Windows 10: Microsoft Updates and patches on a single PC: Comprehensive or User-Specific?

I've been gifted the Desktop Support hat in a small business and have recommended, as part of our cybersecurity plan, establishing Local User Accounts for everyday use, and keeping Administrator Accounts in reserve for things like GPO edits. Our business depends on regular patches to software as well as the routine Microsoft updates. The owner worries that having different accounts might mess up these routine updates and patches.Are Microsoft updates and patches applied to a PC across all User accounts, or are they User Account specific? Is there a way to make them comprehensive if they are

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User.000 issue after updating to 1909

I'm one of the many people suffering from issues with user profiles after applying Update 1909 to Windows 10. I've read all the threads I can find on the topic here and have followed the suggestions, all to no avail. Any other thoughts are appreciated.

After applying Update 1909, the ProfileImagePath was changed to c:\users\User.000
One file that was always in use and couldn't be removed was left in c:\users\User (can't recall or find the exact file now), so I could never rename or remove the c:\user\User directory.

I followed the multiple suggestions from Brink and others:

• Rebooted at least 6 times
• Enabled hidden Administrator
• Booted into Safe Mode
• Changed ProfileImagePath
• Tried to rename c:\users\User but couldn't because a file was still in use
• Copied all data from c:\users\User.000 into c:\users\User
• Rebooted and had temporary profile
• Followed steps in Brink tutorial to change ImageProfilePath; rebooted with no change
• Restored using Restore Point from before Update 1909 - returned to single profile state (User.000)
• Removed each update that was installed individually and rebooted after each update removal - profile state never changed
• After all updates were removed, repeated the steps above with hidden Administrator, changing profile, etc. - same issue with file in use in c:\users\User
• Followed all steps above with hidden Administrator but without copying files from User.000 to User - same results

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

 

Microsoft Pushes New Software-Based Spectre, Meltdown Mitigation Patches

The Spectre/Meltdown road is long and pocked with lawsuits and security holes as it is, and Microsoft is one of the players that's trying to put the asphalt back to tip-top, Autobahn-worth shape. The company has already improved users' security to the Meltdown and Spectre exploits on its OS side; however, hardware patches, and specifically BIOS-editing ones are much harder to deploy and distribute by the PC chain. That may be one of the reasons why Microsoft is now again stepping up with software-based mitigations for Intel-based systems, specifically.

The new updates introduce a software-based CPU microcode revision update, and work at the OS-level to plug some security holes on your Intel processors that might otherwise remain unpatched. The reasons for them remaining unpatched can be many: either Intel taking even more time to deploy patches to the still vulnerable systems; your OEMs not deploying the Intel CPU microcode revisions via a BIOS update; or the good old "I forgot I could do it" user story. Of course, being software based means these Microsoft patches will have to be reapplied should users format their Windows system. The update can for now only be manually downloaded and installed, and can only be applied to version 1709 (Fall Creators Update) and Windows Server version 1709 (Server Core), but that's definitely better than the alternative of forcing less knowledgeable users to try and find their way through BIOS updates. Of course, that is assuming OEMs will ever push BIOS updates to their products.

 

Microsoft Issues Updated Animated Cursor Patch

Microsoft has released an updated version of its MS07-017 patch that fixes some incompatibility problems with the animated cursor vulnerability patch. Early installers of the original 925902(MS07-017) patch that was issued on Tuesday reported seeing error messages with their Realtek HD Audio Control panel. In addition to Realtek, users of three lesser known programs could be affected. Those programs are ElsterFormular, TUGZip and CD-Tag. Microsoft says the problem appears because of the user32.dll and the hhctrl.ocx files have the same memory address after the patch. You can download the updated 935448 patch from here.

Source: TG Daily