AppleInsider Staff
A recently-issued Windows security update designed to deal with the Spectre processor vulnerability is more Maxwell Smart than James Bond, users say.
The patch inadvertently bricked some computers running AMD chips, with the machines reportedly unable to boot past the Windows logo. Complaints began appearing in Microsoft's Answers forum last week, as noted by The Register.
Rolling back the update doesn't seem to be possible, and reinstalling Windows is also a non-starter for most users.
The patch - KB4056892 - was released early last week in response to the Spectre vulnerability that dropped on New Year's Eve. AMD chips are not vulnerable to the similar Meltdown flaw, which was unveiled at the same time.
Apple addressed these vulnerabilities in recent versions of macOS, iOS, and tvOS, and continues to work to mitigate the problems. The company took further steps with the release of iOS 11.2.2 and macOS 10.13.2 earlier Monday.
Charles Martin
Marko Zivkovic
Wesley Hilliard
Andrew Orr
Malcolm Owen
David Schloss
31 Comments
Well, that’s one way to make a bad situation worse. On the bright side, those users don’t need to worry about their computer being compromised...
Is this actually an issue for many users or is it a small set that just sounds worse due to the internet echo chamber?
The glass half-full: the Spectre vulnerability is completely fixed.
Bahahahaha...that just makes me laugh for some reason. It sucks for those using AMD's who are effected, but it still just makes me laugh.
That is unfortunate. What a cluster it must be to make fixes for the tangled bird's nest that is Windows. All the thousands of hardware variants out there - total nightmare. Of course Apple doesn't have that issue since it controls the hardware and only has a handful of CPU chips to deal with over the last 10 years of Macs. Plusses and minuses are the spice of life.