Microsoft Brings Intel Firmware Updates to More Processors

Living with S Mode: First Steps

Earlier this month, Microsoft started helping Intel by rolling out firmware updates to protect against Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities. At the time, Microsoft and Intel only released updates to a couple of Skylake processors.

Today, Microsoft is rolling out the updated firmware to more processors, including some Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake processors. The updates are only available to devices running Windows 10 version 1709, and it’s only available through the Microsoft Update Catalog. You can find the full list of processors that have the updated firmware here.

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In addition to bringing Intel’s updated firmware to more processors, Microsoft is bringing software updates to protect against Meltdown to x86 editions of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 today. The company is also removing the anti-virus compatibility check in Windows 10 that prevented some users from getting its own security updates, though it will continue to closely monitor anti-virus software for compatibility issues going forward.

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Conversation 11 comments

  • Thomas Parkison

    13 March, 2018 - 2:55 pm

    <p>Still no updates for Ivy Bridge. Crap.</p>

    • jimchamplin

      Premium Member
      13 March, 2018 - 3:34 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#252805"><em>In reply to trparky:</em></a></blockquote><p>lol</p><p>You think Intel is going to help us with old chips? This is the greatest disaster they could have hoped for. Conveniently for them, all the old machines that still work very well are now “insecure.”</p>

    • StagyarZilDoggo

      Premium Member
      13 March, 2018 - 4:07 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#252805"><em>In reply to trparky:</em></a></blockquote><p>There's some hope. According to the latest Microcode Update Guidance PDF, Intel is planning to release new microcode for CPUs as far back as Penryn/Wolfdale.</p>

      • jimchamplin

        Premium Member
        13 March, 2018 - 8:36 pm

        <blockquote><a href="#252833"><em>In reply to StagyarZilDoggo:</em></a></blockquote><p>That actually is pretty good news!</p>

  • Waethorn

    14 March, 2018 - 1:51 pm

    <p>We have even more critical security problems, now affecting AMD's brand new Ryzen and derivative chips.</p><p><br></p><p>So AMD, Intel, and ARM are all basically garbage chips because of this. What other chip architectures are still being developed and manufactured? Are any manufacturers still doing MIPS? Imagination Technologies got bought up by Samsung, so I'd bet that means they won't be doing them anymore. The Broadcom ARM chip in the Raspberry Pi is one of very few that doesn't do pre-fetch, so it's immune to Meltdown and Spectre, but Broadcom's future is in doubt with the prospected Qualcomm buyout. </p><p><br></p><p>Computers stopped being fun in 2018.</p>

  • disco_larry

    14 March, 2018 - 5:02 pm

    <p>I'm glad they're doing this. It's amazing how much more life is in some of these older CPUs with the addition of more RAM and an SSD. I have a Wolfdale (circa 2008) and a Lynnfield (~2011) in my household, both still running 1709 and running it pretty well. </p><p><br></p>

  • Bill R

    14 March, 2018 - 9:29 pm

    <p>It totally makes sense to do this. Patching the individual BIOS for all the affected systems is practically impossible. A boot time fix to just the CPU microcode is a great idea.</p>

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