[German]Sometimes Windows users are facing error 0x8007371B during update install. Here are a few details, how to fix this issue.

What error 0x8007371B says?

Error 0x8007371B indicates, that an update transaction could not be completed successful. Microsoft says:

0x8007371B = ERROR_SXS_TRANSACTION_CLOSURE_INCOMPLETE

One or more required members of the transaction are not present.

The error name indicates, that something in folder WinSxS is damaged. In most cases are damaged, missing or inconsistent files in WinSxS or blocked transactions from third party antivirus software are the root case for this issue. What you can try, it to repair Windows and WinSxS.

Check Windows for corrupted system files?

In a first step you should assure, that no system files are corrupted. This can be done using system file checker (sfc) in Windows 7 up to Windows 10.

1. Open an administrative command prompt windows (enter cmd in search box – start menu, taskbar or start page – and launch the command using context menu command Run as administrator.

2. Confirm the UAC prompt and enter the command sfc /scannow in command prompt window.

In best case, sfc doesn’t reports errors or fixed all errors detected. More details may be found within my blog post Check and repair Windows system files and component store.

What else can I do in Windows 7?

If sfc was successful, try to repair WinSXS using the Microsoft Systemupdate Readiness Tool CheckSUR. You will find the download link within this Microsoft page. Just download CheckSUR and execute the tool. In best case, the tool repairs WinSxS. 

What to do in Windows 8 onwards?

From Windows 8 onwards, CheckSUR is no longer available. Microsoft has incorporated the CheckSUR functions into the dism command. In Windows 8, 8.1 or Windows 10 use the instructions given for dism within my blog post Check and repair Windows system files and component store or within this Microsoft page.

Error analysis with CBS.log

In some cases it may be helpful to analyze the log file CBS.log (and CheckSUR.log if available in Windows 7), created from CheckSUR or dism. The log file CBS.log is located within the folder C:\Windows\Logs\CBS. Copy the file to the desktop, using Windows Explorer, and opens CBS.log within an editor.  Microsoft has published some details within this support article and within this older article.

Windows repair via Inplace Upgrade

If the diagnose and repair steps given above doesn’t help, try to repair Windows using an Inplace Upgrade (see also last paragraph within my blog post Check and repair Windows system files and component store).

Similar article:
Windows 10 Wiki
Check and repair Windows system files and component store

[German]Updates KB4034664 and KB4034679 (August 8, 2017), and Preview Rollup Update KB4034670 (August 15, 2017) is causing issues with LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol).

I haven’t covered this issue due to the rendering bug (see Windows Update KB4034664 is causing trouble on 2nd screen). But Updates KB4034679, KB4034664 and KB4034670 are causing serious issues with Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). Microsoft has added recently a note to its know issues section in all knowledge base articles. They wrote:

Due to a defect in WLDAP32.DLL, applications that perform LDAP referral chasing can consume too many dynamic TCP ports (potentially exhausting them) after installing KB4025337 and KB4025341. Applications and roles known to make these referrals may include Outlook.exe, DFSR, and others.

A broken WLDAP32.DLL is causing this issue during Referral chasing after installing the updates. Microsoft proposes the following workaround:

To work around the problem, restart services or applications that perform LDAP referral chasing to free TCP dynamic ports. A reboot will also free ports. For example, restarting Outlook will free ports used by that application.

Microsoft says, that a restart of application will show also this behavior, if updates KB4025337 and KB4025341 are installed:

If restarting applications that perform LDAP referral chasing returns normal functionality on machines that installed KB4025337 and KB4025341, you may be experiencing this issue.

Microsoft’s proposal for a Workaround is:

To work around the problem for cluster computers hosting the DFSR service, place the virtual cluster object under the Computers container to avoid reaching the referral chasing search, which leads to the dynamic port leak.

Microsoft is working on a resolution and (hopefully) will provide an update in an upcoming release.

Similar articles
Beware of Microsoft’s LDAP Server CVE-2017-8563 Fix
Issues after Microsoft’s August Updates
Update KB4025334 for Windows 10 Version 1607
Windows 7/8.1 Preview Rollups June 2017
Windows Server: an Update causes iSCSI connection issues
Windows Update KB4034664 is causing trouble on 2nd screen

[German]Microsoft has released some updates for Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1 (Preview Rollup), Windows Server, .NET Framework und Office and Office on August 15, 2017.

Note: All preview updates released on August 15, 2017 are optional and non security related. If you are not affected, you can wait, until Microsoft releases the final update in September 2017 patchday.

KB4034670 for Windows 7 SP1/Sever 2008 R2

Update KB4034670 is the Preview of Monthly Rollup for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Sever 2008 R2. This non security update addresses issues caused by update KB4034664 (released August  8, 2017). Microsoft lists the following fixes:

• Addressed an issue where spoolsv.exe crashes.
• Addressed issue where a DNS server stops working and doesn’t respond to DNS requests in Windows Server 2008 R2.
• Addressed issue where WordPad crashes on launch.

The issue, I addressed within my blog post Windows Update KB4034664 is causing trouble on 2nd screen, seems not be fixed. Also the issue I mentioned within my blog post LDAP-Bug in Updates KB4034679, KB4034664, KB4034670 seems unfixed.  

