Windows 10 patches KB 3147062, KB 3152599 show simpler is better

In a world of monstrous Windows 10 cumulative updates and their attendant problems, Microsoft has released a couple of simple, one-off, little patches. They’re a breath of fresh air.

So far this year, we’ve had a mess of cumulative updates, a handful of dynamic updates (“used by Windows 10 to obtain critical driver, component, and setup improvements during the initial setup”), a bunch of servicing stack updates (to fix the Win10 fixer-upper), even an occasional housekeeping patch like KB 3125217.

I’ve seen singing bears and uppity orangs that wanna be like you too. But I haven’t seen a single-purpose Win10 patch in many months. Here are the two Microsoft recently released:

KB 3147062 — “Signing verification failure breaks audio functionality in Windows 10 Version 1511” — fixes a problem with the Conexant Audio Processing Object, which fails a signing verification. Since the driver doesn’t appear as signed, Conexant audio goes down the tubes.

KB 3152599 — “Preinstalled system applications and Start menu may not work when you upgrade to Windows 10 Version 1511” — tackles “a race condition that causes certain registry keys to become inaccessible to logged-in users. Therefore, the preinstalled system applications that have to touch those registry keys can’t be installed during the appx deployment phase.” The patch says it only applies to machines upgraded from Windows 8 to Windows 10 version 1511, but I’m not sure I believe that literally. (Win 8.1? Win7?)

Here’s why these two little patches are so important: Microsoft split them out from the massive security-update-driver-update-everything-update-cumulative-updates that we’ve seen. That is important because people have a chance to see if the patches break anything.

If a patch messes up something that worked previously, you need to go through complex steps to uninstall it (Start > Settings > Update & security > Advanced options > View your update history > Uninstall updates) and block it from appearing again (wushowhide). But if KB 3152599 really messes up your Start menu, say, you can pluck it like a paw paw from Win10’s maw, and go about your way.

That’s not as easy as it used to be — in Win7 and 8.1 you would simply uncheck the patch in Windows Update — but at least a bad driver patch has evolved from a needle-in-a-haystack experience and turned into a tractable problem.

The patches haven’t yet shown up on my Win10 main machines, and it isn’t clear if they’ll only appear on machines with Conexant audio drivers or those with faulty Win 8 (8.1?) upgrades.

Let’s hope we’re seeing a change of heart in Redmond.