Anyone remember the last time MS monthly updates weren’t critical?

Posted by TechDiverRich@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 19 comments

Someone asked me today if this month’s patches were critical. I got to thinking about it and I can’t remember a single month since since MS started doing the cumulative updates that wasn’t critical. I’m too lazy to dig back through and look as it doesn’t really matter so I figured I would crowd source. I also figured it would make for interesting conversations.

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19 Comments

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Art_Vand_Throw001@reddit

Back in 1996.

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Bad_Idea_Hat@reddit

Jesus, that was 10 years ago.

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Zolty@reddit

What 1996 was just a couple years ago....

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QF17@reddit

This could be an example of correlation != causation. Cumulative updates started around the time Windows 10 was released, wasn't it? Which was about 2015ish? I'd dare to say that we're a much more connected world in the post-Windows 10 9 years than we were in the preceding 9 years (2006-2015). To give an example; I don't think online ordering for apps existed 10 years ago. If I wanted McDonalds I'd need to go in store or go through the drive-thru and recite my order. This meant that each store would could effectively operate independently, there was no need for them to publish that they were out of Big Macs anywhere, just stick a sign up and be done with it. But now that same store (and every other store) needs to facilitate a connection to some kind of cloud server that's eventually exposed to the public.

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mini_market@reddit

Pepperidge Farm remembers.

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cjcox4@reddit

Just being truthful, back when we and Microsoft didn't care about "issues", that when it was "perceived" as "not critical". This all changed when Linux and FOSS came on the scene, exposed universal vulnerabilites, but also the speed in which they were corrected. It was a black eye that the "big closed company" with "paid employees" couldn't keep up. The culmination was the concept of the "OS that never dies", aka Windows 10 (until Microsoft realized they needed arbitrary versioning and other restrictions to force revenue).

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Sasataf12@reddit

>until Microsoft realized they needed arbitrary versioning and other restrictions to force revenue How does arbitrary versioning force revenue? Windows 11 is free (and so was 10).

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stillpiercer_@reddit

It’s free in the sense that a license comes with the purchase of a machine from an OEM, but those OEMs are paying for licensing, businesses are paying for server licensing (and CALs), home users are paying for licenses for self-built PCs… The license cost is baked into the retail price you’re paying for an OEM machine. Windows 10 was never free, they simply allowed users with Win7 licenses to upgrade to 10, and the same from 10 to 11.

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cjcox4@reddit

Windows 11 has requirements, unless you want to run "unsupported". Anytime there's a version bump, they make money. You'll just have to trust me on that. You "can" actually buy Windows 11, and you might be surprised at the sales.

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Sasataf12@reddit

>You'll just have to trust me on that. Lol, this is the first time I've seen someone use "trust me bro" as a source and actually meant it.

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cjcox4@reddit

Feel free to talk to any company about their Windows licensing. I guess you really don't have to "trust me" if you don't want to.

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jtsa5@reddit

Both can be had for free but they aren't free for everyone. Just look online and you can see Windows is available for sale. OEMs don't get it for free and corporations definitely don't get it for free.

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Mindestiny@reddit

Not to mention they *finally* cut off the Win 7/8 to Win 10/11 upgrade path. Lotta people riding on old keys are gonna have to buy new ones on major hardware replacements and upgrades.

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Sasataf12@reddit

To be fair, Win 11 was released in Oct 2021 and EOL for Win 8.1 Jan 2023. If you haven't upgraded by now, you were never going to.

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Sasataf12@reddit

But my question is how does this force revenue compared to their old process, which was to charge for **every** OS, regardless of whether you had the previous one or not.

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Foosec@reddit

With win 10 going eol and win11 stupidly (arbitrarily) not supporting pretty new hardware, means a lot of oems are gonna be pumping out a lot more pcs with windows keys

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superadmin_1@reddit

Updates will happen more often now that the russians stole source code

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wrootlt@reddit

We use Qualys, so we look at what severity they assign and yes, sometimes Windows monthly patches are only Sev 4, but most of the time lately it is Sev 5. Maybe like 1 out of months it is 4. Of course, this is just one vendor's assessment. Sometimes we get our cyber security team telling us that this or that are more critical based on attacks in the wild and other factors. Sometimes MS thinks it is less severe, but security analysts think otherwise.

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Versed_Percepton@reddit

Its monthly, its always going to have a critical assessment. The only question, is this 8.0 9.0 or 10.0 critical.