KB4034663 for Windows 8.1/Sever 2012 R2

Update KB4034663 is the Preview of Monthly Rollup for Windows 8.1 and Windows Sever 2012 R2. This non security update addresses issues caused by update KB4034681 (August 8, 2017). Microsoft lists the following fixes:

• This package contains d3dcompiler_47.dll; for more information, read the blog post, HLSL, FXC, and D3DCompile.
• Addressed issue in the event collector data that caused data corruption with % symbols in the user logon events (ID 4624) from other Domain Controllers (DCs).
• Addressed issue where the AppLocker rules wizard crashes when selecting accounts.
• Addressed an issue where spoolsv.exe crashes.
• Addressed issue where unsynchronized access within NTFS may lead to an error.
• Addressed issue where a LUN connection that was received after the buffer allocation during iSCSI statistic collection overflowed the buffer and caused error 0x19. A UI issue that hides the iSCSI targets will be addressed in an upcoming release.
• Addressed issue where an extremely high number of I/O flushes may lead to an error.
• Addressed issue where deleting an object that has many links in Active Directory causes replication to fail with Event 1084, error 8409 “A database error has occurred”. For additional information, read KB3149779.
• Addressed issue with an access violation in LSASS that occurs when Active Directory receives a malformed LsaLookupNames response. The signature of the LSASS AV is “The system process ‘C:\Windows\system32\lsass.exe’ terminated unexpectedly with status code -1073741819”. The system shuts down and restarts. Error 107374181 maps to 0xc0000005/STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION.
• Addressed issue where running chkdsk /scan unexpectedly triggers spotfix. Sometimes spotfix times out, and the system goes down.
• Addressed issue where the PowerShell cmdlet export-dfsrclone, which clones the DFSR database, fails for clustered volumes with 0x00000490=ERROR_NOT_FOUND. This prevents cloning of the DFSR databases from volumes that are already clustered.
• Addressed issue with a four to five second delay that occurs when you mount an NFS share on the Network Attached Storage from the client and execute the touch command on a file or folder. The application on the NFS clients crashes because the storage system doesn’t respond to clients for four seconds.
• Addressed issue where an MS Office application stops responding when opening files that are stored on a file server with the alternate data stream (ADS) attribute set on the non-deduplicated volumes.
• Addressed issue where when you enable quota on the storage servers and attempt to do backups on them, a crash may occur that results in data loss.
• Addressed issue where adding a new session host to an existing RDS collection fails. The error, “Brokername unable to configure the RD Session Host servers”, occurs if the UPDs are stored in a clustered file share.

The list of known issues contains the following items:

• NPS authentication may break, and wireless clients may fail to connect. Microsoft proposes, to add on server a 32-bit DWORD value DisableEndEntityClientCertCheck and set it to 0. The value is located within the key: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\RasMan\PPP\EAP\13\
• Japanese IME may hang in certain scenarios. The fix: Install update KB296240.

KB4034659 for Windows Sever 2012

Update KB4034659 is the Preview of Monthly Rollup for Windows Sever 2012. This non security update addresses issues caused by update KB4034665 (August 8, 2017). Microsoft lists the following fixes:

• Addressed an issue where the AppLocker rules wizard crashes when selecting accounts.
• Addressed an issue where spoolsv.exe crashes.

Other updates for Windows Server, .NET Framework etc.

Microsoft also released updates for several Windows Server versions, listed on this web page.

• Update for Windows Server 2008 (KB4019276): Update to add support for TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2 in Windows Server 2008 SP2
• Update for Windows Server 2008 (KB4036162): The desktop app WordPad crashes in Windows Vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2
• Update for Windows Server 2008 (KB4037616): The spoolsv.exe process crashes in Windows Vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2

For .NET Framework a collection of Preview Rollups has been announced under KB4035038. AskWoody mentioned here, that the KB article has been pulled (here is the content in Google cache). A list of known bugs in .NET Framework 4.7 may be found here.

KB4011043 for Outlook 2016

Microsoft has released on August 14, 2017, an out of band update KB4011043 for Outlook 2016 installed via msi files, as Askwoody mentioned. It fixes the following bug:

Add-ins do not load because of the “Operation Failed” failure that occurs when the Microsoft Installer (.msi)-based edition of Outlook 2016 is connected to Microsoft Exchange Server 2013.

This update is available via Download Center. The iCloud connections bug in Outlook 2007, raised after the last August 2017 patchday, seems to be still unfixed.

Similar articles:
Microsoft August 2017 Patchday Summary
Windows 10 V1703: Update KB4032188 (July 31, 2017)
Windows 10: Critical Updates KB4035631 and KB4035632
Patchday August 2017: Updates for Windows 7/8.1
Windows 10: August 2017 Updates KB4038220, KB4034674, KB4034658, KB4034660
Further Microsoft Updates August 8, 2017

[German]Microsoft has released Update KB4034661 for Windows 10 Anniversary Update (Version 1607) on August 16, 2017. This update shall be blocked in WSUS environments, because it breaks update search in Windows 10 clients.

Here is, what Update KB4034661 fixes

Update KB4034661 doesn’t contains security fixes nor new features. It just contains quality improvements (according to Microsoft). This update fixes issues, that has been addressed for Windows 8.1/Windows Server 2012 R2 August 15, 2017 Preview Update Rollup. Microsoft lists the following issues, that has been addressed:

