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Bug Microsoft Security Windows

Microsoft Criticized For VPN-Breaking Windows 10 Update (forbes.com) 135

Posted by EditorDavid from the bad-bugs dept.
"Windows 10 continues to be a danger zone," writes Forbes senior contributor Gordon Kelly: Not only have problems been piling up in recent weeks, Microsoft has also been worryingly deceptive about the operation of key services. And now the company has warned millions about another problem. Spotted by the always excellent Windows Latest, Microsoft has told tens of millions of Windows 10 users that the latest KB4501375 update may break the platform's Remote Access Connection Manager (RASMAN). And this can have serious repercussions.

The big one is VPNs. RASMAN handles how Windows 10 connects to the internet and it is a core background task for VPN services to function normally. Given the astonishing growth in VPN usage for everything from online privacy and important work tasks to unlocking Netflix and YouTube libraries, this has the potential to impact heavily on how you use your computer. Interestingly, in detailing the issue Microsoft states that it only affects Windows 10 1903 - the latest version of the platform.

The problem is Windows 10 1903 accounts for a conservative total of at least 50M users.
Microsoft estimates they'll have a solution available "in late July," adding that the issue only occurs "when a VPN profile is configured as an Always On VPN (AOVPN) connection with or without device tunnel. This does not affect manual only VPN profiles or connections." That support page also offers a work-around which involves configuring the default telemetry settings in either the group policy settings or with a registry value.

UPDATE (7/7/2019): ZDNet is strongly criticizing Forbes' article, arguing that the issue affects only a small number of Windows users, "when the diagnostic data level setting is manually configured to the non-default setting of 0." For those who don't understand how unusual that configuration is, note that it applies only to Windows 10 Enterprise and that it can be set only using Group Policy on corporate networks or by manually editing the registry. You can't accidentally enable this setting. And you can't deliberately set it on a system running Windows 10 Home or Pro, because it is for Enterprise edition only.
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Microsoft Criticized For VPN-Breaking Windows 10 Update More

Microsoft Criticized For VPN-Breaking Windows 10 Update

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  • It's trite but... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    ...Linux is better.

    For real, Windows 10 is what motivated me to make the switch to Linux (Fedora, in my case) for my home PC. I have never looked back.

    I *did* have some technical problems. I do have to troubleshoot more than I did on Win 7, and I do have to learn more and know more about the OS to use it and keep it running. I understand why these problems would scare people away from Linux. But I prefer these problems to the ones that Windows 10 brings.

    • ...Linux is better.

      For real, Windows 10 is what motivated me to make the switch to Linux (Fedora, in my case) for my home PC.

      Same here. I switched to Mint in January this year and it's been great.

      The only annoying part is when I have to edit Word docs, and for that I run Win7 in a VirtualBox VM. So far it's been almost flawless, but occasionally Word will hang when saving a doc under a different name (and then I just kill the VM and restart it). Other than that it's been smooth sailing.

      One of the very very best things about using Linux is not having to reboot whenever you install or uninstall stuff. I love that and now I'm spoile

      • fwiw Wine works pretty well with Word.

        • fwiw Wine works pretty well with Word.

          I tried to get Wine working with Word but was never able to do it (I'm 99% sure it was something I was screwing up).

          After spending a day or so messing with it I finally gave up and installed Virtualbox. That was a bit of a slog what with the Guest Additions add-ins and whatnot, but I did get it going.

          I know Wine is supposed to be a lot leaner and faster, but for whatever reason I just couldn't make it work.

  • just wonderful (Score:4, Interesting)

    by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Sunday July 07, 2019 @02:49PM (#58886710)

    for work have to use win 7 for some things and I've been putting off win 10 as long as possible. But the 9 year old PC I use at home gets bogged with some win software so am getting "new" 3 year old PC with win 10 I'll run for years....

    I don't worry about malware since when running windows I'll only be using business software and hitting vendor sites, but kind of disheartening to be reading about Microsofts updates ruining things often.

    Glad my personal desktop stuff is on Linux and my servers are BSD. Will soon have to replace my home laptop that boots into win 7 for work stuff too, same sad story.

    • In my case, I’ve found that any Windows-centric “work stuff” I need to do runs just fine virtualized, e.g. using Parallels or even VirtualBox. The initial launch of the VM is slow, but Windows is annoyingly slow to boot anyway.

