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'Recommended' Windows 7 Update Is Breaking PCs With ASUS Motherboards (betanews.com) 250

Posted by BeauHD from the upgrade-to-Windows-10 dept.
Microsoft has made a bizarre tweak to an update for Windows 7 that can prevent some systems from booting. The Windows 7 update KB3133977 was switched from 'Optional' to 'Recommended' and Microsoft knew ahead of time the update would cause problems for some users but decided to do nothing about it. The update fixes a problem that stops BitLocker encrypting drives because of service crashes in svhost.exe. The update only causes a problem with ASUS motherboards. Microsoft says, "After you install update 3133977 on a Windows 7 x64-based system that includes an ASUS-based main board, the system does not start, and it generates a Secure Boot error on the ASUS BIOS screen. This problem occurs because ASUS allowed the main board to enable the Secure Boot process even though Windows 7 does not support this feature." The update wasn't causing many issues while it was optional. But now that it's recommended, more users have downloaded the update, and more users have experienced problems with the update. ASUS has provided a solution to the problem. Microsoft has also provided a solution, but you might not like it. Their solution in a nutshell: update to Windows 10.
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'Recommended' Windows 7 Update Is Breaking PCs With ASUS Motherboards More

'Recommended' Windows 7 Update Is Breaking PCs With ASUS Motherboards

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  • Another solution (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NotInHere ( 3654617 ) on Friday May 06, 2016 @05:45PM (#52064069)

    Install linux.

    • Re: Another solution (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I upgraded to 10 to solve this as Microsoft suggested... err well OS X. Close enough, and it did the trick. Suddenly my computer doesn't suck.

    • Install linux.

      To do that you need to disable UEFI secure boot. If you do that ... you don't actually need to install Linux any more because that eliminates the problem.

      • No, you don't need to do it. Most bigger distros ship these days with bootloaders that work with secure boot.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Dahamma ( 304068 )

          Some do, because they gave up and paid for a key to sign their bootloaders. So I suppose you could say it works - but so does disabling the features in the BIOS that prevents you from creating/modifying your own bootloader.

        • Part right, part wrong. You don't need to disable secure boot. But then you don't need to do that to get Windows 7 working again either. The ASUS motherboards ship with a custom Secureboot routine for Windows 8+ systems. Whether you want to install Linux or you want to just get your Windows 7 to work post this update you need to change this setting to "Other OS".

          So again. What's easier? Changing a BIOS setting, installing a whole new OS and cracking open a beer, or just changing that BIOS setting and cracki

    • Re:Another solution (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Friday May 06, 2016 @06:42PM (#52064385)

      Pretty much where I'm moving right now. Given the crap they're pulling with Win10 I eventually had to do it anyway. This now gives me a pretty good reason to not postpone it any further.

      Most programs I need are either available for Linux or are platform independent. And everything else runs fine in a VM where it's not only trivial to revert to a former state if an update fucks it up, it's also nothing that needs to be connected to the internet or has to get any private information that it might leak.

      Good riddance. Sorry, MS. You managed to turn yourself from required to redundant and now finally to simply dangerous to my data. And that your "solution" to the problem is telling your users to migrate to a platform that not only breaks compatibility but is also less appealing is the icing on the cake. What about those that CANNOT migrate?

      You are aware that at my current position it is actually EASIER to migrate to Linux than to Win10?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        This is Microsoft's standard solution to all unfixable problems. I once asked how to disable the software midi output in Windows because it blocks other software from outputting sound, and their "engineer" told me to disable my sound card completely.

    • Amusingly, the Windows 7 installation on my dual-boot Asus system has been trying and failing to install this update for a few weeks now, presumably because GRUB is in the way. :)

    • Or BSD :)

  • Simple question (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06, 2016 @05:46PM (#52064071)

    Doesn't it appear like M$ is breaking Windows 7 and 8 to try to force "upgrades" to 10?

    • Re:Simple question (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday May 06, 2016 @06:47PM (#52064415)

      Doesn't it appear like M$ is breaking Windows 7 and 8 to try to force "upgrades" to 10?