• This package contains d3dcompiler_47.dll; for more information, read the blog post, HLSL, FXC, and D3DCompile.
• Addressed issue where a black screen appears when launching an application on Citrix XenApp that was deployed from Windows Server 2016. For more details, read CTX225819.
• Addressed issue where the User Account Control (UAC) prompt sometimes appears hidden under other opened windows.
• Addressed issue in the event collector data that caused data corruption with % symbols in the user logon events (ID 4624) from other Domain Controllers (DCs).
• Addressed issue where the PowerShell command Add-HgsAttestationTpmHost fails to find the Endorsement Key Certificate for a system even though the certificate exists.
• Addressed issue where, in some cases, an Encrypted Hard Drive device would not automatically unlock at system startup.
• Addressed issue where the AppLocker rules wizard crashes when selecting accounts.
• Addressed issue where third-party directory structures caused Disk Cleanup to render a boot drive inaccessible.
• Addressed issue where unsynchronized access in NtfsQueryLinksInfo led to a system crash.
• Addressed issue where an extremely high number of I/O flushes might lead to an error.
• Addressed a reliability issue that occurs when a user gives the wrong input to the smart card pin prompt.
• Addressed issue by increasing the time out window when starting Docker for Windows to avoid 0x5b4 errors.
• Addressed issue with Azure Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) when an ADFX server is configured to use an HTTP Proxy.
• Addressed issue where the calling IP address is not logged by 411 events in the Security Event log of ADFS 4.0 and Windows Server 2016 RS1 ADFS servers. This issue occurs even after enabling Success Audits and Failure Audits.
• Addressed issue where a computer account loses its domain membership with the error 1789, “The trust relationship between this workstation and the primary domain failed.” The same problem happens internally when a user password cannot be changed with error 0xc0000206, “The size of the buffer is invalid for the specified operation.”
• Addressed issue where, after a planned restart of the primary server, storage replication doesn’t automatically resume as expected. Also, Storage Replication service randomly fails after restart.
• Addressed issue where using a GPO logon script to map a network drive fails if the user disconnects from the network and restarts. When the user logs in again, the mapped drive is not available. This issue occurs even though the logon script has the persistence flag set to TRUE.
• Addressed issue where after uninstalling SMBv1, if you set the SPN validation level to 2, when you access a UNC share remotely (e.g., \\<MachineName>\C$), the request will fail with STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED.
• Addressed issue where the Remote Desktop client cannot connect or disconnects intermittently when trying to connect using the RD Gateway.
• Addressed issue where presenting an expired or revoked certificate to the ADFS Proxy server does not return an error to the user.

Browsing this list, I recognized the addressed error in User Account Control (UAC) prompt, I probably addressed within my blog post Windows: UAC opens hidden in background. Also the Disk Cleanup issue, that renders a boot drive inaccessible has been a topic in several MS Answers forum posts. Update KB4034661 changes the build number to 14393.1613 an. This Update is available via Windows Update or as download from Microsoft Update Catalog.

Update history lost and WSUS issues

Microsoft mentions several known issues. For instance, this update also cleans the update history (same as in KB4034658, see Windows 10 V1607: KB4034658 clears update history). And hidden updates will be shown again after installing this update and rebooting the machine. So the updates needs to be hidden again.

The more critical issue occurs in WSUS environments. Microsoft says, that the client is causing higher load (CPU, memory, network) during first scan. I’ve has addressed this issue briefly within my blog post Issues after Microsoft’s August Updates for KB4034658 (August 8, 2017). The clients stalls with error code 0x8024401C. A discussion may be found also here. Microsoft is investigation these issues, but a fix isn’t known till yet. My recommendation is to block this update in WSUS environments.

Similar articles:
Issues after Microsoft’s August Updates
Microsoft’s Windows (Preview) Updates (August 15, 2017)
LDAP-Bug in Updates KB4034679, KB4034664, KB4034670
Windows 10 V1607: KB4034658 clears update history
Microsoft August 2017 Patchday Summary
Windows 10 V1703: Update KB4032188 (July 31, 2017)
Windows 10: Critical Updates KB4035631 and KB4035632
Patchday August 2017: Updates for Windows 7/8.1
Windows 10: August 2017 Updates KB4038220, KB4034674, KB4034658, KB4034660
Further Microsoft Updates August 8, 2017

[German]Microsoft has released two cumulative Updates KB4034658 and KB4034661 for Windows 10 Anniversary Update (Version 1607) in August 2017. Both updates are causing issues with WSUS, the clients are reporting error 0x8024401c during update search.

In business environments Windows Server may be used to distribute updates within a company’s network using WSUS (Windows Server Update Services). But Microsoft failed 2017 several times and released updates, that broke WSUS (see my blog post July 2017 Updates KB4025336/KB4025331 breaks WSUS).

Windows 10 Version 1607: KB4034658 & KB4034661

In August 2017 Microsoft released two cumulative Updates KB4034658 (August 8, 2017) and KB4034661 (August am 16, 2017) for Windows 10 Anniversary Update (Version 1607). Both updates are causing WSUS issues, the clients are reporting error 0x8024401c during update search.

I received some reader comments and has mentioned this issue within my blog posts Issues after Microsoft’s August Updates and Windows 10 V1607: Update KB4034661 (August 16, 2017).

Error description

After installing the updates mentioned above on Windows 10 clients, and restarting the system, the clients are reporting error 0x8024401c during update search. I found on August 13, 2017 a blog post WSUS SUP causes high CPU and clients fail updates scan  mentions a high CPU and RAM load and posts some hint to fix this issue.

Robert Wray has published on August 15, 2017 an article 2017-08 update for Windows 10 Anniversary Update („1607“) breaks WSUS addressing this issue and mentions update KB4034658 a how to uninstall this package.

Microsoft has confirmed this bug

Writing the blog post Windows 10 V1607: Update KB4034661 (August 16, 2017) I noticed, that Microsoft is aware of this WSUS issue. The known issue section of KB4034658 and KB4034661 for Windows 10 Anniversary Update (Version 1607) says.

WSUS servers will exhibit increased CPU, memory, and network utilization when Windows Update clients perform their first scan after installing KB4034658.

Microsoft investigates the issue and will publish details as soon as possible. Until a fix is available, the only workaround is blocking these updates in WSUS.

[German]Currently it seems, that some users are facing serious issues with Microsoft’s Windows Store. Here are a few details (what I’ve found out) about that topics so far.

Is Windows Store for Windows RT dead?

