“This hotfix is no longer available,” site now reads

Nov 5, 2018 09:28 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft is believed to have retired Windows hotfixes, as the company now directs users to the latest updates and patches published for their version of the operating system.

While an announcement in this regard isn’t available just yet, there are signs that Microsoft is indeed preparing the complete demise of hotfixes.

For example, when trying to access the official support pages for each hotfix, users are provided with an error reading “This hotfix is no longer available.”

“The Hotfix service is no longer available. Instead you can find your fix or patch by upgrading to the latest update available for your product,” Microsoft explains.

“You can also obtain Microsoft drivers, software updates, and other support files by downloading them from the Microsoft Catalog, the Microsoft Download Center, or upgrade to Windows 10. Windows 10 contains the most up-to-date security and other features built right in.”

You can still download hotfixes

But as Ghacks notes, hotfixes are still available for download, and you can find them on the Microsoft Update catalog page. Sooner or later, however, their download links could be pulled too, and users may be directed to the latest updates for the Windows version they are running.

Hotfixes are temporary solutions that Microsoft released to address certain issues in the operating system, and prior to Windows 10, they’ve been a pretty common method to resolve glitches that needed to be fixed before the monthly Patch Tuesday cycle.

However, these hotfixes were integrated into full patches published on Patch Tuesday, so they were no longer required to address OS bugs.

With Microsoft moving towards more frequent updates and cumulative updates for Windows 10, hotfixes are likely to be retired. The company has never been too interested in Windows 10 hotfixes anyway, so with the focus on this OS version increasing every month, full patches would be the only solution to resolve bugs going forward.