Microsoft, earlier today, sent out a report urging customers who have applied the MS13-036 security patch for Windows 7 based PCs to uninstall it. It appears that MS13-036 can cause Windows 7 PCs to crash in such a way that the OS will need to be reinstalled for the computer to become usable again.
Gregg Keizer, writing for ComputerWorld.com this afternoon writes:
“The patch, which was originally issued Tuesday, has been pulled from Microsoft’s Windows Update service.
But the company told users who had already installed it — or had it installed for them by Windows’ Automatic Updates — to remove it as soon as possible. “Microsoft recommends that customers uninstall this update,” the company said in a support document.
Microsoft yanked the patch in response to widespread reports that it was generating the notorious “Blue Screen of Death” (BSOD) error message and by rebooting repeatedly, making the PCs useless.”
If you have Windows 7, regardless of platform or architecture, I would suggest that you uninstall the patch, which you may have applied manually, or via Microsoft’s Windows Automatic Updates. The reason why this patch is such a problem is it attempts to update the ntfs.sys driver that tells Windows how to read and write to the computers disk drive(s).
Given all the latest news about customers sticking it out with Windows 7, Windows XP, and even Windows Vista, conspiracy theorists will probably think that this is a ploy to get people to upgrade to Windows 8. Released last year, Windows 8 has seen a much slower adoption rate by consumers and businesses and has been recently blamed in popular media as a major cause for the sharp decline in new PC sales over the 2012 holiday shopping season and first quarter this year.
[Via ComputerWorld.com…]