It started this morning, when I read a short article from my German Windows Insider MVP colleague Martin Geuß at Dr. Windows. A German reader tipped Martin, that he can’t reach Windows Store with his Windows RT Surface.

 
(Source: Dr. Windows)

The user received the message shown above, saying, that his Windows version isn’t supported anymore from Windows Store.

This version of Windows is no longer supported by Windows Store.

The recommendation to upgrade to a new Windows version isn’t helpful for Windows RT users (they can upgrade from Windows RT to Windows RT 8.1, but that’s the end). Martin Geuß raised the question, whether Microsoft has pulled the Windows Store for Windows RT.

There are more cases

I searched the Internet and found at reddit.com this thread, where a Windows RT user reported 3 days ago the same issue. Some users posted a feedback, that the Windows Store is still reachable in Windows RT. Within this forum hread somebody wrote, that he updates his Surface RT to Windows RT 8.1. After that, the Store app reports:

This version of Windows is no longer supported by Windows Store.

He wasn’t able to access the store anymore. Searching the web, I found more, older incidents, where Windows RT users can’t access the store. 

But searching the web, it seems that it’s an issue for more Windows-Platforms. Within the comments of Martin’s article, I found a note, that the issue has been observed for:

Windows Phone 8 / 8.1
Windows RT 8 / 8.1
Windows 8 / 8.1
Windows 10 (1511)

but not all users are affected. Overall it seems that Microsoft’s Store App and Microsoft’s Windows Store is the most unreliable thing ever. Not good news for Windows RT users and imho really bad news for upcoming Windows 10S (S stands for Store only) users. As a rule of thumb: Keep your fingers away from Windows apps and Windows Store.

[German]Cumulative Updates for Windows 10 Anniversary Update (V1607) and Windows Server 2016 are causing a connection error 0x8024401c in WSUS environments after install. Microsoft has now published an explanation, why this occurs and how to workaround.

Update error 0x8024401c in Windows 10 V1607

In August 2017 Microsoft released two cumulative Updates KB4034658 (August 8, 2017) and KB4034661 (August am 16, 2017) for Windows 10 Anniversary Update (Version 1607). Both updates are causing WSUS issues, the clients are reporting error 0x8024401c during update search. Error code 0x8024401c stands for

WU_E_PT_HTTP_STATUS_REQUEST_TIMEOUT –

Same as HTTP status 408 – the server timed out waiting for the request.

I’ve discussed this issue within my blog post Windows 10 (V1607): KB4034658/KB4034661 causes WSUS error 0x8024401c. Microsoft finally has confirmed this issue, and I found on August 13, 2017 a blog post WSUS SUP causes high CPU and clients fail updates scan  mentions a high CPU and RAM load and posts some hint to fix this issue.

Microsoft explains the background for this error

Microsoft has posted an article High CPU/High Memory in WSUS following Update Tuesdays, explaining, what’s going on under the hood. The symptoms of this issue are:

• High CPU on your WSUS server – 70-100% CPU in w3wp.exe hosting WsusPool
• High memory in the w3wp.exe process hosting the WsusPool – customers have reported memory usage approach 24GB
• Constant recycling of the W3wp.exe hosting the WsusPool (identifiable by the PID changing)
• Clients failing to scan with 8024401c (timeout) errors in the WindowsUpdate.log
• Mostly 500 errors for the /ClientWebService/Client.asmx requests in the IIS logs

Those symptoms occur after installing an update for Windows 10 Version 1607 clients (Updates KB4022723, KB4022715, KB4025339 etc.). The reason for this behavior is:

WSUS has a caching mechanism whereby the first time update metadata is requested by any client WSUS will store it in memory. Further requests for the same update revision will retrieve the update metadata from memory instead of reading it from the database. Some of the metadata in the database is compressed, so not only must it be retrieved, it must be decompressed into memory, which is an expensive operation.

This results in the following scenario:

For large metadata packages and many simultaneous requests, it can take longer than ASP.NET’s default timeout of 110 seconds to retrieve all of the metadata the client needs. When the timeout is hit, ASP.NET disconnects the client and aborts the thread doing the metadata retrieval.

Then the client reports an update error 0x8024401c and fails with the update. The issue hasn’t been observed for Windows 10 V1703, because there are not enough cumulative updates to trigger the behavior discussed above – but the issue will occur in near future.

Microsoft addresses several workarounds within the Technet article to avoid an overload on WSUS:

• Configure IIS to stop recycling the App Pool
• Limit the number of inbound connections to WSUS
• Increase the ASP.NET timeout

Let’s hope, that this will help to prevent future WSUS issues with Windows 10 updates.

[German]Just a short note for the start of the new week: Microsoft plans to remove Resilient Files System (ReFS) support (partially) in most Windows 10 clients from Windows 10 Fall Creators Update onward. 

ReFS has been introduced in Windows Server 2012 and is available for Windows Server 2016. An overview how to use ReFS in Windows 10 may be found here. A comparison between ReFS and NTFS may be found here and at petri.com is an article why ReFs is better than NTFS (for several scenarios).

Microsoft has published recently a support article Features that are removed or deprecated in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, enlisting removed and deprecated features for Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (expected in September or October 2017):

The following features and functionalities in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update are either removed from the product in the current release (“Removed”) or are not in active development and might be removed in future releases (“Deprecated”).

I’ve blogged about that within my article Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (V1709): Things removed/deprecated. Windows backup is listed as ‘removed’ features for instance. But Microsoft wrote:

The list is subject to change and may not include every deprecated feature or functionality.

User @abbodi86 recognized during visiting the Microsoft support article, that there is an addendum, dated August 17, 2017, and mentionas Resilient File System.

