Problem w/ MS' Recent KB3013455 Update

[Mike Lobanovsky]

Hello guys,

Those who are still on XP, Vista, Windows Server 2003 and 2008, beware of Microsoft's recent KB3013455 security update. You will be getting this update from MS' download service in the usual way under Vista, or through the WEPOS/POSREADY registry hack under the now unsupported XP Sp2/Sp3.

This update breaks the rendering of certain screen fonts, e.g. the Courier New family, on your monitors.

Windows 7 and 8/8.1 are not affected by this regression.

Now MS offers a patch (KB3037639) to fix this font problem under Vista/Server 2008 while still keeping KB3013455 in place. Unfortunately, XP/Server 2003 owners cannot enjoy such support any longer. So, those of you who were unfortunate to come to trouble through that WEPOS update, have only one option to get rid of this glitch, which is to rollback your system by uninstalling the problematic update altogether.

There are still no comments from MS if a patch to fix the said font problem will be downloadable at some future point in time through the WEPOS update service too (which will be reportedly available till 2019). Until then, avoid re-installing KB3013455 accidentally with other updates that will be coming through the WEPOS update service in the future.

[Charles Pegge]

Thanks Mike,

I have not been taking any more updates from MS, for several months now. Vista itself, is extremely clunky, with or without updates, but it will see this old PC out.

[Mike Lobanovsky]

Hi Charles,

I now have two Intel i5 and one Intel Core2 Duo PCs plus an Intel Core Fujitsu-Siemens and Intel Pentium II ThinkPad notebooks in my workstation configured in a star LAN. That's to be able to have all my OSes, in fact 9 of them, run freely on real HW. I'm also keeping them up to date via their respective security update services including WEPOS for the discontinued XP. So, I was unlucky to catch the glitches under my XP Sp3 and Vista Sp2 simultaneously.

OTOH, to be fair, Microsoft has been known not to give any such trouble to their users with their security updates for at least ten recent years. I believe that unfortunate Indian or Chinese engineer who overlooked proper QA on minor OSes has already been fined, fired, sued, and possibly decapitated.