Windows 10: KB4078130 Update to Disable Mitigation against Spectre, Variant 2

Not updating anything else until the likes of Intel and Microsoft can demonstrate that they actually know what they doing, which so far I'm seeing little signs of.

 

[/quote] Hah! I wondered what it did. Suspected this since it appeared to do nothing when I ran the executable.
I had already disabled that Spectre variant through the registry when word first same out.

 

I downloaded it and then tried to open the downloaded file, but nothing happened. What do I need to do after I download it?

 

Apparently all it does is change a registry setting, and it probably did that.

 

I've got Meltdown patches in place now, according to InSpectre, but not Spectre patches. So, I have no need to install this in the first place.

 

*Ditto *Wink

 

Evidently, there is an expected reboot rate with Windows 10 and probably in previous versions as well. What is the expected reboot rate in Windows 10? Knowing this rate would help determining, if the patch should be rolled back, or not.

 

One thing to consider no matter how frequent, they said data loss. So I would think you lose what you are doing when the reboot occurs. Even if it is just a page of work it is unnecessary waste of time. One opinion.

 

On 13.01.2018,i've reinstalled Windows 10 version 1709 on my PC after i applied a new BIOS version with updated micro-code (yes intel fix for spectre),and since that,i don't experienced any issues with my PC,maybe a bit performance impact,but what is bother me now,is Intel who sayd that almost all OEM's producators should remove that BIOS who contain fix for spectre from their website,and wait to a better fix with even less impact of performance,and me i already applied that BIOS,install older version of BIOS over the newest one is a bit risky for me.

LE: My system is Kaby Lake,i3 7100 with ASUS H110M-CS,i did not have any restarts on my PC with those intel fixes,so i guess i'm okay.

 

[/quote] We have a laptop that is experiencing frequent reboots so applied the fix. I have checked and both settings in the registry are set to 1.

However, the frequent reboots are continuing. When the fix was run the file seemed to somehow lose the .exe extension which makes no sense to me but might this be significant?

Plan B was to do a repair install but unfortunately the machine rebooted during the download of installation media. I am now downloading the media onto a USB drive and hope that will work.

If not, any other suggestions would be welcomed...

 

I think that would have been worded better if they had said "If you experience reboots that were not expected". So, yeah, nice gaffe on their part, eh?

Data loss is possible - not definite. I've rebooted in the middle of doing things plenty of times (forced reboot - aka reset button / forced power off) and not lost a thing.

It's hit and miss, but the general rule of thumb is "The more times your machine abnormally and randomly reboots, the better your chances are for data loss." Which leads to the original rule of thumb: "Backup, backup backup."

Try using GRC's InSpectre to see which you are patched for (and for the ones actually installed on your system, you can disable them and reboot and see if it makes a difference).

That will be a lot faster than doing a repair install / clean install / reset / whatever...

And even if you have downloaded it already before, download it again - it's small, for one thing, and he's still updating it, for another, so it's more than likely that any previously downloaded copy is out of date.

 

Is that a "gaffe", or some dev/tech people wrote the release and it slipped by the PR department? *ROFLMAO2

 

Ehmmm......?

 

InSpectre instead sets those values to "3"., but here, they say, the values should be both "1" in order to disable it. What is right?
Actually there is one more key got created by the "kb4078130_b86f0bf2dc0866a0e117ed2d4a5302fab0493a7b" but not mentioned nowhere named "041f1d33-a86a-4d7a-a2da-cf4b265131f9" value "0".
Anybody knows what that means?

 

Did the repair install anyway which does seem to have solved the rebooting issue (though it's early days yet!). I also downloaded InSpectre and ran it on both our laptops and both say they are vulnerable for Spectre, giving the following information:

This system's protection against the Spectre vulnerability has been deliberately disabled by system settings. Even if the system's hardware is able to manage the Spectre threat, the operating system's settings will need to be changed to enable Spectre protection.

Windows' Spectre vulnerability protection (only) has been deliberately disabled by settings in this system's registry. Although overall system performance will be improved, this system will be vulnerable to Spectre attacks. Meltdown protection has not been disabled.

I ran the KB4078130 update on both laptops initially, but then did a repair install on one, which presumably replaced the registry, so not sure why both would be showing vulnerabilities to Spectre.

Assuming the reboot problem is fixed, is it possible (does it make sense) to change the registry setting(s) back to 0?

Dell are advising not to update the BIOS yet so I guess we just have to wait and remember those back-ups!