Next week, Microsoft will roll out its monthly Patch Tuesday cumulative updates for Windows versions. Ahead of the monthly rollup, now is as good a time as any to shore up your Windows with patches issued in August, if you haven’t already.
Certainly, last month was a busy one in terms of patches for the platform. On August Patch Tuesday, Microsoft managed to cause issues for Visual Basic, Visual Basic for Applications, and VBScript. The company has since sent out solutions for all those bugs, although the patches arrive sporadically over August.
The good news is August patches can now be downloaded safely without these Visual Basic problem.
Looking specifically at Windows 10 and more specifically at Windows 10 version 1903. Microsoft was slower to send out the VB patches compared to older Windows versions. Indeed, the fixes were only rolled out on the last working day of August.
At any rate, if you’ve been following along here, you’re ready to get the August patches installed. Here’s how to do it.
Furthermore on Windows 10, Microsoft confirmed last month there was a redlining bug in Cortana/SearchUI.exe. Given the case number KB4512941, the company said:
“Microsoft is getting reports that a small number of users may not receive results when using Windows Desktop Search and may see high CPU usage from SearchUI.exe. This issue only occurs on devices that have disabled searching the web using Windows Desktop Search.
We are working on a resolution and estimate a solution will be available in mid-September.”
Windows 7
As we previously reported, the August patches for Windows 7 were security-only, a controversial move by Microsoft. It’s a trend the company now seems set on as we reach the final four months of Windows 7 support.
Once again, the Win7 patch came with a Compatibility Appraiser, KB2952664. If you’re unfamiliar with this tool, it is used to find problems that could stop Windows 7 PCs from updating to Windows 10.
It is worth remembering that Microsoft’s “security-only” updates are meant to be just that, made as security patches. Microsoft adding Compatibility Appraiser functionality into these patches without announcement is just a sneaky move by the company.
