Microsoft → [WIN7] Win 7 updates to avoid, or be careful with

I created a list of Win 7 updates that one may want to avoid, and the 'why' (after = ) if that is not immediately obvious from the official short description.

KB2505438 - Slow performance in applications that use the DirectWrite API on a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 = It often breaks fonts (see also KB454826)
KB2670838 - Platform update for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 = breaks AERO functionality and gives you blurry fonts on some websites
KB2952664 - Compatibility update for upgrading Windows 7 = Windows 7 nagware patch that touts the Windows 10 upgrade
KB2977759 - Compatibility update for Windows 7 RTM = W10 Diagnostics Compatibility telemetry
KB2990214 - Update that enables you to upgrade from Windows 7 to a later version of Windows
KB3021917 - Update to Windows 7 SP1 for performance improvements (telemetry)
KB3022345 - Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry -> Replaced by KB3080149
KB3050265 - Windows Update Client for Windows 7: June 2015 = WU service updated to accept upgrade to W10 + other fixes
KB3068707 - Customer experience telemetry points (update appears to be nuked from microsoft.com)
KB3068708 - Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry
KB3075249 - Update that adds telemetry points to consent.exe in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7
KB3080149 - Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry

Obviously, not all updates listed above are equally bad, and this just a guideline to help you to decide on questionable updates.

The official URL to look up these KB is of the form: »support.microsoft.com/en ··· /nnnnnnn where "nnnnnnn" is the KB number.

Additional items, enhanced descriptions and/or explanations and critiques are all welcome.

I wish there was some way to blacklist MS updates. Its a pain having to go through them all, even when you know which ones to uncheck.

By the way, what do you mean when you say "telemetry". Pardon my ignorance.

Spying.

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telemetry

It's a royal pain to go through if you have a fresh install (like what I'm doing right now -- 196 updates in one big sweep ), but once you finished with the first pass, it's not much of an issue any more. Plus I think some updates may have already been pulled, so they will no longer show up.

Thanks for that list! I copied and pasted to a Word.doc so I could check when updates appear. Know this will certainly come in handy in the future!

I recently did a clean install of Win 7 SP1 from ISO, and first thing I did before updating is set updates to notify but not download or install. After the initial update check which took forever, it conveniently put all the bad guys into the Optional category, which made life much easier. I just ignored all Optional updates and only installed the good.

Thanks for the list, this contains most of the ones I ran into in previous lists also. It's good to know which ones to avoid. I now (after taking 2 days to install) feel like I actually have a clean Win 7 again.

Btw, you left out one of the most dastardly updates:

KB3035583 GWX update installs Get Windows 10 app on Win 7 and 8.1

This one keeps being re-released by MS as recommended or important, so watch out for this one.

Will add it to the list later. I think some of its prerequisites are in the original list, and if they are not installed, 3035583 won't get installed either.

I think I was only offered about 5 or 6 from the list I posted, although one was offered twice, once as important and once as optional. Go figure....

Anyone got an opinion on 3083710? It's "important".

It seems to be an update to the Windows Update client; the 'more info' page isn't even pretending to give any information.

I'm inclined to throw it away on the general grounds that Windows Update seems to have become pretty shifty and won't look you in the eye any more.

I agree with you on that one. I added it to my list of bad ones for the same reasons...

But how can you say that? MS describes it as "an update that contains some improvements to Windows Update Client'... can't get any more detailed than that! Also, according to some material on the Infoworld website, 3083710 and another unrelated update (2999226) are rather ephemeral - their presence in the Win Update list seems to come and go for some users.

Just 'An Update that contains Some Improvements'... Sounds kind of like 'You've got to Pass it in order to See what's In it'... And we know how well THAT works...

longer list
Windows updates to NEVER install:

KB2505438 - Slow performance in applications that use the DirectWrite API on a computer that is running

Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 = It often breaks fonts (see also KB454826)
KB2670838 - Platform update for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 = breaks AERO functionality and

gives you blurry fonts on some websites
KB2922324 – (reportedly pulled, uninstall it anyway if already installed)
KB2952664 – prepares system for upgrade to Windows 10 (sends a bunch of telemetry data to M$, reported to

corrupt system files)
KB2976978 – prepares system for upgrade to Windows 10
KB2977759 – prepares system for upgrade to Windows 10, installs telemetry
KB2990214 – prepares system for upgrade to Windows 10
KB3014460 – affects windows 8 only
KB3015249 – adds more damn telemetry
KB3021917 – prepares system for upgrade to Windows 10
KB3022345 – installs diagnostic tracking service, reported to corrupt system files
KB3035583 – pitches the free Windows 10 upgrade
KB3044374 – prepares system for upgrade to Windows 10
KB3050265 – supposedly fixes an issue with windows update, but also changes system files to support upgrade to

Windows 10
KB3050267 – prepares system for upgrade to Windows 10
KB3065987 – makes “improvements” to the windows update client (really just more Win10 bullshit)
KB3065988
KB3068707 - Customer experience telemetry points (update appears to be nuked from microsoft.com)
KB3068708 – installs telemetry service, prepares system for upgrade to Windows 10
KB3075249 – adds yet more telemetry
KB3075851 – makes “improvements” to the windows update client (really just more Win10 bullshit)
KB3075853 - updated Windows Update stuff for the upgrade process
KB3080149 – adds yet more telemetry
KB3083225 ?
KB3083324 - Update Client for Windows 7
KB3083325 ?
KB3083710 Windows Update Client for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2: October 2015
KB3083711 Windows Update Client for Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2: October 2015 ()

Very quickly it will be more straightforward to figure out which updates to install and skip everything else, as Woody Leonhard suggested recently:
»www.askwoody.com/2015/ms ··· -locked/

As he says, the security updates are worth considering -- I'm still waiting until the weekend after initial release to make sure none of those are unstable.

