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Microsoft Removes Antivirus Restriction on Windows 7

Security updates now offered to all systems

Apr 11, 2018 09:46 GMT  ·  By
Antivirus restriction also lifted on Windows 8.1
   Antivirus restriction also lifted on Windows 8.1

This month’s Windows 7 and 8.1 rollups introduce one big change for these two operating systems, as Microsoft has removed the antivirus restriction that prevented some computers from getting security patches.

Microsoft previously introduced a special registry check in January after publishing Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities, saying that some antivirus solutions could cause issues on Windows computers because of compatibility issues.

Originally introduced in Windows 10, this restriction was lifted with the release of March 2018 cumulative updates, but was then introduced in Windows 7 and 8.1. This means that systems running antivirus software not listed as compatible and hence creating a dedicated registry key would be blocked from getting security updates, as a means to prevent these issues from occurring.

Bye-bye, antivirus restriction!

With the new monthly rollups for Windows 7 and 8.1, Microsoft finally removes this check, which means that all computers should now be getting security updates regardless of the antivirus solution protecting the data.

April 2018 monthly rollups KB4093118 and KB4093114 include the following line in the release notes:

“  Windows Update and WSUS will offer this update to applicable Windows client and server operating systems regardless of the existence or value of the "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\QualityCompat\cadca5fe-87d3-4b96-b7fb-a231484277cc" registry setting. This change has been made to protect user data.  ”

This change is particularly important for Windows 7 users, especially because this OS version comes without default antivirus protection. Starting with Windows 8.1, Microsoft is offering Windows Defender pre-installed, and in the latest versions of Windows 10, it evolved into a more advanced security solution called Windows Defender Security Center.

Windows 7 users, however, have plenty of antivirus products to choose from and the majority were already compatible with the OS, which means they weren’t necessarily impacted by this restriction.

The new monthly rollups are available on Windows 7 and 8.1 right now via the typical Windows Update channel.