Microsoft issues emergency fix for Wi-Fi foul-up delivered hot and fresh on Patch Tuesday
- Reference: 1613109666
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/02/12/microsoft_issues_emergency_fix_for/
- Source link:
The code landed in a [1]January 21 preview build of upcoming Windows 10 and Windows Server releases. And then it landed in [2]KB4601315 three days ago on [3]Patch Tuesday .
[4]
If you’ve adopted either update and use WPA3, it has the unintended consequence of occasionally delivering a steaming fresh serve of Blue Screen of Death.
Or as Microsoft puts it.
[5]
You might receive stop error 0x7E in nwifi.sys with a blue screen when you attempt to use a Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 (WPA3) connection. You are more likely to encounter this issue when reconnecting to a Wi-Fi network after disconnecting, or when waking from sleep or hibernation.
The good news is that there’s not a lot of WPA-3 out there, so relatively few users will be effected. The out-of-band patch [6]described in kb5001028 should also arrive automatically.
[7]
Unless you can’t get into a Wi-Fi network because of the bug, in which case The Register wishes you a happy weekend figuring that out. ®
Get our [8]Tech Resources
[1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/january-21-2021-kb4598298-os-build-18363-1350-preview-02dfd9ba-91a2-1b82-dede-42f288c02511
[2] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/february-9-2021-kb4601315-os-build-18363-1377-bdd71d2f-6729-e22a-3150-64324e4ab954
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/09/microsoft_patch_tuesday
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YCZf0OysHkOOOeHTv7s5-QAAAFQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YCZf0OysHkOOOeHTv7s5-QAAAFQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/february-11-2021-kb5001028-os-build-18363-1379-out-of-band-42c34ace-7ae8-4b66-bdf9-94a5a5589659
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YCZf0OysHkOOOeHTv7s5-QAAAFQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Unless you can’t get into a Wi-Fi network because of the bug, in which case The Register wishes you a happy weekend figuring that out. ®
There still is such a thing as a network cable. If your computer doesn't have an RJ45 receptacle, it becomes more fun, but with a USB to RJ45 converter, that can be solved as well.
Failing that, you can always install Linux which appears to have fewer Wi-Fi problems.
True, but which distro? There are so many, even if CentOS was dropped from the list of eligible distros.
For the less capable migrating from Windows I recommend Zorin.
I was wondering if this might be part of a wider wireless networking problem. A security update for wpasupplicant arrived yesterday.
"There still is such a thing as a network cable. If your computer doesn't have an RJ45 receptacle, it becomes more fun, but with a USB to RJ45 converter, that can be solved as well."
Great, I'll just order one from Amazon... oh wait Ok I'll go and buy one from a local shop... oh wait.
I'm sure the audience of The Register will have no problem going to one of their myriad of machines to get the patch installed. The problem is the old guy at home who turned on his laptop this morning and it blue-screens. He's not going to have any of that laying around and he's not going to be thinking "lets check out the Microsoft patch releases".
It's inexcusable to break stuff in this way, if it happened to any other piece of home tech people just wouldn't put up with it.
So younger guys - and gals of all ages - are going to have no problem?
We used to be able to choose when we update
We used to be able to delay / choose when we updated with win 7, Win 10 just keeps beating you up with bad updates.
Is there anything out there to defer the update for a month, gives them chance to fix the BAFU's
Re: We used to be able to choose when we update
Unplug the Ethernet, turn off the WiFi, take out the SIM card - although I still couldn't be 100% sure it wouldn't find a way to update.
Re: We used to be able to choose when we update
"...Unplug the Ethernet, turn off the WiFi, take out the SIM card - although I still couldn't be 100% sure it wouldn't find a way to update..."
Yup.. it will just possess a neighbour's machine and get them from there. :-)
Re: We used to be able to choose when we update
With Pro (not Home), you can use the Group Policy Editor to defer Feature and Quality updates for a period of time.
[1]For example (but do scroll down to get to the gpedit bit)
[1] https://winbuzzer.com/2020/08/07/windows-10-how-to-pause-defer-or-delay-quality-and-feature-updates-xcxwbt/
"The good news is that there’s not a lot of WPA-3 out there"
It'll probably become widely adopted just around the time it's widely breached (just like its predecessors). See [1]Dragonblood Analysing WPA3's Dragonfly Handshake
[1] https://wpa3.mathyvanhoef.com/
This again?
How many times is MS going to fuck up their own networking capabilities & expect us peons to somehow magicly download the fix over that bricked network connection?
Hey Microsoft! It's called DUE DILLIGENCE, you should try it!