Windows 10 with a range of computers it breaks
GATHER ROUND! It’s time for your near-daily explanation of what’s borked with Windows 10 this time.
Yes, another day, another patch that breaks things, something that we really ought to be used to by now – we just shouldn’t have to be.
This time, its KB4517389 for the current Build 1903. It was released to fix the problems with print spooling introduced with the last patch.
Unfortunately, it has reintroduced an old problem. That’s if you can get it to install at all. Some people are complaining that they can’t even get that far.
If you do get up and running with Windows Update, you’re faced with our old friend the broken Start Menu. Previous borks have ‘just’ stopped it functioning, but this latest iteration triggers a ‘Critical Error’ message that promises to fix it at the next reboot.
It doesn’t fix it at the next reboot. Quelle surprise.
In fact, the only solution is to uninstall not only KB4517389 but also KB4524147, the last borked patch, too.
Think we’re done? Nay lad. There’s more.
Though few and far between, Edge users have also complained that their browser of choice isn’t working. If you click a link in a webpage, it opens, but if you try to open it from the menu or taskbar, literally nothing happens.
This latter bug could have been introduced in the preparations to move Edge over the Google’s Chromium engine, but that’s just educated speculation on our part.
Once again, removing KB4517389 fixes the issue at a stroke.
If all that wasn’t enough, VMWare users are saying that version 14 doesn’t work, and the search bar in the Start Menu remains borked as it has been pretty much since it was separated from digital assistant Cortana.
Recent comments from an ex-employee land the blame squarely at Microsoft’s door, claiming that the cavalcade of problems was the result of all the downsizing at Microsoft in the past few years, which resulted in a single test team for all Windows based form factors from Xbox to that phone thing it used to do.
Incidentally, Microsoft recently declared that the current version of Windows (1903) is ready for business use. Erm. We have a thought or two on that.
The next edition of Windows 10, version 1909 or “November 2019 Update” is nearly ready for release. Which is probably code for being an absolute nightmare again. We can’t wait. µ µ