      Not at all. It appears as though Microsoft is supporting Windows 7 fully and patching bugs like they always do.

      Now as to why ASUS motherboards didn't have an issue before this update that is a real interesting question, but since the solution is to disable a BIOS feature that was incompatible with Windows 7 in the first place the answer is no it doesn't appear like that at all.

      • > Not at all. It appears as though Microsoft is supporting Windows 7 fully and patching bugs like they always do.

        Yeah. "Fixing".

        This was the same company that used to have an internal slogan of "the job's not done until Lotus won't run".

        • You're right. Microsoft has a real killer strategy of ... not ... making.... Microsoft software run?

          errr are you off your meds?

    • Don't attribute to malice what can be sufficiently explained with incompetence.

      So, MS, what is it? Either you're unable to provide a working OS or you're unwilling.

      • Microsoft is a perfect storm of malice plus incompetence.

      • When I was still running XP and microsoft was pushing Vista and beta'ing Win7, I had noticed that I was getting screen artifacts where a part of program windows (menu bar frequently) sometimes wouldnt update right. This was a new issue and it clearly had something to do with changes to the OS because it was suddely happening in many programs.

        When I upgrades to windows 7 this problem went away completely.

        Fast forward to today, I am now noticing the same problem, but this time with Windows 7.

        This observ

    • Microsoft certainly doesn't seem in any hurry to fix Windows Update on Windows 7 either. It's been broken now for like a year.

  • A new twist on ransomware (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06, 2016 @05:52PM (#52064099)

    So, Microsoft is now deliberately bricking computers, in an attempt to force Windows 10 onto them.

    Attention victim: We have locked your computer, and you won't be getting access to it anytime soon, unless you....what? No, we don't want bitcoins. We want you to install Windows 10. Give us your computer and nobody gets hurt. We swear we'll only spy on you a little.

    • "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence." It does cost Microsoft a lot of money to continue to maintain Windows 7 and 8, so it is in their best interest to "encourage" everyone to upgrade to 10, however.

      • So? People paid for Windows 7 and Microsoft should support it, not destroy people's systems to make more money.

        Do you see any car manufacturer deliberately bricking people's cars and telling them they have to buy a new one?

        I will have a party when the class action lawsuits (plural) start coming down on Microsoft for these stunts they're pulling. If people thought the IE lawsuits were bad, they haven't seen anything.

        • Do you see any car manufacturer deliberately bricking people's cars and telling them they have to buy a new one?

          Yes, that's called planned obsolescence. But it isn't as rude as Microsoft is doing it.

          • Actually cars are a bad example of 'planned obsolescence', mostly because while some parts may fail the entire car does not. I have a car from the 1999 model year (so somewhere between July 1998 and June 1999 for production) and while it always had weird electrical bugs that caused the interior lights to flicker randomly at night at certain humility levels, and the Aluminium block engine broke after about 150k miles and needed to be replaced, and the A/C died for reasons unknown, and the transmission failed

        • Do you see any car manufacturer deliberately bricking people's cars and telling them they have to buy a new one?

          Do you see Microsoft doing the same? If you do then maybe you should RTFA.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by HiThere ( 15173 )

            I actually *do* see evidence that MS is breaking installed systems on purpose. In fact there's proof. Now as to whether the way that they are doing it is legally actionable, I have no clue. Corporations seem to be able to get away with lots of things that would be criminal if an individual did so.

            P.S.: (from the summary)
            "...Microsoft knew ahead of time the update would cause problems for some users but decided to do nothing about it. The update fixes a problem that stops BitLocker encrypting drives becau

            • I actually *do* see evidence that MS is breaking installed systems on purpose.

              P.S.: (from the summary)
              "...Microsoft knew ahead of time the update would cause problems for some users but decided to do nothing about it. The update fixes a problem that stops BitLocker encrypting drives because of service crashes in svhost.exe. The update only causes a problem with ASUS ..."

              Under normal circumstances I would berate you for not reading the article, but right now I'm just going to call you out on your inability to read the to the end of a paragraph.

