Microsoft 24H2: The Reality Versus Self Awareness

November 4, 2024

dino orangeSorry. Written by a dumb humanoid. Art? It is AI, folks. Eighty year old dinobabies cannot draw very well in my experience.

I spotted a short item titled “Microsoft Halts Windows 11 24H2 Update for Many PCs Due to Compatibility Issues.” Today is October 29, 2024. By the time you read this item, you may have a Windows equipped computer humming along on the charmingly named 11 24H2 update. That’s the one with Recall.

image

Microsoft does not see itself as slightly bedraggled. Those with failed updates do. Thanks, ChatGPT, good enough, but at least you work. MSFT Copilot has been down for six days with a glitch.

Now if you work at the Redmond facility where Google paranoia reigns, you probably have Recall running on your computing device as well as Teams’ assorted surveillance features. That means that when you run a query for “updates”, you may see screens presenting an array of information about non functioning drivers, printer errors, visits to the wonderfully organized knowledge bases, and possibly images of email from colleagues wanting to take kinetic action about the interns, new hires, and ham fisted colleagues who rolled out an update which does not update.

According to the write up offers this helpful advice:

We advise users against manually forcing the update through the Windows 11 Installation Assistant or media creation tool, especially on the system configurations mentioned above. Instead, users should check for updates to the specific software or hardware drivers causing the holds and wait for the blocks to be lifted naturally.

Okay.

Let’s look at this from the point of view of bad actors. These folks know that the “new” Windows with its many nifty new features has some issues. When the Softies cannot get wallpaper to work, one knows that deeper, more subtle issues are not on the wizards’ radar.

Thus, the 24H2 update will be installed on bad actors’ test systems and subjected to tests only a fan of Metasploit and related tools can appreciate. My analogy is that these individuals, some of whom are backed by nation states, will give the update the equivalent of a digital colonoscopy. Sorry, Redmond, no anesthetic this go round.

Why?

Microsoft suggests that security is Job Number One. Obviously when fingerprint security functions don’t work and the Windows Hello fails, the bad actor knows that other issues exist. My goodness. Why doesn’t Microsoft just turn its PR and advertising firms lose on Telegram hacking groups and announce, “Take me. I am yours!”

Several observations:

  1. The update is flawed
  2. Core functions do not work
  3. Partners, not Microsoft, are supposed to fix the broken slot machine of operating systems
  4. Microsoft is, once again, scrambling to do what it should have done correctly before releasing a deeply flawed bundle of software.

Net net: Blaming Google for European woes and pointing fingers at everything and everyone except itself, Microsoft is demonstrating that it cannot do a basic task correctly.  The only users who are happy are those legions of bad actors in the countries Microsoft accuses of making its life difficult. Sorry. Microsoft you did this, but you could blame Google, of course.

Stephen E Arnold, November 4, 2024

Comments

Got something to say?





  • Archives

  • Recent Posts

  • Meta