Resilient File System (ReFS)

Creation ability will be available in the following editions only: Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows 10 Pro for Workstations.
Creation ability will be removed from all other editions.  All other editions will have Read and Write ability.

(added: August 17, 2017)

So, clients running Windows 10 Fall Creators Update and beyond are still able to read/write ReFS disks. But it’s no more possible, to format a disk with ReFs in Windows 10 clients, except Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows 10 Pro for Workstations.  (via)

Similar article:
Win10 Wiki
Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (V1709): Things removed/deprecated

[German]Success for German consumer rights advocates against Microsoft, which signed a waiver (cease and desist) not to download install files for a new operating system without user’s consensus. This was the consequence of Microsoft’s attempt, to force Windows 10 upgrades to Windows 7/8.1 systems from July 2015 up to July 2016.

Microsoft pushed Windows 10 aggressively on Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8.1 user systems from July 29, 2015 till July 29, 2016. Many users are ending with a damaged system, and in some cases, Microsoft paid a kind of compensation for such damages.

In Germany, consumer rights organization Verbraucherschutz Baden-Württemberg (BW) send Microsoft a cease and desist letter and requested an injunction, not to download install files for a new operating system on user systems without a user’s consensus, which Microsoft refused to sign.

The case went to German court and passed two instances. After a long time, where we seeing legal tricks from Microsoft’s lawyers, the Oberlandesgericht München decides, that the case was entitled. The case went back to the first court for a final decision.

Before this decision was made by a judge, Microsoft signed a waiver (criminal injunction) and hand it over to Verbraucherschutz Baden-Württemberg. The waiver says (full German text here):

Microsoft will not download install files for new operating systems to a user system’s hard disk without a user’s consent.

Because the free Windows 10 upgrade offer (and Microsoft’s methods to press this OS to Windows 7/8.1 systems) ended on July 29, 2016, this waiver seems without a consequence. But the question I’m asking: Does Microsoft’s feature-upgrades in combination with Windows 10 auto-update mechanism violates the cease and desist letter with the criminal injunction?

Some user of Windows RT 8.1 devices (Surface 2) are facing a crude issue: The Windows Store is no longer available to download apps or updating apps. First rumors, that Microsoft has pulled the store for Windows RT seems to be wrong.

I reported this issues last weekend within my blog post Is (Windows RT) Windows Store partially down?. Some users of Windows RT 8.1 machines are receiving a message from Windows Store, that ‘This version of Windows is no longer supported by Windows Store.’

(Source: Dr. Windows)

Some users interpreted this message in a way, that Microsoft has deactivated the Windows Store for Windows RT devices. But this isn’t true. First of all, not all users of a Windows RT device are affected. And also users of other devices (Windows 8.1) are facing Windows Store issues. Now a user at this reddit.com forum thread reported an Answer from Microsoft:

Answer from Microsoft (8/21/2017 9:33:16 AM): This is a known bug in Surface RT running Windows 8.1. Our Support Engineers are currently looking into it and are doing their best to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. We’ll keep you updated via this thread once a fix has been released.

So it seems to be an technical issue – but I have no clue yet to fix that flaw.

Microsoft has released Build 16267 of Windows Server to Windows Insider. Build 16267 is now available from the Windows Server Insider Preview download page. The announcement with more details has been made within the Windows-Blog.

Microsoft has released Preview Build 16267 of Windows 10 SDK. But there has been no announcement. A few details may be found at neowin.net.

After two weeks, where we haven’t seen a new build, Microsoft has released Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 16273 for PC in Fast Ring. The new build has been announced within the Windows-Blog.

There are only a few small new features, like Emoji notifications, a Bahnschrift font and similar things. The lists below contains other improvements.

Windows Shell Improvements

• We fixed an issue resulting in Start, Action Center and notification toasts at times having a background that was 100% transparent.
• We fixed an issue from recent flights where the Action Center icon might show it had some number of notifications but when you opened Action Center no notifications were displayed.
• We fixed an issue from recent flights where suggested apps were visible in Start despite the related setting being off. For now, if you encounter this please try toggling Settings > Personalization > Start > “Occasionally show suggestions in Start”.
• We fixed a recent issue where removed placeholder tiles in Start might come back after explorer.exe restarted.
• We fixed an issue resulting in certain live tiles not updating in the last flight, including the Weather and Money apps. If you were impacted by this you may need to unpin and repin the live tile for it to work again.
• We fixed an issue from recent flights where typing immediately after opening up the Start menu would sometimes not switch to Cortana, even though if you tapped the Cortana icon Cortana was up and running.
• We fixed an issue where notification groups in the Action Center couldn’t be dismissed by swiping across the app name. We also fixed a recent issue where notifications in the Action Center couldn’t be dismissed with pen.
• We’ve fixed some timing issues so that swiping to dismiss a notification toast should feel more reliable now.
• You can now middle click to dismiss a notification toast!
• We fixed an issue resulting in no “Safe to Remove Hardware” notification after following the device removal process from the “Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media” tray icon
• We fixed an issue where it wasn’t possible to tab to the quick action area of Action Center if there were no notifications visible.
• We fixed an issue where the network flyout might become unresponsive when Bluetooth was enabled.
• We fixed a deadlock resulting in Start, the network flyout, and other Shell UI elements becoming unresponsive after tethering certain Android phones.
• We fixed an issue that could potentially result in Start not launching after installing a 3rd party IME.
• We fixed an issue where if you started dragging a tile on Start just as the flip animation started in the tile, it could result in the tile becoming invisible under your finger until you released it.
• We fixed an issue where right clicking on an image file in File Explorer would show “Next desktop background” instead of “Set as desktop background” in recent flights.
• We fixed an issue where desktop icons sometimes couldn’t be drag-and-dropped to certain places on the desktop, even though the desired spot appeared to align to the same grid as the other icons already in place.
• We fixed an issue where desktop icons could become unexpectedly spaced out when logging in after the primary monitor’s DPI had changed.

