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Microsoft halts distribution of Spectre & Meltdown fixes on AMD systems after reports of unbootable PCs


It appears that Microsoft and AMD have messed things up. According to reports, a number PC systems with AMD’s processors were boot failing after installing the Spectre and Meltdown fixes. Microsoft investigated those reports and discovered that some AMD chipsets are getting into an unbootable state after applying those fixes. As a result of that, Microsoft has stopped distributing these fixes on AMD systems.

As Microsoft noted:

“Microsoft has reports of customers with some AMD devices getting into an unbootable state after installing recent Windows operating system security updates. After investigating, Microsoft has determined that some AMD chipsets do not conform to the documentation previously provided to Microsoft to develop the Windows operating system mitigations to protect against the chipset vulnerabilities known as Spectre and Meltdown.”

To prevent AMD customers from getting into an unbootable state, Microsoft has temporarily paused sending the following Windows operating system updates to devices with impacted AMD processors at this time:

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)

Microsoft concluded that it is working with AMD to resolve this issue and resume Windows OS security updates to the affected AMD devices via Windows Update and WSUS.

Those affected by the aforementioned booting issues can follow these links in order to – possibly and hopefully – resolve their issues:

Troubleshoot blue screen errors in Windows 10
Resolving Blue Screen errors in Windows 8.1
Resolving stop (blue screen) errors in Windows 7