Before applying Meltdown or Specter patches by Microsoft, make sure to read this. https://buff.ly/2uM98k Patch Tuesday drops the mandatory antivirus requirement after all In the immediate aftermath of the Spectre and Meltdown attacks, Microsoft created an unusual stipulation for Windows patches: systems would only receive the fixes if they had antivirus software installed and if that antivirus software created a special entry in the registry to indicate that it's compatible with the Windows fixes. This was due to the particularly invasive nature of the Meltdown fix: Microsoft found that certain antivirus products manipulated Windows' kernel memory in unsupported ways that would crash systems with the Meltdown fix applied. The registry entry was a way for antivirus software to positively affirm that it was compatible with the Meltdown fix; if that entry was absent, Windows assumed that incompatible antivirus software was installed and hence did not apply the security fix. This put systems without any antivirus software at all in a strange position: they too lack the registry entries, so they'd be passed over for fixes, even though they don't, in fact, have any incompatible antivirus software. . . . .. . . . #patchtuesday #patching #antivirus #spectre #meltdown #patches #systems #kernel #memory #crash #systemcrash #bluescreen #bsod #Linux #Microsoft #Server2008r2 #operatingSystem #ms #WindowsServer #Server2016 #MicrosoftWindows #Windows7 #Server2012r2 #MicrosoftServer #os #Windows #ServerCore #Windows10