From InfoWorld: Microsoft finally acknowledged yesterday that it has fixed the bug that breaks certain kinds of print jobs. The problem was created by a security patch issued on Aug. 9, and in the intervening six weeks the company offered a rat's nest of partial fixes, preferential treatment, and botched communications that don't bode well for Windows 10 forced patching. It's also bad news for the anticipated October patchocalypse, when Windows 7 and 8.1 customers will start being treated to a new all-or-nothing approach to patching.
In order to understand the bizarre maze that Windows 7 and 8.1 users are about to encounter, it helps to unwind what went wrong with the double-print bug and exactly how it was finally fixed.
This saga started with MS16-098, a "Security Update for Windows kernel-mode drivers." The rather mundane patch -- not rated critical -- covered a handful of security holes that had not been publicly disclosed or exploited in the wild. MS16-098 replaced MS16-090, a kernel-mode patch that was released in July. MS16-098, in turn, has been replaced by the kernel-mode patch MS16-106, which was released this month.
The double-print bug was distributed to every version of Windows. Those users who updated earlier versions of Windows (Vista, Windows 7, 8.1, RT 8.1, as well as Server 2008, 2008 R2, 2012, and 2012 R2) got bit by the patch known as KB 3177725. If those users wanted to get rid of the bug, they only had to uninstall KB 3177725. Of course, Microsoft has dire warnings about uninstalling security patches, but if you fell victim to this particular bug (as was the case if you use, among many, the Seagull Scientific bar-code printing package BarTender), you could back it out by uninstalling the faulty patch. When the patch went away, the bug did, too.
View: Article @ Source Site
