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Comment by ck2 | Hacker News Reader

So wait, Microsoft is still making patches for Windows7, they just aren't supplied via the windows-update ?

https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB500...

Is there a third party program that finds/installs the windows 7 updates?

Extended Support ended January 14, 2020, however Microsoft is offering Extended Security Updates (ESU) until January, 2023. It's a paid program to extend security patches, having to be paid once a year for each of the 3 years; so only truly desperate companies are paying for this privilege.

[1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/faq/extended-secu...

[2] https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-it-pro-blog/y...

But the Update Catalog shows updates that you can apparently download as usual for Windows 7 in this case. There is a specific rationale given on at least one of the reports[1] for why a patch is still being issued even though Windows 7 is out of support. So I'm not sure this time it has anything to do with ESU.

[1] https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/en-US/vulnerability/...

Last week I saw a friend using dot net software that scrapes the Catalog, automatically downloads all patches and applies them to the system. It's apparently common in enterprises without an ESU subscription... I was quite surprised and amused

If that software is available to the public it would be a great service to name or link it if you can find out what it is.

It's not public because of licensing. But it's a simple reimplementation of https://www.wsusoffline.net.

Source code here: https://gitlab.com/wsusoffline/wsusoffline

Hahah, that's actually awesome. Of course someone out there put in the leg work to work around the licensing issue, and then shared it to the (minor?) masses.

Incidentally I just finished building a new Win7 machine yesterday and applying all the updates.

You are correct, this one wasn't caught organically through Windows Update. I had to install the KB4555449 Servicing Stack update first (https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB455...), after which I was able to install the patch you linked. Did it on two machines (one freshly formatted, one old) and it took several minutes on each to install (longer than a typical update), and required a reboot after.

Rollup Patches following 2020-01 will install and then rollback after reboot if you're not following the ESU requirements. Most likely the new patch just rollbacked and you're still on KB4534310.

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