Windows 10/11 Download

[Redneck_Randy]

Microsoft Extends Free Windows 10 Security Updates for Consumers Until October 2027

 

[harshness]

Microsoft Extends Free Windows 10 Security Updates for Consumers Until October 2027

A stunning admission of failure to make Windows 11 sufficiently compelling. It seems likely that the cost of new computers had a measurable contribution to this, but it shouldn't have been that difficult to make a truly better operating system.

 

[JSheridan]

I wish they'd loosen up on the processor specs they deem necessary for Windows 11. I have installed 11 on a lot of so called non compatible machines with excellent results.

 

[harshness]

I wish they'd loosen up on the processor specs they deem necessary for Windows 11. I have installed 11 on a lot of so called non compatible machines with excellent results.

I kinda hope that as Microsoft's AI direction/ambitions change, their hardware requirements may become less punitive.

 

[HipKat]

A stunning admission of failure to make Windows 11 sufficiently compelling. It seems likely that the cost of new computers had a measurable contribution to this, but it shouldn't have been that difficult to make a truly better operating system.

I disagree. They're playing to the holdouts who refuse to upgrade. Win 10 is old news. Same people who refused to give up on Win 2000

 

[harshness]

They're playing to the holdouts who refuse to upgrade.

Why would they feel compelled to do as you claim? They know that they have a large percentage of the PC user population by the short hairs. They had put out the "lane closed" sign and, suddenly, yanked it.

Few really love Windows and all of its shortcomings, so it would appear that Microsoft is walking a knife-edge. It is one thing when they are a year or two late to deliver the next big release, but it is quite another when they quietly let on that Windows 11 still isn't there yet.

 

[b4pjoe]

Why would they feel compelled to do as you claim? They know that they have a large percentage of the PC user population by the short hairs. They had put out the "lane closed" sign and, suddenly, yanked it.

Few really love Windows and all of its shortcomings, so it would appear that Microsoft is walking a knife-edge. It is one thing when they are a year or two late to deliver the next big release, but it is quite another when they quietly let on that Windows 11 still isn't there yet.

Not to worry. Windows 12 will be here soon.

 

[harshness]

Not to worry. Windows 12 will be here soon.

A theory that has been floating around for at least four years, after it became obvious that Windows 11 wasn't capturing hearts and minds.

Some of us have sufficient memory longevity to remember when Windows 10 was noted to be the last major version of Windows.

Why Microsoft is calling Windows 10 ‘the last version of Windows’

The Verge is about technology and how it makes us feel. Founded in 2011, we offer our audience everything from breaking news to reviews to award-winning features and investigations, on our site, in video, and in podcasts.

www.theverge.com

I'm glad they changed their minds so we could make a valid decision on where to draw the line. Windows 11 isn't the trainwreck that Windows 8 was, but the reasons for user disdain are strikingly similar.

 

[HipKat]

Why would they feel compelled to do as you claim? They know that they have a large percentage of the PC user population by the short hairs. They had put out the "lane closed" sign and, suddenly, yanked it.

Few really love Windows and all of its shortcomings, so it would appear that Microsoft is walking a knife-edge. It is one thing when they are a year or two late to deliver the next big release, but it is quite another when they quietly let on that Windows 11 still isn't there yet.

Well, you gotta remember, if there were only 1 million people using Windows, less than a half percent give a crap about any of the things that we talk about in here. The rest just turn it on, browse the Internet, stream videos, play games and get pissed off about how slow their system works and why they still get pop-up ads.

 

[Tweek]

New updates tonite. Got around 3 or 4. Required reboots.

 

["MysteryMan"]

Mostly security updates for .NET Framework.

 

[harshness]

Mostly security updates for .NET Framework.

You have such a way with sweeping things under the carpet. To be fair, Microsoft isn't particularly forthcoming in their descriptions about what the updates are for, but .NET usually has its own updates now (as does Edge).

There were 570 flaws (smashing the old record) tilted at, including 59 critical vulnerabilities, with three being zero-days. One of the zero-days was a BitLocker bypass -- Windows' last line of defense!

I use the term "tilted at" to allow that Microsoft's patches aren't always successful.

Microsoft July 2026 Patch Tuesday fixes massive 570 flaws, 3 zero-days

Today is Microsoft's July 2026 Patch Tuesday, and with it comes security updates for a record-breaking 570 flaws, including two zero-day vulnerabilities exploited in attacks and one publicly disclosed.

www.bleepingcomputer.com

• 254 Elevation of Privilege Vulnerabilities
• 17 Security Feature Bypass Vulnerabilities
• 145 Remote Code Execution Vulnerabilities
• 102 Information Disclosure Vulnerabilities
• 35 Denial of Service Vulnerabilities
• 16 Spoofing Vulnerabilities

Microsoft announced that there will likely be "a higher volume" of vulnerabilities identified now that it is finally employing AI to help identify issues with the source code, along with its "multi-modal agentic scanning harness" (MDASH) that reviews binaries. They also noted that some of their desktop security tools would be enabled on servers to catch some of the fundamental flaws that aren't necessarily user-invited.