      I don’t bother with keeping an actual Windows machine around anymore.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The main problem I have with VMs is the USB support. It's about 80% there in VMWare and complete crap in VirtualBox. Some stuff is okay, but a lot of development and debug tools just don't work properly or at all.

        Firmware updates are a pain too as they often require the device to disconnect and reconnect as a DFU device (the USB standard for firmware updates), which then needs to be separately attached to the VM.

        This could probably be sorted by using IOMMU pass-through to assign an entire USB controller to

  • Windows 10 testing seems to be nonexistant (Score:5, Interesting)

    by iampiti ( 1059688 ) on Sunday July 07, 2019 @02:54PM (#58886748)
    And yet another Windows 10 upgrade that breaks things. Microsoft is doing a terrible job of testing Windows 10: Almost every upgrade causes problems or breaks things that had been working perfectly for years.
    This is not the right way to develop something as critical as an OS

    • But Microsoft wants to push new ideas, FAST!

      Testing and quality controls means slower "To Market" times! /s

      For what it's worth, I agree with you. I have a computer running win7 for this very reason (and because Win10 seems hell bent on NOT letting me actually own and administer my own god damned hardware, because I might make the "wrong" choices about installing updates or drivers) and another running Linux.

      I am patiently waiting for one of two things to happen--

      1) Microsoft wakes the fuck up from its fever

      • I'd like either of those two things to happen too but they don't look very likely. They only way they might do things "right" would be if they lost a massive amount of marketshare and were very scared.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Windows 7 isn't that much better. The quality of patches has gone far down hill since 10 came out. Some have serious performance issues or introduce new bugs. They are only interested in fixing security issues, not in performance or quality.

        If you have to run Windows the best option currently seems to be to get Enterprise and stick to the Slow Ring, where you only get most patches after they have been beta tested by everyone else for a few months.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      They have used this half-assed approach for decades. It is just getting more obvious now with the forced updates and their spying. And look how much money it brought them, when they never even demonstrated acceptable average engineering skills, let alone the excellence you reasonably expect from a group that creates operating systems. The problem is all those that made them big, despite their obvious incompetence. And now they are big and still incompetent.

      • I don't remember Windows 7 breaking so many things. Maybe it's because it changed very little during its lifetime. But the patches seemed to address just bugs and didn't have a single problem with them.
        I know Windows 10 is supposed to be the version number of all future Windows releases and as such is a constantly evolving animal but I still say it should be better tested

        • Re:Windows 10 testing seems to be nonexistant (Score:4, Interesting)

          by wierd_w ( 1375923 ) on Sunday July 07, 2019 @03:55PM (#58887018)

          very early in its development, win7 had quite a few issues with hardware drivers, and software packages not working properly on it (which had previously worked fine in windows XP. I don't count Vista; it had much lower market penetration because it was shit on a disk.)

          However, subsequent patches and bugfixes turned that around, and provided various compatibility frameworks to allow older software to run on it quite nicely. Instead of focusing on eternal feature creep, they focused on stability and performance enhancements that made the platform much nicer to use.

          Compare to Win10, which wants to change all your file associations every monthly update, because "NEW AMAZING FEATURES YOU JUST *HAVE* TO TRY! WE INSIST!", and which forces driver updates that break everything because not all devices with the same PCI/VEN numbers are really the same, and not all drivers provide necessary functionality for specific deployments, and of course, the shitpill of the forced expanded telemetry and the general "No no, users shoudn't touch the inside of the OS, that's naughty!" mentality it vigorously enforces. (Seriously, you have to boot the OS, and fiddle with a system control applet, TO START SAFE MODE? Really? Because, you know-- SAFE MODE exists to FIX the computer WHEN IT DOES NOT BOOT. Likewise with "We need to BURY enabling of unsigned driver installation under as many layers of headache and mis-matched configuration applets as possible!" because GOD FORBID that you use a newer driver that totally works on your hardware, but does not have OFFICIAL support, or force installation of a newer driver for older hardware that was retired, but still totally freaking works with a newer driver (like several scanners out there) that the manufacturer released, because the new hardware is basically the old hardware with a new ID, and a face lift.)