              P.S: (also from the summary)
              "This problem occurs because ASUS allowed the main board to enable the Secure Boot process even though Windows 7 does not support this feature."

              You're saying MS is breaking an installed system on purpose by fixing a bug which triggers an issue that was previously silent cased by a different vendor and a use

      • Microsoft is only committed to maintaining Windows 7 and 8 for a fixed length of time. It costs them exactly the same to pay developers to patch and maintain that old code no matter how many or how few people are using it. Beside which, Microsoft has already been paid in advance for that support when people purchased those OSes.

        There are plenty of legitimate reasons for them to want to move everyone to Windows 10, of course: There's the store, which they control and earn revenue with. Windows 10 is buil

        • Third definition of "legitimate" in Merriam-Webster is "fair or reasonable", and Microsoft is neither. They are certainly not doing any of this out of a concern for the needs or desires of their customers.

      • It costs time and money to do this, so it is in the Windows 7&8 users's best interest to refuse to switch to Windows 10.

        Seriously, who gives a shit what's in Microsoft's best interest? Are there really people are there so stupid that they feel sorry for Microsoft and will do the upgrade out of a sense of charity?

        It's also in Nabisco's best interests to include only one Oreo in every package of Oreos. Because we haven't had an Oreo metaphor in awhile.

    • So, Microsoft is now deliberately bricking computers, in an attempt to force Windows 10 onto them.

      Attention victim: We have locked your computer, and you won't be getting access to it anytime soon, unless you....what? No, we don't want bitcoins. We want you to install Windows 10. Give us your computer and nobody gets hurt. We swear we'll only spy on you a little.

      Seriously, there's not a lot of difference between Win 10 and ransomware.

      Microsoft isn't asking for money yet, but as I understand it that's going to change in June or July.

    • So, Microsoft is now deliberately bricking computers, in an attempt to force Windows 10 onto them.

      Two points:
      1. The computer isn't bricked.
      2. Windows 7 doesn't support secure boot. This is an ASUS bug in that it attempts to run Secure Boot after the patch is applied. Prior to this it doesn't work for some unknown reason (probably also an ASUS bug, but one that was cancelled by a now fixed Windows bug). All the user needs to do is change his BIOS setting to the one he should have always been using and everything is fine.

      As for the attempt to force Windows 10 onto someone I highly suggest you upgrade to o

    • So... to get rid of one kind of malware I have to accept another kind?

    • Re:A new twist on ransomware (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Saturday May 07, 2016 @07:12AM (#52066325) Homepage Journal

      No, not at all. Asus BIOS code has a bug where it enables Secure Boot even if the OS doesn't support it. It didn't come to light until Microsoft fixed their bug.

      Microsoft pull a lot of shit, but this time it's not the case. The onus is on Asus to fix it, and they have.

  • Change the BIOS to not expect Windows UEFI. And I hate Microsoft as much as anyone.

  • Resistance will not be tolerated. (Score:3)

    by Hylandr ( 813770 ) on Friday May 06, 2016 @05:56PM (#52064127)

    You will upgrade to windows 10 or Microsoft will begin to brick your hardware.

    This wasn't an accident.

    • Or Microsoft just happens to be more accident prone than the Ford Pinto?

      • Or Microsoft just happens to be more accident prone than the Ford Pinto?

        The Ford Pinto was never more accident-prone. It merely had an unintended failure state. But that failure state could only be reached after there was already an accident.

    • This wasn't an accident.

      You're right. This wasn't an accident. It was an ASUS Secureboot bug that somehow let the BIOS boot a version of Windows not compatible with secure boot.

      It's all a conspiracy, just not a Microsoft one.

      Also:
      brick:
      verb
      "cause (a smartphone or other electronic device) to become completely unable to function, typically on a permanent basis."

      So no Microsoft didn't brick anything. Unless you think changing a BIOS setting to the one it should always have been on constitutes as a brick, in which case maybe some Engl

  • Thanks Microsoft for giving me yet another reason to be glad I turned off Windows Update.

  • not really broken (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06, 2016 @06:01PM (#52064169)

    Having to change a BIOS setting that was wrong to begin with is not "bricking" anything.