Well it seems now MS has finally started pushing Win10 hard.
as of last night on computers that never had the "get win 10" app an optional update that's checked by default is trying to upgrade computers to win10.

the bad part is it doesn't have a KB number. Any ideas?

I'm using one machine as a guinea pig with settings still in Auto. I haven't seen a definitive or technical-flavored explanation of what issues these WU updates address (Microsoft used to do something like that), but I never installed GWX (which has remained optional) and so far that machine has not been offered Windows 10. The only WU update it hasn't seen yet is this one (3083710), since the October updates are still pending.

Have you pulled a WU log file or (multiple ones)? If so, what does it say?

thanks, i uninstalled a pile of KB updates.
and annoyingly, i know for a fact 1 i have now uninstalled at least 3x.

did the uninstalls, reboot, check for updates, hid the ones that want to reapply.

the one i've gotten rid of 3x even now wants to keep getting applied (KB3035583)

i have no doubt even tho i've hid them, they're going to want to keep coming back.

After checking a few systems it turned out only the Pro but not the ent systems were getting it.

All enduser systems should be win 7 ent, its only a few that ended up with pro.

Also added a GP that wasn't needed till today that blocks it.

I've been trying to unistall some KB on 2 machines and one locked up when trying to shut down.

Two this morning including KB3035583 reinstalled themselves when it rebooted in the uninstall procedure with today's date. Uninstalling the new entry did remove them.

BTW On one of these it happened when I was offline.

That one for me disappeared as quickly as it appeared and assume MS took it back for review

I believe that's a group policy update, and it has no "bad stuff"

I have updated my list, changes:
- removed KB022345 and KB3068707 since I verified that they are no longer offered
- added KB3035583 (that was a *major* omission in my 1st post)
- added direct link to MS page
- added + and - in front of the KB number to indicate if it was offered to me, or not

+ KB2505438 - Slow performance in applications that use the DirectWrite API on a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 -- It often breaks fonts (see also KB2454826) [comes as Unchecked]
+ KB2670838 - Platform update for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 - breaks AERO functionality and gives you blurry fonts on some websites
+ KB2952664 - Compatibility update for upgrading Windows 7 = Windows 7 nagware patch that touts the Windows 10 upgrade
- KB2977759 - Compatibility update for Windows 7 RTM = W10 Diagnostics Compatibility telemetry
- KB2990214 - Update that enables you to upgrade from Windows 7 to a later version of Windows
+ KB3021917 - Update to Windows 7 SP1 for performance improvements [telemetry]
+ KB3035583 - Update installs Get Windows 10 app in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1
- KB3050265 - Windows Update Client for Windows 7: June 2015 = WU service updated to accept upgrade to W10 + other fixes
+ KB3068708 - Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry
+ KB3075249 - Update that adds telemetry points to consent.exe in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7
+ KB3080149 - Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry

Some KBs can be offered multiple times in spite of being hidden, other KBs such as KB2670838 may get installed anyhow (!!!) in spite of being previously hidden. In this case, I believe KB2670838 was installed with IE11.

Here are two images showing what I had/have hidden. The first is after the initial batch of roughly 200 updates, but before IE11, .net 4.52, and a small number of incremental updates.


After initial batch

It appears that KB2505438 was superseded by KB2670838. (See »support.microsoft.com/en ··· l%20info)

Based on what's been in other threads here I'm accepting and installing only Security Updates and definitely avoiding anything that mentions "improving" Windows Updates. Those two guidelines have worked well so far.

All the other problematic updates were removed manually when this topic became hot news on DSLR in August.

>>aurgathor: I created a list of Win 7 updates that one may want to avoid

I don't have anything pertinent to add to the discussion but I do want to say thank you very much! for taking the time to create (and update!) the list. It's been helpful and I'm relieved to know that none of these suckers has been installed on my system...

Thanks, I guess that at least partly explains both anomalies. I looked into 2505438, but there were no notice there.

Well now I'm wondering which ADMX file it is because on my home domain I don't have the setting in my home GP management.

----------------------------------------
Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates / Windows Components / Windows Update Policy

Setting: Turn off the upgrade to the latest version of Windows through Windows Update
---------------------------------------

@#%#$^%

KB2952664 - i did a windows update check and this one wants to reinstall. no doubt lots of everything i removed are going to keep popping up so later i'm going to make a list based on what's written above in this thread and once or twice a month when i do a manual check i'll make sure none of them get inadvertently reinstalled.

also, i read that MS is releasing within the next few weeks another version of win10 which should be better than the current one out there (for upgrade purposes). i was keeping an eye out on all the win10 issues since july cos a friend was insisting he wanted to upgrade win7 to win10. last week he finally told me he wasn't going to do it cos it finally penetrated that too many ppl have been having too many problems in doing the upgrade. and i'm relieved cos i'm in canukistan and he's in LA - i give him whatever help i can in resolving his puter issues but was worried an upgrade wouldn't go well for him and there'd be nothing i could do to help. he's 79 yrs old, fixed pension, and coming up with repair shop costs is difficult.

so gbye win10 ye bastard - i don't have to worry about it anymore

edit
bloody hell KB2670838
i KNOW i removed this and the damn thing is somehow back. i just uninstalled it.

Like tlbepson , I also say thank you for this list. I'm overdue to fresh install my rig at home and will keep this list (and thread) for that day I start over.

One thing you may want to do (if you haven't already done so), is to do a Windows Update Cleanup after uninstalling updates.
Even though Uninstalled, the Source download is still sitting in the WU cache...