• Diyan
• On January 30, 2018

Windows 10, 8.1 and 7 get updates to disable Spectre 2 security patch

Intel released in January firmware updates for its Broadwell and Haswell processors that should protect against the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, the updates caused troubles for everyone who installed them, and Intel gave up. The chipmaker issued a statement to recommend stop installing the updates, which introduce unexpected reboots and other abnormal system behaviour.

Yesterday, Microsoft published emergency updates, available for everyone who wants to deactivate the buggy Intel firmware. Available for Windows 7, 8.1 and 10, the updates disable the migration against Intel’s firmware to prevent the behavior described. Microsoft writes:

“While Intel tests, updates and deploys new microcode, we are making available an out-of-band update today, KB4078130, that specifically disables only the mitigation against CVE-2017-5715” 

You can manually install the emergency fixes from the MS Update Catalog page here. Keep in mind that the updates won’t appear in Settings → Update & Security → Windows Update. Alternatively, a change in the registry settings could also disable the buggy firmware. Learn more here.