Anti-Windows Catalog

Does Mainstream Media Finally Get It? Or, The Patch That Wasn't

Written by Gordon Fecyk, 2/28/2010

WHAT A CRAZY FEBRUARY we Windows professionals had this year, eh? It seemed like every Tuesday was Patch Tuesday. Hell, even Fat Tuesday was Patch Tuesday with a minor update to Silverlight.

If I ever became Catholic, the first thing I'd ever give up for Lent would be Windows Update. It's almost as addictive as anti-virus software.

But I will always remember February 2010 for the patch-that-was-supposed-to-break-Windows-but-didn't, but not because of the impact it had or because of the potential for impact it had over helpless Windows users. Rather, I'll remember it for the utter lack of mainstream media coverage of it, and for that, I'm grateful to the mainstream media.

HERE'S MY PROBLEM: IT magazines like Computerworld jumped all over Microsoft for releasing this particular update. Then they jumped all over Microsoft again for pulling the update from the list. And then they jumped on them again for pulling or not-pulling the very same patch.

This sort of "now you see it, now you don't" style of bug management is what got Intel in trouble sixteen years ago with its Pentium floating point bug. That's a definite "heads should roll" kind of story and the mainstream media had a field day at Intel's expense. So where's Jesse Hirsh? Where's the CBC with their "sky is falling" Special Report on The Patch That Wasn't?

It turns out that only a small portion of unsigned, unapproved device drivers trigger the problem. According to one of Computerworld's readers:

[...] the [TDSS rootkit] is the most common cause of this blue screen. However, any driver that references the updated kernel bits incorrectly can also cause this blue screen.

NOW THIS IS A MAINSTREAM STORY: Major update to Windows operating system breaks old, broken garbage. This entire site is all about bad design breaking like this. The mainstream media didn't touch the February Patch Tuesday story, because nothing happened. In this case, only a very small minority was affected, and a third party was to blame. Even if said party was a virus writer.

But if there's one thing the release of Windows Vista has taught third party vendors, it's to fix their garbage. The mainstream media seems to have finally gotten it. And if you're in that very small minority that didn't use a current version of Windows and didn't leave the default security settings alone, well, that's not Microsoft's fault either.

Related Links:

• Rootkit blamed for Blue Screen patch update snafu -- The Register
• Hackers update rootkit causing Windows blue screens -- Computerworld Blogs

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