14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has acknowledged a bug in several of the cumulative updates that it released this month as part of its Patch Tuesday cycle for Windows 10.
According to the company, after installing these cumulative updates, previously abbreviated Japanese date and time strings no longer parse.
The issue has already been confirmed in Windows 10 cumulative update KB4487044 for version 1809 (October 2018 Update), KB4487017 for version 1803 (April 2018 Update), and KB4486996 for version 1709 (Fall Creators Update).
This is the only problem in the cumulative update for version 1809, according to the official KB page published by Microsoft.
The software giant says it is already working on a fix, promising to roll it out “in an upcoming release.” No other specifics were provided, so I’m guessing the bug will be addressed as part of the March 2019 Patch Tuesday cycle.
The workaround
In the meantime, the company offers a workaround, recommending users to change the following the registry key with the values mentioned below:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Nls\Calendars\Japanese\Eras]
"1868 01 01"="明治_明_Meiji_M"
"1912 07 30"="大正_大_Taisho_T"
"1926 12 25"="昭和_昭_Showa_S"
"1989 01 08"="平成_平_Heisei_H"
You are recommended, however, to give the update process more time to come to an end, as in most cases, this month’s cumulative updates should install correctly, even if they require more time.
All cumulative updates released this month come with security improvements, including for Internet Explorer, Windows Graphics, Microsoft Edge, Windows Wireless Networking, and the Microsoft JET Database Engine.