14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft rolled out new cumulative updates for Windows 10 Anniversary Update and Windows 10 Creators Update earlier today, and one of the biggest changes is the introduction of a fix for AMD systems that were pushed into an unbootable state by the botched Meltdown and Spectre patches released in early January.
The very same fix is part of a different update rolled out for Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (version 1709) as well, though in this case it appears that a manual download from the Microsoft Update Catalog website is required.
The company could ship it to AMD systems via Windows Update automatically, but systems that are already in an unbootable state will require manual download and deployment.
The update in question is KB4073290 and comes with a rather small changelog that Microsoft details on the official KB page here.
“ An update is available to fix the following issue that occurs after you install January 3, 2018—KB4056892 (OS Build 16299.192): AMD devices fall into an unbootable state. ”
Broken Meltdown and Spectre update saga
After installing this update, OS version number is bumped to 16299.194, with no other changes made to computers running the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update.
The Meltdown and Spectre updates that Microsoft shipped earlier this month wreaked havoc on AMD systems running any Windows version. While on Windows 10 most often AMD customers complained that updates failed to install, the experienced problems were much bigger on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 where computers ended up with a BSOD during boot.
Microsoft has already released fixes for Windows 7 and 8.1 as well, and right now, all systems should be up and running if they install the latest updates.
There are no known issues in this new patch, and Microsoft says that everything should work correctly. A reboot will be required to complete the install.