Microsoft Edge Improvements

• When using Find on Page, pressing F3 will now go to the next result. Shift+F3 will go to the previous result.
• We fixed an issue resulting in certain websites not rendering correctly when used in inPrivate mode.
• We fixed an issue resulting in Microsoft Edge sometimes getting into a state where after right-clicking a website the context menu would immediately dismiss.
• We fixed an issue which resulted in the video element defaulting to a black background if the size didn’t match the aspect ratio of the video.
• We fixed an issue where right-clicking and selecting “copy link” would sometimes not work as expected.
• We fixed an issue where copying bitmap images from Microsoft Edge wouldn’t work.
• We fixed an issue where pasting Chinese, Japanese, or Korean text into Microsoft Edge in recent builds would result in question marks instead of the expected characters.
• We fixed an issue where misspelled words in input fields were sometimes not updated when a correction is selected from the spell checker.
• We fixed an issue from recent flights where a session cookie might unexpectedly get overwritten, potentially resulting in login issues on certain websites after a page refresh.
• We fixed an issue resulting in status updates to Facebook.com sometimes being erased during input.
• We fixed an issue causing certain controls such as calendar widgets to break on some sites.
• We fixed an issue for websites with images added using source-set where the height would sometimes unexpectedly be computed to 30px.
• We fixed an issue where clicking Run on a download in Microsoft Edge that required elevation would result in input no longer being received in that window until switching focus away and back to it.
• We fixed an issue resulting in the tab bar sometimes drawing incorrectly after dragging the window between two monitors with different DPIs.
• We fixed an issue from recent builds where you couldn’t use the letter ‘x’ when renaming a favorite.
• We fixed an issue resulting in a crash when using drag and drop to rearrange favorites.
• We fixed an issue resulting in not being able to type @ using the Hungarian or Czech keyboard in recent flights.
• We fixed an issue where PDFs containing xref streams might have rendered as blank pages in the last few flights in Microsoft Edge.
• Scrollbars in Microsoft Edge will now be the correct size on secondary monitors where the DPI differs from the primary monitor.

Input Improvements

• We fixed an issue that resulted in words sometimes being input twice when using the handwriting panel in certain websites using Microsoft Edge.
• We fixed an issue where you could end up with multiple underlined words when using shapewriting in a text field then switching focus away from and back to that text field and shapewriting some more.
• We fixed an issue in Win32 apps where a space wasn’t automatically inserted if you used shapewriting to write a word then tapped a letter to start a new word on the touch keyboard.
• We fixed an issue with the Hebrew touch keyboard where tapping certain keys didn’t produce the expected character. Please take a moment with this build to try out the touch keyboard in your language and let us know how it feels for you.
• We fixed an issue where the Full touch keyboard layout was unexpectedly not available at certain screen resolutions.
• We fixed an issue when using the Emoji Panel with Narrator where using tab to switch sections would resulting in Narrator repeating the old section name for each emoji instead of the current one.
• Changes to pen behavior in recent Insider builds have been met with positive feedback, however also caused drawing in certain apps to work incorrectly. In this Insider build we’ve made a change to address this feedback pertaining to Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, and Clip Studio Paint.

Other improvements and fixes

• We fixed the issue causing the Virus and Threat Protection pillar in Windows Defender Security Center to show as “unknown” after upgrading to the last build.
• We fixed an issue from recent flights resulting in the idle timer continually being reset – thus preventing the display from going to sleep.
• We fixed an issue resulting in an unexpected 0x800706BE error sometimes when trying to initiate a remote desktop connection in recent flights.
• We fixed an issue some Insiders were experiencing where Windows Update’s Delivery Optimization settings would reset back to default upon leaving the page.
• If you previously accessed Device Encryption on the About Settings page, you’ll find we’ve moved it to its own page under Settings > Update & Security > Device Encryption.
• We fixed an issue where the lock screen might unexpectedly just show your theme color instead of the selected custom or Spotlight image after upgrading in recent builds.
• We fixed an issue from recent flights resulting in certain apps crashing when attempting to use the app to capture a picture using the webcam.
• We fixed an issue resulting in Node.js (v6.9.4) not being able to run scripts stored in OneDrive or access any paths in OneDrive.
• We fixed an issue resulting in an unexpectedly large number of OneDrive app-requested download notifications.
• We fixed an issue where using Alt-P to open the preview pane in File Explorer for PDFs associated with Acrobat would say “This file can’t be previewed.” in recent builds instead of displaying their first page.We fixed an issue where right-clicking on the volume icon in the systray might sometimes unexpectedly take 3-5 seconds for the context menu to appear.
• We fixed an issue where changing the selected option in the dropdown under Multiple Displays in Display Settings didn’t do anything.
• We fixed an issue resulting in adding a phone or taking a new profile picture in Settings not working if Settings was run elevated.
• We fixed an issue resulting in DVD Player failing with error 0xC00D36B4 on machines with DX10 graphics cards.
• We fixed an issue for PowerShell in Japanese where the “た。” character of the sentence “検証 23% が 完了しました。” would display repeatedly when running SFC /scannow.
• We fixed an issue resulting in certain games like Cut the Rope, Buggy Racing and others from unexpectedly extending past the bottom of the screen when put in full screen mode in recent flights.
• We fixed an issue with the custom color picker, for example seem in Color Settings, where panning with touch across the colors would move the area rather than smoothly update the selected color.
• We fixed an issue resulting in acrylic material’s noise layer blinking in a second after the rest of the UI if the UI was animating in on top of a video.
• We’ve improved the rendering performance when using touch to pan UWP app windows that have applied acrylic material.
• We fixed an issue resulting in XAML controls sometimes unexpectedly becoming pure white in recent builds when transparency was enabled.
• We fixed an issue resulting in the OneNote app sometimes having rendering issues in recent flights (for example, missing text blocks).
• We fixed an issue resulting in Forza Horizon 3 crashing when loading (after selecting “continue”).
• As a result of low usage, Screen Saver functionality has been disabled in themes. Screen Saver functionality in Group Policies, Control Panel, and Sysprep is now deprecated but continues to be functional. Lock screen features and policies are preferred.