          No, win10 breaks shit hard, and actively distrusts its users. I wont switch to it unless Microsoft seriously changes its MO. I would switch to freaking OSX first, and that is about as likely as my getting pregnant as a man.

          • The only bad taste I had from Windows 7 was during the open beta (or pre-release testing.)
            During an update, it tried to update my video card drivers for a EVGA Geforce 460 GTX. Anyway within two reboots, it fried the card. Guessing they pulled the wrong clock settings for it, or the card gave up the magic smoke.

            This is super isolated, but I noticed the updates to video card drivers got a bit more specific afterward.

            Anyway I ran Win 7 on retail launch, and up until the past year. Still have my old hard drive

      • Links to articles that show Microsoft's VERY poor management. [slashdot.org]

        One link shows that Bill Gates still manages Microsoft. (March 25, 2019)
    • Oh, it’s not up to MS to test their OS. That’s the job of their suckers—I mean customers. It feels like everything after Win 7 has been a very long beta.

  • Not as dangerous as letting bloggers post drivel online and pretend it's journalism.

  • This bug only happens if data collection has been set to 0, which can't be done with the user interface and requires modifying the registry or setting a local group policy.

    With the GUI you can only set it to 1 (Basic) or 3 (Full)

    • Re:Before you grab your pitchforks... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by waspleg ( 316038 ) on Sunday July 07, 2019 @04:40PM (#58887180) Journal

      And people fucking with the registry to turn off spying are very likely also going to be using a VPN at some point.

      This seems deliberate. Just like how they've removed the control panel from right clicking the Start menu in 1803 and other bullshit trying to force you to use YOUR computer the way THEY want.

      I'm a hardcore gamer, the majority of my library still does not run in Linux. I'm currently a Windows 7 refugee waiting for something to save me because I work with 10 all day at work and it's fucking awful.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Zuriel ( 1760072 )
        If they want me to use the Windows 10 Settings app instead of the Control Panel, instead of making the Control Panel harder to find how about perhaps adding everything from Control Panel to the Settings app? Right now it's random which one I'll find any given setting in, and Control Panel is the only one that offers a bunch of stuff.

      • Re:Before you grab your pitchforks... (Score:4, Informative)

        by Shikaku ( 1129753 ) on Sunday July 07, 2019 @09:30PM (#58888120)

        Check Linux again, because Steam uses Proton (just their internal version of Wine/Windows emulator) to play Windows games now and it does it for you silently and quickly. https://www.protondb.com/ [protondb.com] https://store.steampowered.com... [steampowered.com] You'll want to browse both of these lists. They're quickly expanding as people, Steam team and devs test it out.

      • And people fucking with the registry to turn off spying are very likely also going to be using a VPN at some point.

        Even before the update to the article indicating that it was a GPO for Enterprise versions of Win10, I'm still not quite sure exactly how many people this would really affect.

        Literally every VPN config I've implemented over the past five years has involved a third party client. Whether it's OpenVPN, Sonicwall SSLVPN, Cisco, Juniper, Fortinet, or even QNAP, they all utilize their own client applications that hook into the system via a pseudo device driver that integrates into the network stack, rather than u

      • Might I suggest Windows 9?
        Yes, it's a thing. All the goodness from 7,8,8.1 and parts of 10, with none of (that I can tell, so far) badness from those OSes.
        I first tested it about a year ago when the writing was on the wall for Win7, found it to work fantastically. It didn't seem to have any spyware/telemetery in it, and I tested that with WireShark to see what it did/where it went.
        https://www.eastcoast.hosting/... [www.eastcoast.hosting]

        Supported until (IIRC) 2024, by which time Linux will either make the compatibility inroads to

  • guess that is one way to make sure the real ip address comes with data they are collecting whenever win10 calls home.

  • But when they went from 18917 to 18922, it BROKE Vmware. Now every time you launch it, you get a pop up warning about it not being compatible with MS and their stupid "security". Even after trying countless searches and registry hacks, no joy. Only thing I could do to get a virtual machine to work, was to enable MS hyper-V, and install it using a MICROSOFT program, not VMware, like I've used for years.

  • Please don't say this is journalism from Forbes Magazine.

    This article is written by someone on a glorified blog site run by Forbes called "Forbes Contributors."

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