Today is the second Tuesday of February, and that means it's also the second patch Tuesday of 2021. As tradition mandates, Microsoft is rolling out a series of cumulative and security updates for all supported versions of Windows, including many versions of Windows 10, as well as Windows 8.1 and, for ESU customers, Windows 7.
As usual, there are two sets of updates for the operating systems, one monthly rollup and one security-only update. The former rolls out to most users automatically, and it can contain non-essential fixes and changes; while the latter has to be downloaded manually and only includes security patches.
Or, at least, that's usually the case. This month, all the updates contian the same changes for both Windows 8.1 and Windows 7. For Windows 8.1, this month's rollup update is KB4601384 and it can be downloaded manually here. Here's what's new:
- Adds historical daylight saving time (DST) updates and corrections for the Palestinian Authority.
- Addresses an issue with German translations of Central European Time.
- Security updates to Windows App Platform and Frameworks, Windows Hybrid Cloud Networking, and Windows Core Networking.
THere's a single known issue, and it's the same one we've been seeing for months now:
| Symptom | Workaround |
|---|---|
| Certain operations, such as rename, that you perform on files or folders that are on a Cluster Shared Volume (CSV) may fail with the error, “STATUS_BAD_IMPERSONATION_LEVEL (0xC00000A5)”. This occurs when you perform the operation on a CSV owner node from a process that doesn’t have administrator privilege. |
Do one of the following:
Microsoft is working on a resolution and will provide an update in an upcoming release. |
As for the security-only update, it's KB4601349, and you can download it manually here. It includes the same exact changes and known issue as the update above.
Turning over to Windows 7, as a reminder, you'll need to be paying for extended security updates for your organization to get these updates. If you are, the monthly rollup update is KB4601347 and you can download it manually here. It includes the same changes as the updates above, as well as the same known issue.
Finally, the security-only update for Windows 7 is KB4601363, and you can download it manually here. It includes all the same changes and has the same issue as all the other updates.
As mentioned above, the monthly rollup updates are usually installed automatically, but you may prefer downloading and installing them manually. With the security-only updates, you have no choice but to do it manually. Since this month's updates are the same, you should be fine getting the automatic updates from Windows Update.
