Yesterday, we reported that hundreds of users are complaining that their AMD PCs are failing to boot-up following the installation of Microsoft's KB4056892 update, which offered mitigation techniques against two recently discovered chipset vulnerabilities, named Meltdown and Spectre.
While the exact cause of the problem was unknown and so was its extent, Microsoft has now revealed why these AMD machines are experiencing these issues.
According to Microsoft, some AMD PCs are in an unbootable state after installing the recent patches because their chipsets "do not conform" to the documentation that was provided to Microsoft when it was developing mitigation techniques against Meltdown and Spectre. In simpler terms, AMD's provision of incorrect and/or incomplete information regarding the CPU has resulted in potentially thousands of machines being rendered unusable.
As such, Microsoft is temporarily pausing Windows updates to AMD processors impacted by the issue. These updates include:
- January 3, 2018—KB4056897 (Security-only update)
- January 9, 2018—KB4056894 (Monthly Rollup)
- January 3, 2018—KB4056888 (OS Build 10586.1356)
- January 3, 2018—KB4056892 (OS Build 16299.192)
- January 3, 2018—KB4056891 (OS Build 15063.850)
- January 3, 2018—KB4056890 (OS Build 14393.2007)
- January 3, 2018—KB4056898 (Security-only update)
- January 3, 2018—KB4056893 (OS Build 10240.17735)
- January 9, 2018—KB4056895 (Monthly Rollup)
It is important to note that the exact models of AMD processors affected by the problem have not been revealed as of yet.
Regardless, Microsoft has stated that it is working directly with AMD to resolve the issue, and that it will be resuming Windows security updates "as soon as possible". The company has also outlined several resources to aid customers impacted by the problem, which can be viewed here.
Stressed businessman working on laptop image via Shutterstock
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