to Windows Update

I’d like to let you know that, beginning at the end of this month and continuing over the next few months, we’ll be rolling out an infrastructure update to the Windows Update agent (client).  I wanted to take this opportunity to provide some background on the update and discuss the value these updates bring to you. How Windows Update Keeps Itself Up-to-Date Occasionally, we...

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Windows XP SP3 Officially on Windows Update

Microsoft originally planned to release Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) on April 29, 2008. All of the necessary preparations were made for the release and the service pack was also hosted on download.windowsupdate.com. Before April 29th, 2008 there was a last minute bug discovered that caused issues for those who had Microsoft Dymanic RMS installed on their computers. Today, Windows XP SP3 has...