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Microsoft's Latest .NET Framework Updates Just Address Problems with Windows Server 2016 Systems
Microsoft released updates to .NET Framework versions on Monday to address problems caused by its botched July 10 patches, but they only address some Windows systems.
The July 30 announcement seems to suggest that Microsoft has released updates to fix all of the problems that were described back on July 20. However, it turns out that's not exactly the case.
The updates announced on Monday are just for users of Windows Server 2016 and an expired version of Windows 10 (version 1607). The .NET Framework patches for other Windows versions aren't available yet. Those details weren't immediately apparent in the Monday announcement, but are explained in a Tuesday comment by Microsoft's Tara Overfield. She offered the following explanation at the end of Microsoft's announcement:
An update to Windows 10 version 1607 and Server 2016 was made available yesterday -- https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4346877. For other Windows 10 configurations, improvements will be included in the upcoming month's broad updates. Windows Server 2016 was prioritized for this update due to the lower incidence on client SKUs and the nature of the issue that was heavily resolved for environments by updating application Servers.
So, Monday's updates are mostly fixes for Windows Server 2016. Moreover, organizations have to manually download them from the Microsoft Update Catalog as they aren't automatically delivered.
Users of other Windows versions likely will have to wait until Aug. 14, Microsoft's next "update Tuesday" patch release date, to get updates that will address the .NET Framework problems that were introduced by Microsoft's July 10 patches.
These updates are just intended for organizations having problems with applications that won't load, in which they are getting "access denied, "class not registered" or "internal failure" error messages. These problems can affect users of SharePoint, BizTalk Server Administration Console and Internet Information Services (IIS) with "classic" ASP, plus .NET applications that use "COM and impersonation."
Microsoft had earlier admitted that the .NET Framework patch problems arose from inadequate COM testing on its part, which it promised to address. It's also had July 10 Windows patch problems that adversely affected Lync Server 2013, Skype for Business Server 2015 and Exchange Server, as well as SQL Server.
Meanwhile, Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Susan Bradley has written an open letter to Microsoft, as published in Computerworld, regarding Microsoft's patch quality controls and how they are affecting organizations. Bradley's plea for greater patch quality assurance on Microsoft's behalf is based on informal polls of both IT pros and consumers that suggested there was broad discontent with the current Windows 10 patch approach.
Bradley's polls were conducted before the issues with the July 10 patches were widely understood. Bradley is a moderator of the Patchmanagement.org list-serve for IT pros, which is focused on the nuances of keeping Windows systems up to date.
About the Author
Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.