[German]At February 2020 patchday Microsoft released a standalone UEFI security update KB4524244 für Windows 10, that caused serious issues. Microsoft has withdrawn the UEFI security update KB4524244 on Feb. 15, 2020.
Issues with Update KB4524244
I had discussed the ‘Standalone Update’ KB4524244 in the blog post Windows 10: UEFI Update KB4524244 is causing issues. There I also addressed the fact, that this update causes many issues and leads to boot problems on AMD devices. I received also feedback from German blog readers, confirming the issues raised within the blog post (although my test machine didn’t show issues with this update installed).
The most lucky users were still those who where facing an error 0x800f0922 with an install abort. On HP systems, HP Sure Start Recovery on AMD machines prevented booting if Secure Boot was enabled and the update was installed.
Microsoft pulled Update KB4524244
In the meantime, Microsoft has acknowledged issues with UEFI security update KB4524244 and has withdrawn it. German blog reader Gerold (see his comment, thanks for that) and other people like Barb Bowman pointed this out to me.
Microsoft has pulled buggy @windowsupdate KB4524244 https://t.co/1pifZgKGDL pic.twitter.com/64lp0cl06G
— Barb Bowman (@barbbowman) February 15, 2020
The German KB article Support article didn’t mention it yet – but the English KB article was extended by the following statements:
- Using the “Reset this PC” feature, also called “Push Button Reset” or PBR, might fail. You might restart into recovery with “Choose an option” at the top of the screen with various options or you might restart to desktop and receive the error “There was a problem resetting your PC”.
- You might encounter issues trying to install or after installing KB4524244.
So the update has serious collateral damage over what I mentioned in the blog post mentioned above. Especially the broken ‘PC reset’ function is blatant. Microsoft has therefore withdrawn the update:
This standalone security update has been removed due to an issue affecting a sub-set of devices. It will not be re-offered from Windows Update, Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) or Microsoft Update Catalog.
Barb Bowman refers in the above tweet to the Windows 10 version 1909 status page, where the following entry was added on February 15, 2020.
“Reset this PC” feature might fail
Using the “Reset this PC” feature, also called “Push Button Reset” or PBR, might fail. You might restart into recovery with “Choose an option” at the top of the screen with various options or you might restart to your desktop and receive the error “There was a problem resetting your PC”.
There is also the information that the update has been withdrawn – Microsoft will also no longer offer it, but will release it under a new KB number in an updated version.
Uninstall the update in any case!
In the KB article Microsoft gives hints what to do in case of issues: Uninstall the update. Some people (e.g. here) interpret it as: ‘if the update doesn’t cause any issues, leave it on the system”. In this special case I recommend uninstalling the update in any case, because of the potentially broken Windows 10 reset feature.
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