    Making the full-disk encryption feature work as designed IS progress. The fact that now allows an incorrect-by-default BIOS setting to be enforced is unfortunate, but since it can simply be set to the correct value, trying to equate it to forcing Windows 10 or making a computer useless is ridiculous.

    • Having to change a BIOS setting that was wrong to begin with is not "bricking" anything.

      The only person who has used the word "bricking" is you.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mark-t ( 151149 )
      How is saying that the OS-type is "Windows" instead of "Other OS" a wrong BIOS setting when one is actually booting Windows?

  • If MS knew that it would screw some machines, then those machines' owners should sue MS for their time lost (+ consequential losses) for fixing this problem - for some people that will be a lot of money. Trying to shift the blame elsewhere is the sort of line that you get from a 2 bit fly by night outfit. However: I expect that they will hide behind their EULA or lawyers or similar.

  • er, uhm, I mean, this is why its beyond stupid to accept MS 'updates' these days. MS has jumped the shark (the old shark has a headache by now, I would guess) and is now sending malware to its users on a semi regular basis.

    I have disabled all updates to win7 since ftdi-gate, last year. that was the final straw for me.

    I have backups and I can restore. I don't do stupid shit online when on windows.

    microsoft can go fuck themselves. for a while, they were an OK company and google/apple were the bad guys. n

  • Maybe it's my paranoid brain, but I have suspected Microsoft may want to sabotage older OS like 7 to force people to "upgrade".
  • to have sole control over when your Windows 10 updates itself!

  • Fuck microsoft

    it needs to be said

    • Well, it is Friday, but it has been over 15 years since I implemented a Microsoft Free Fridays apache module.

      I'm glad somebody is still holding down the fort.

  • ...the update could have detected that it was running on a misconfigured motherboard. It could have issued a warning, containing directions on how to make the appropriate settings... with a PRINT option. It could have refused to install on a system that Microsoft knew it the update would damage.

    Microsoft chose to do none of these things. Microsoft chose to hurt people who had paid money for their operating system.

  • Not the first time they've done this (Score:4, Interesting)

    by blindseer ( 891256 ) <blindseer@noSPAm.earthlink.net> on Friday May 06, 2016 @06:37PM (#52064361)

    When I was in college I worked as a computer tech for a print and video publishing department of the university. They had a large number of Macintosh computers running Microsoft software. This was back in the day when Apple was making their transition to PowerPC processors.

    The version of Microsoft Word available at the time was known to be crash happy and a new version had just come out or was going to be released soon. An interesting bug in the program would delete open files if saved too often and it would prevent saving the file under a different name. If someone reached this save limit then the file was effectively lost. It remained in memory so long as the file was open but it could not be saved to disk. At best it might be able to print it.

    This was an interesting bug when it came to me and I was responsible to resolve the problem for the people working in the department. Microsoft just told people to get the next version. As this was a bug that hit an OS limitation it was possible to reduce the probability of hitting the bug by upgrading the OS. If your computer did not meet the system requirements for the next OS version, or the next Word version, the solution was buying a new computer. Every solution that Microsoft offered was going to cost money. One might place some blame on Apple for this but the problem was that Word had a memory leak, upgrading the computer or OS just meant that it was much more difficult to hit the limit before Word locked you out of saving your files and deleted what was already on the disk. When I presented the "solutions" to my supervisor I was instructed to remove Word from the affected computers, meaning the student employees had to switch around computers to get their work done.

    At around this same time Microsoft had released a new version of Office. Because of some delays in publishing Microsoft offered the old version of Office to people that bought the new version, which on some level was fortunate for me. I installed the new version of Office and tried to run Word but any attempt to open an existing file or create a new one would immediately crash the computer. Complaints to Microsoft was answered with the options of using the old version or getting a new computer that did not expose this bug. As I already had a working copy of WordPerfect I only bought Office so that I could use the latest version of Word since I was getting files that were in that format. WordPerfect was IMHO a much better program and could already open the older Word files. My only consolation was that I got Excel out of the deal which came in handy for some of my math and engineering homework. I could have used other software to get the homework done but Excel was easier at the time.

