Stop us if this sounds familiar: Microsoft released a cumulative update to Windows 10, and in the days after its release, people have complained of problems that appear to be caused by the update on various social platforms. Quelle surprise!
The update in question is the KB4551762 update released on March 12. Microsoft said that it "updates a Microsoft Server Message Block 3.1.1 protocol issue that provides shared access to files and printers." (Although it neglected to mention that it resolved this issue because of a vulnerability found in SMBv3 that leaked early.)
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Windows Latest today reported that KB4551762 appears to have caused performance issues, boot failures and other problems on some PCs. The update failed to install on some systems, too, and we suspect we'll see complaints about other problems as the update continues to reach more Windows 10 users.
If this does sound familiar, well, it's probably because another recent cumulative update had similar problems. The KB4535996 update released on February 27 was originally blamed for issues with sound adapters. Eventually those complaints expanded to boot issues, performance drops and power management problems.
The vast majority of Windows 10 users--all 1 billion of them--probably won't experience any problems with these cumulative updates. But with recent updates causing so many issues, it's getting harder to recommend installing the latest versions of Windows 10 as they become available, regardless of the upsides.
