PATCH WATCH By Susan Bradley We might be a bit busy in the next few months. Not with updates, but dealing with headlines. Why? Because AI tools are now turning to the task of reviewing a lot of code that hasn’t been looked at in a long time. First up? No, not Windows. Not Apple. […]

I was reading the post of Mikael Nystrom, who regularly consults and assists with businesses and deployment. One of his comments caught my eye — the boring but important stuff. He offers up a PowerShell script to review UEFI & Secure Boot TPM & BitLocker VBS, Credential Guard, HVCI LSA protection / LSASS PPL Defender […]

ISSUE 23.18.1 • 2026-05-07 By Susan Bradley It’s time to prepare for the May updates, which includes pausing and deferring them. That’s why the MS-DEFCON level is going to 2. There may be some confusion about the recent changes to the level. You’ll recall that I changed the level to 4 on April 28 and […]

Many days ago, Microsoft posted an IT pro-focused post on patching and a Windows Autopatch report. What caught my eye was the recommendation to install the latest security updates as follows: Within 3 days to be considered current (and reported as current) Within 7 days to help ensure devices aren’t subject to vulnerabilities (and reported […]

The issue with Windows 11 KB5083769 causing problems with various backup software is exposing something else that is concerning to me. Something in the monthly patching processes is performing an aggressive disk clean-up process of Windows update files. As a result, many of you – too many, frankly – are reporting that you don’t see […]

Erland Sommarskog reached out to me regarding a new project: ErrorCodeReference (ECR). If you’ve ever been stumped by the useless and unhelpful Microsoft error codes, check out the site. For example, let’s check out a recent post — which points to error 0x80070643. My two cents regarding reading the suggestions: overall, very good advice. But […]

ISSUE 23.17.2 • 2026-04-29 By Susan Bradley This is a trending story. On the same day I sent out an MS-DEFCON Alert recommending installing the April updates, Ira Shapiro alerts us to issues with backup software. I’m not seeing this with all backup software, but some vendors have mentioned the matter in various forums. The […]

ISSUE 23.17.1 • 2026-04-28 By Susan Bradley The April updates continue to dribble out more fixes for Secure Boot certificates for some systems. But once you receive the April updates, you still may be waiting for the new certs to be installed. That happened to me on some systems. Nonetheless, the patching world is relatively […]

ON SECURITY By Susan Bradley One thing the World Wide Web has done in recent years is introduce new ways to scam, trick, entice, and generally be a drag on our time — and potentially a hit to our pocketbooks. Here are some threats I’ve seen in recent months. Read the full story in our […]

I’m not yet ready to give my final word on operating system updates, but for sure it’s time to check your browsers. Firefox 150 is out with new features and fixes to 271 vulnerabilities found with AI techniques and the Claude Mythos preview. I expect to see similar bug counts in all of the browsers. […]

Seeing a post in the forums from someone asking for guidance in regard to a device that will last at least 10 years reminded me of another sunsetting product — Kindle. I know I’m going to have to reach out to some of my book-reading friends and ask whether they know how long they’ve had […]

I’m into gadgets that do things around the house. Too often with tech and gadgets, their originators end up selling off the technology to another vendor that doesn’t treat it was well as it should. One that I still rely on to this day is Nest Protect smoke alarms. If you have smoke in one […]

PATCH WATCH By Susan Bradley One of my complaints on behalf of consumers is that information about the new security certificates for Secure Boot has been vague — nearly hidden. Unless you are an AskWoody reader, you might not even be aware that there is an issue with Secure Boot certificates — not to mention […]

I’ve updated the master patch list here.  Please note I am not recommending installing updates at this time, we are just testing and reporting. Too early to tell how the month will be and if we will have any out of band updates to fix issues.. I’ll be updating that page and monitoring for issues. As […]

Public service announcement for April 2026: Today is Patch Tuesday and it’s landing the day before the US Tax filing deadline. If you haven’t filed your income taxes, there is still time to file an extension.  This is also not a good day to be installing updates to your computer you will be using to […]

PATCH WATCH By Susan Bradley Someone recently asked whether they could install just the security part of Apple updates and ignore all the other parts. Just as with Microsoft Windows, the ability to get just the code that pertains to security issues, without changing anything else, is no longer an option. Neither Microsoft nor Apple […]

TAME YOUR TECH By Susan Bradley Are you still using your original email address and account from your Internet service provider? Is that ISP notifying you that it wants to get out of the email business?  In years past, you signed with an Internet provider. and as part of that service. they handed you an […]

On March 26, Microsoft released the preview update of KB5079391 (for Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2). Soon after, Microsoft pulled back and stopped it from being offered because of reported installation errors. On March 31, Microsoft released KB5086672 that — at the initial reading — gave me the impression its was only fixing issues that […]

PATCH WATCH By Susan Bradley Is Microsoft finally listening? We’ve been through this rodeo before. We’ve seen vendors make changes and then pull back, only to make changes once again. So which vendor has decided to do a mea culpa and perhaps bend a bit to its customer base? Microsoft. In the recent Windows Insider […]

Spotted an interesting post that discussed how to ensure your health information doesn’t get slurped up by other sites. While this was discussing Covered California, the same is true for other websites. Change browser settings to be more aggressive on blocking things. Install privacy browser extensions (ones that you and the community trust) Have multiple […]