    • That's a nice story but....

      Every solution that Microsoft offered was going to cost money.

      Have you tried just setting the BIOS to the setting it was supposed to be set at? Or do you routinely blame Microsoft for 3rd party bugs that cause a feature that was not supported by a certain version of windows to not work when enabled?

      Microsoft's reponse is right on the money: Either disable Secureboot which Windows doesn't support, or upgrade to a version of Windows which supports Secureboot. They literally gave you EVERY option to fix this non issue and you criticise them for

  • Just ponder this for a moment what would happen if you ran Win10 on an ASUS boarded PC.

    Updates brick your PC.
    You cannot avoid updates.

    Is MS going to pay for a new board? Or at least the cost for repairs if I can't do it myself?

    Somehow I HIGHLY doubt that.

  • Whenever Microsoft recommends something, do the opposite! When will people learn?

  • To protect user's systems from malware attacks, ASUS motherboards implement the Microsoft Secure Boot feature by default. This feature performs a legal loader check to boot into the OS. As Windows 7 does not support Secure Boot (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh824987.aspx), with the update of KB3133977, the system might detect inconsistent OS loader keys, resulting in boot failure.

    Apparenltly the Secure Boot feature to protect from malware by ASUS didn't work.

  • There's been a very obvious decrease in proficiency of technicians and developers in this generation. Anyone that has been in the industry longer than 10 years can easily see this. Actually, the quality of the users on this site is direct evidence of this. Just today I encountered someone named "macs4all" *facepalm*... My beautiful lawn...

  • A bios enforcing secure boot is not "bricking" your computer. Having secure boot on or off, as they say, does not affect windows 7 at all. So the solution, is to turn off the feature that you are not using anyway.

    Sometimes bios updates change these sorts of settings or reset the UEFI or legacy settings. Its good to know enough about how a computer works to know about secure boot, the newer (not that new anymore) UEFI boot process and the hardware / operating system integration in newer OS's. The people on slashdot are the first people I would expect to be knowledgeable about this, yet 90% of the first 100 or so posts are like "brick this" and F-M$ that... when in reality, windows 7 is getting older but yet is so stable that this is the biggest problem its had in years :) That's the real take away for me.

    It's just inevitable that when running newer hardware with older OS's, some bios settings may need to be changed from their defaults. I am happy that I can boot my skylake platform with UEFI on because asrock provided a windows 7 installer patch. It may seem extreme to some, but I am happily still running windows 7. This is another example of a work around for an older OS that doesn't "just work" on new hardware. Manufacturers often assume people are running the newest OS and set options accordingly.

    I always turn secure boot off because its kind of pointless so this would not affect me or any computer I have built.

  • WTF ASUS (Score:3)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday May 07, 2016 @04:44AM (#52066093)

    Ok while we're all busy bashing MS, has anyone noticed the fact that an ASUS motherboard with UEFI Secure boot set to only boot windows somehow booted an unsigned kernel which didn't support UEFI Secureboot?

    How is the real story here not that ASUS's Secureboot implementation is horribly broken and if that's the case WTF else is wrong with their BIOS?

  • There's a reason i quit booting windows.. And this just adds one more - as i would have been an effected user, by the looks of it.

    I have windows license. I moved the * to a virtual machine. Which i can easily copy, move, boot from whatever i'm running at that moment (although i replace desktop OS only every so often).

    I rarely use it (Windows). Primary reason to use it is because some other people use it and request me for help. I don't need or use windows at all, thank you, life is too short to waste time on that clickable crap. I keep the VM updated every so often. And i'm not even considering booting windows ever again, after it evolved a habit of randomly deleting any non-ntfs partitions, or making itself and the rest of the system unbootable, thank you.

    Windows is not an OS, it's a data destruction system. They (MS) don't give a f* about your data. It was like that 20 years ago, it was like that 10 years ago and it is now. My data more important than any narcissistic OS. And i not even started about usability issues like convenience or 'just getting things done'.

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