14 DAY TRIAL // In addition to Windows 10 cumulative updates, Microsoft has also released new patches for Windows 7 and 8.1 to correct security issues and address other bugs in the operating systems.
Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 are getting KB4103718 (and security-only update KB4103712), while Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 are being provided with monthly rollup KB4103725 (and security-only update KB4103715).
As compared to Windows 10 updates, these monthly rollups bring fewer improvements, though they also include the security fixes that are needed to keep systems protected against the most recent vulnerabilities.
What’s in these updates?
In the case of Windows 7, for instance, there are security updates for Internet Explorer, the Windows kernel, the Microsoft Graphics component, Windows storage and filesystems, and well as Windows Hyper-V.
Other fixes concern bugs preventing users from connecting to a Remote Desktop sever, as well as a problem leading to memory leak on SMB servers after installing recently monthly updates. Microsoft explains:
“This leak may occur when the requested path traverses a symbolic link, a mount point, or a directory junction and the registry key is set to 1: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\LanManServer\Parameters\EnableEcp.”
There are just three lines in the release notes of the Windows 8.1 monthly rollup, and in addition to the same security improvements that are included in the Windows 7 update, there are also fixes for the Remote Desktop bug. Furthermore, KB4103725 corrects a problem that prevents customers from typing Hangul correctly with Microsoft's Korean IME in Microsoft Word Online.
Security-only updates only include the security fixes that we mentioned above, without any other improvements for regular bugs.
Installing monthly rollups require system reboots and work needs to be saved before beginning deployment. We’re not aware of any issues so far and the monthly rollups installed correctly in most of the cases, though performance remains to be determined as more systems are only now getting the patches.