March 2018 Windows security update – Expanding our efforts to protect customers

March 13, 2018 10:00 am
By John Cable / Director of Program Management, Windows Servicing and DeliveryEarlier this month I shared news on Microsoft’s continuing efforts to help protect our customers against the Spectre and Meltdown hardware-based vulnerabilities. Today, we are announcing the expansion of devices covered by Windows security updates by removing the anti-virus compatibility check for Windows 10 devices, expanding the availability of Intel microcode updates in the Microsoft Catalog, and adding coverage for x86 editions of Windows 71 and Windows 8.1.
Expanding availability of Windows security updates based on broad anti-virus compatibility
Our recent work with our anti-virus (AV) partners on compatibility with Windows updates has now reached a sustained level of broad ecosystem compatibility. As we’ve previously detailed, some AV products had created compatibility issues with the Windows security updates, by making unsupported calls into the kernel memory, which required us to make AV compatibility checks to manage this risk. Based on our analysis of available data, we are now lifting the AV compatibility check for the March Windows security updates for supported Windows 10 devices via Windows Update. This change will expand the breadth of Windows 10 devices offered cumulative Windows security updates, including software protections for Spectre and Meltdown. We continue to require that AV software is compatible and in cases where there are known issues of AV driver compatibility, we will block those devices from receiving Windows updates to avoid any issues. I’ll share more details in the weeks ahead on AV compatibility for older versions of Windows, as we further our goal of broad ecosystem compatibility. We recommend customers check with their AV provider on compatibility of their installed AV software product.
 
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2018/03/13/march-2018-windows-security-update-expanding-our-efforts-to-protect-customers/#uDgJhUVkil4XJzqY.97