[German]It seems, that a partial outages for Windows Store for Windows RT 8.1 and Windows 8.has been solved. Here are a few details what I know so far about that issue.

Some background information

Since a week some users of Windows RT 8.1 (and Windows Phone and Windows 8.1) are claiming issues with Windows Store. Launching the Store app to visit Windows Store ends with an error message: 

This version of Windows is no longer supported by Windows Store.

(Source: Dr. Windows)

I’ve blogged about that within my post Is (Windows RT) Windows Store partially down? – and several users confirmed this issue. Searching the web brought me to this reddit.com thread, where a Windows RT user reported the same issue. Some users posted a feedback, that the Windows Store is still reachable in Windows RT. Within this forum thread somebody wrote, that he updates his Surface RT to Windows RT 8.1. And I read posts, where users of Windows Phone and Windows 8.1 are claiming the same issue.

The best explanation I found so far, has been given by my German Windows Insider MVP colleague Martin Geuß at Dr. Windows. He mentioned, that it probably depends on the Microsoft account used to access the store. One of his Surface 2 with Windows RT 8.1 failed to access the Windows Store with the above message. A second Surface 2 used by his wife was still able to browse the Windows Store.

Microsoft has confirmed this issue (see also the comment here within my blog post):

Answer from Microsoft (8/21/2017 9:33:16 AM): This is a known bug in Surface RT running Windows 8.1. Our Support Engineers are currently looking into it and are doing their best to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. We’ll keep you updated via this thread once a fix has been released.

Is Windows Store for Windows RT 8.1 up again?

Martin Geuß has posted today an updated status (German article Problem mit dem Store unter Windows (RT) 8.1 scheint gelöst). Just in brief: Martin wrote, that his Surface 2, the device with the Store access issue, was able this morning to access Windows Store again. All other attempts (resetting Windows RT, uninstalling updates, using wsreset.com or re-registering the store app using a powershell command) didn’t help.

I found this article, dated August 19, 2017, claiming also, that the Windows Phone store issue also has been fixed. So my question to people who has been affected by the Windows Store outage: Is the Store up again and running? And if not, what’s, if you create a new user account and issue a new Microsoft account?

Similar articles:
Is (Windows RT) Windows Store partially down?
Windows RT Store issues confirmed

[German]FoxIt PDF Reader has two critical zero-day-vulnerabilities, that hasn’t been patched yet. Now a third party security vendor has released a micro patch to close CVE-2017-10952.

Some background information

A couple of days ago I’ve blogged within my German blog about two critical vulnerabilities within FoxIt PDF-Reader (see my German blog post Zwei kritische Sicherheitslücken im Foxit PDF Reader). These vulnerabilities allows attackers remote code execution on a target system.

Vulnerability CVE-2017-10952 is caused by a write bug and has been discovered by Steven Seeley, working for Offensive Security, see. To use this vulnerability requires a FoxIt reader not configured in Safe Reading Mode. Safe Reading Mode is the default setting. Therefore FoxIt first says they won’t patch these vulnerabilities. After some web articles reported these insides, FoxIt made a decision to close the vulnerabilities. But that hasn’t been done yet.

With a little help from third party vendors

Today ACROS Security send me a mail, due to my blog post mentioned above. They informed me, that the company has developed a micro patch to fix vulnerability CVE-2017-10952.

ACROS Security is specialized in developing such micro patches, using a so called “0patch” technology. Details about this technology may be found within https://0patch.com. 0patch technology will allow vendors to deploy microscopic patches for vulnerabilities in their products, dramatically decreasing the time between vulnerability discovery and patch application.

Ok, let’s come back to FoxIt Reader. Within this blog post, folks from ACROS Security describes CVE-2017-10952 in detail. Then a micro patch written in Assembler will be introduced. If the 0patch agent is installed on Windows, the micro patch will be applied each time, FoxIt Reader is launched.

BTW: 0patch isn’t new. In March 2017 I’ve published the German blog post Temporärer Fix für Windows GDI-Sicherheitslücke a zero-day-exploit in Windows. The 0patch initiative has developed a micro patch to close this ACROS Security zero-day-exploit in Windows.

[German]Microsoft has released a new Firmware Update for Surface Pro 3 on August 24, 2017. It shall fixes issues with devices using Type Cover.

This update has been enlisted on Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3 Firmware Update History page. This update is available only for Surface Pro 3 devices with Windows 10 Anniversary Update 1607 installed, using a Surface Pro Type Cover or a Surface Pro Signature Type Cover.

At AskWoody.com there is a mention, that Surface Pro Type Cover suddenly stops working. So it seems the fix, but only for Windows 10 V1607. According to AskWoody.com, Barb Bowman also reported, that Firmware-Updates are shipped for Surface Pro 3 with Windows 10 V1703.

.@thurrott my SP3 w/1703 JUST got this – note the dates from MARCH? I have no idea what the @Surface folks are doing. pic.twitter.com/ZlPzKESjcQ

— Barb Bowman (@barbbowman) 24. August 2017

But those packages are dated March 2017 – mysterious.

