In one of the most bizarre patching contortions I’ve seen in a long time, Microsoft originally released this month’s Win7/Server 2008R2 Monthly Rollup patch, KB 4093118, with a little bit of southern lagniappe.
As I mentioned earlier this week, if you wanted to install this month’s Monthly Rollup and didn’t want to clobber your Network Interface Card (NIC) or any of your manually set IP addresses, you had to manually install the security-only patch KB 4093108 ahead of time.
Patching by prescience, as it were. There’s a Great Carnak joke in there somewhere.
Late last night, Microsoft released a new version of its wayward Monthly Rollup. This new version, we’re assured (per the updated KB article), addresses the following:
- Aan issue where a new Ethernet NIC that has default settings may replace the previously existing NIC, causing network issues
- An issue where static IP address settings can be lost
Thus they eliminated the need to recognize that there are problems with the Monthly Rollup and you need to fix them in advance. Sis boom bah.
Files in the patch unchanged
Per MrBrian, it appears as if the files inside the patch haven’t changed.
Of course, Microsoft’s updated KB article (which doesn’t even mention the re-release, except in the context of WSUS) has no definitive instructions for installing or re-installing the fix.
As @ch100 notes on AskWoody:
I would say that those who installed the updates previously successfully will not have the new one offered, as there is no real change, but different internal logic of installing the bundled components…
It is a new update in WSUS, while the old version is expired. Not a simple (metadata) revision this time. This does not mean that those who installed the original patch have to do anything special other than upgrading in place, at least in theory.
Earlier this week I said:
We’re seeing reports of Win7 patches that are checked, unchecked, sometimes disappearing, occasionally reappearing, and vanishing into thin air.
That’s changed. It seems that Microsoft has steadied its resolve and is now offering this update to all Win7 and Server 2008 R2 machines.
Of course, I continue to recommend that you hold off on all of this month’s patches.
Have a better guess? Join us on the AskWoody Lounge.