Another day, another dodgy patch!
As if breaking Exchange Server wasn't enough for one day Microsoft also released an update KB3004394 also known as December 2014 Root Certificate update http://support.microsoft.com/kb/3004394
This security update has wreaked havoc with various systems across much of the Windows universe, pretty secure as it stopped users interacting with Windows altogether! Some issues included
- Virtualbox devices becoming non functional
- RemoteApp connections to 2008 R2 servers failing. Users would log on and be promptly logged off again
- Windows Defender in Windows 7 SP1 terminating itself with an error %%-2147023113
- Windows Update not working at all
- UAC prompts appearing randomly
Once again the problem has taken days for Microsoft to acknowledge and reverse which is obviously frustrating for all.
The answer is to remove the update KB3004394.
There is also fix if you are lucky enough to have this installed as an apparently mysterious update KB3024777 appeared late yesterday in the UK which had only one reference in Google search, and the Microsoft page was blank on the subject, but overnight the mystery was solved and the update is a fix for the issues caused by KB3004394 if you haven' already installed it.
If you have this update still installed and can run Windows Update still, then crank up Windows Update for one more go and you should see KB3024777 waiting to save you from patch hell. If you can't, just go to installed updates and remove KB3004394 and reboot.
This once again calls into question the testing procedures at Microsoft. Although many could argue the firing of thousands of Microsoft technicians and support staff this year is to blame it is possible the issue is more deep rooted than this and the testing process is just not thorough enough. We suspect the issue is that Microsoft has become too focused on delivering it service offerings (e.g. Office 365, Azure etc...) and lost focus on its core technologies.