[German]It seems that Microsoft Security Essentials is causing a curious issue: Suddenly Windows Update shows double definition update entries, and the update history shows many install errors for some definition updates. The definition update will be installed multiple times.

A German blog reader pointed me to this issue. Because I could not reproduce this issue the first time, I posted a German article Microsoft Security Essentials: Doppelte Definitionsupdates – and immediately received reader feedback. Then a couple of hours later, I observed the issue on my Windows 7 production machine. Here are a few details about that mysterious issue.

A more detailled error description

If Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) is installed under Windows 7, definition updates (signature updates) are offered via Windows Update. In normal cases, only one definition update will be shown within Windows Update window.

But some users are facing the scenario shown in the above screenshot. There is a definition update for MSE listed twice – on build 1.249.1294.0 and on 1.249.211.0. Entering the update history, there are several failed entries (see the screenshot below).

Addendum: I found an Microsoft Answers forum thread Microsoft Security Essentials Update Definition Number 1.249.211.0 Keeps On Coming Back, where another user has documented this issues (with screenshots from an English Windows 7 with MSE).

A possible fix

In most cases, Microsoft suggests to uninstall Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) und reinstall MSE again. But within the Microsoft Answers forum thread Microsoft Security Essentials Update Definition Number 1.249.211.0 Keeps On Coming Back, a user reported, that this wasn’t helpful. He wrote, that runing Windows Update Troubleshooter (see this MS page) solved his issue.

Checking the details in update history

One of my German readers reported details from his update history in Windows 7. His failed definition update installs created the following events:

Ergeignisanzeige
Ereignis ID:20, Quelle: Windows Update Client
Installationsfehler: Die Installation des folgenden Updates ist mit Fehler 0x80070643 fehlgeschlagen: Definitionsupdate für Microsoft Security Essentials – KB2310138 (Definition 1.251.1.0)

Error 0x80070643 is a more generic error and stands for ERROR_INSTALL_FAILURE. Then I’ve checked the details for a definition update failed with an install error on my Windows 7 machine. I received the error code 0x80070643.

Ereignis ID:20, Quelle: Windows Update Client
Installationsfehler: Die Installation des folgenden Updates ist mit Fehler 0x80070643 fehlgeschlagen: Definitionsupdate für Microsoft Security Essentials – KB2310138 (Definition 1.251.1.0)

It says, Windows Update Client detected an install error 0x80070643 during installing definition update (signature update) for Microsoft Security Essentials KB2310138. Error code 0x80070650 stands for ERROR_INVALID_FIELD (the field isn’t present).

Searching the web did not reveal any helpful hint (this article covers error 0x80070645). So I guess, there is either a missing update package referenced within the update’s meta data. Or the meta data entries are damaged or wrong. Because, the issue has been observed since a week, I guess, something is broken on Microsoft’s side. Any insights or suggestions from your side?

Addendum: I posted my findings at Microsoft Answers forum within the thread Microsoft Security Essentials Update Definition Number 1.249.211.0 Keeps On Coming Back, and escalated the issue. Let’s see, which feedback we receive.

Microsoft has released a new Windows Insider Build 16275 of Windows 10 in Fast Ring on August 25, 2017). This new build fixes a couple of bugs within the previous builds.

The announcement has been made within Windows-Blog, where also Build 15245 for Windows 10 Mobile has been mentioned. Currently not all 64 bit versions for foreign languages has been released. Here is, what’s improved or fixed.

• We fixed an issue resulting in Asphalt 8 not accepting input in recent flights.
• We fixed an issue from recent flights where when Slideshow was enabled resuming from sleep a second time might place the Lock screen in a state where it couldn’t be dismissed without pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del.
• We fixed an issue that caused minimized per-monitor DPI aware windows to miss DPI changes and end up with a mix of DPI scaling upon restoring.
• We fixed an issue in XAML resulting in text animations appearing slightly blurry in the last flight until the animation had stopped (for example, when loading the main page of Settings).
• We fixed an issue resulting in progress wheels on certain websites in Microsoft Edge unexpectedly moving out of place during their rotation.
• We fixed an issue resulting in an unexpected change in mouse sensitivity in the last flight for PCs using non-default display scaling.
• We fixed an issue resulting in the taskbar being unexpectedly thick if you booted up the PC while plugged in to an external monitor with a different DPI.

[German]Microsoft has released a new Update KB4039871 for Windows 8.1 machines on August 25, 2017. It’s a bit mysterious, what Microsoft intends with this update.

I has been informed by a blog reader, who uses a couple of Windows 8.1 machines within a hotel environment (thx Leon). He noticed this night, that some of those machines received update KB4039871 (four systems from eight).

Currently update KB4039871 hasn’t been documented by Microsoft. There is no KB article nor an entry within Microsoft Update Catalog. What I found out so far: This update has been flagged as important, but it’s still optional and has a size of 271.7 MB (for 64 bit). A restart of Windows is required to install this update.

My best guess is, that this update fixes some issues caused by Monthly Preview Rollup Update KB4034663 (see Microsoft’s Windows (Preview) Updates (August 15, 2017)). The size of Update KB4034663 (64 bit) is 271.0 MB.

I should note, that the japanese webite addresses this update also. If we know, that Preview Rollup Update KB4034663 addresses issues within Japanese Input Mode Editor (IME), it makes sense to assume, that the update addresses an issue within this area. At askwoody.com there are similar thoughts.

Currently I recommend not to install this update until more details are available.

Some short note for administrators using PowerShell scripts. Microsoft says, Version 2.of PowerShell is deprecated. I’ve mentioned briefly within my blog post Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (V1709): Things removed/deprecated. Now Microsoft has posted the article Windows PowerShell 2.0 Deprecation within PowerShell Team Blog with more details.