Code review has been identifying hundreds of bugs per month in Chromium (Edge, Chrome) for months now. While Edge is based on Chromium, 360 of the 468 Chromium patches from this month alone had to be "ported" to Edge.

 

[primestar31]

You have such a way with sweeping things under the carpet. To be fair, Microsoft isn't particularly forthcoming in their descriptions about what the updates are for, but .NET usually has its own updates now (as does Edge).

There were 570 flaws (smashing the old record) tilted at, including 59 critical vulnerabilities, with three being zero-days. One of the zero-days was a BitLocker bypass -- Windows' last line of defense!

I use the term "tilted at" to allow that Microsoft's patches aren't always successful.

Microsoft July 2026 Patch Tuesday fixes massive 570 flaws, 3 zero-days

Today is Microsoft's July 2026 Patch Tuesday, and with it comes security updates for a record-breaking 570 flaws, including two zero-day vulnerabilities exploited in attacks and one publicly disclosed.

www.bleepingcomputer.com

• 254 Elevation of Privilege Vulnerabilities
• 17 Security Feature Bypass Vulnerabilities
• 145 Remote Code Execution Vulnerabilities
• 102 Information Disclosure Vulnerabilities
• 35 Denial of Service Vulnerabilities
• 16 Spoofing Vulnerabilities

Microsoft announced that there will likely be "a higher volume" of vulnerabilities identified now that it is finally employing AI to help identify issues with the source code, along with its "multi-modal agentic scanning harness" (MDASH) that reviews binaries. They also noted that some of their desktop security tools would be enabled on servers to catch some of the fundamental flaws that aren't necessarily user-invited.

Code review has been identifying hundreds of bugs per month in Chromium (Edge, Chrome) for months now. While Edge is based on Chromium, 360 of the 468 Chromium patches from this month alone had to be "ported" to Edge.

I don't remember any other version of Windows being quite so buggy OR quite such a Hackers Paradise of vulnerabilities.

 

[WhiteBeard]

One thing about updating Windows is that some downloads take less than 10 minutes while others take up to an hour. Like the 2026-07 Security Update that's been downloading for 45 minutes now.

 

[harshness]

I don't remember any other version of Windows being quite so buggy OR quite such a Hackers Paradise of vulnerabilities.

The more cruft they have added, the more unintended consequences they've brought upon the user base. Windows is an ever-lengthening string of baggage that nobody really has a handle on anymore. Marketing won out over Engineering.

Windows has quite a few protections built in with later incarnations, but the need to keep running legacy software prohibits the closing of gaps. Don't get me wrong, there's also a lot of garbage code in the newer elements.

Microsoft needs to hire programmers rather than code-reusers. It costs more, but you get much better documentation when you're not depending entirely on the code being self-documenting. 60+ character-long function names are a sad substitute for a simple explanation. Intentional documentation is also much easier to translate into other human languages.

For a clear example of verbosity, you have to look no further than a PowerShell cheat sheet:

https://practicalpowershell.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/PowerShellQuickReference-PowerShell7.0-v1.05-3.pdf

Learning Python is much easier and can be more broadly applied (perhaps why it is an increasingly popular alternative to VBA).

 

[harshness]

One thing about updating Windows is that some downloads take less than 10 minutes while others take up to an hour. Like the 2026-07 Security Update that's been downloading for 45 minutes now.

It takes a lot more patches when the number of issues has increased tenfold.

 

[HipKat]

One thing about updating Windows is that some downloads take less than 10 minutes while others take up to an hour. Like the 2026-07 Security Update that's been downloading for 45 minutes now.

wth?? Mine took like 5 minutes. What kind've internet do you have?

 

[harshness]

Mine took like 5 minutes. What kind've internet do you have?

Download time has a great deal to do with when you're doing the download relative to the release of the patches. My one Windows 11 machine, an N150-based mini box, took four minutes just to register 1% downloaded. The second percentage milestone came in under a minute. It seemed like the further along it got, the faster it came down in a glacial process sense. All in, it probably took more than 40 minutes to download across a 180Mbps bi-di connection 23 hours after release.

Download speeds will pick up as more machines complete the update and the servers Microsoft uses (Akamai?) are no longer being blitzed, especially where Delivery Optimization is in play. The installation part of the process should be fairly predictable throughout the cycle.

 

[Tweek]

They snuck another one in tonight.

2026-07 Update (KB5121767) (26200.8894)

Required a reboot.

 

[harshness]

2026-07 Update (KB5121767) (26200.8894)

This replaces the Patch Tuesday KB5101650 update on certain Dell computers that suffered battery drain, poor performance, overheating, and unexpected shutdowns due to the patch.

Microsoft: Some Dell PCs shut down after recent Windows updates

Microsoft is blocking this month's Windows 11 security updates on some Dell devices because they are causing shutdowns and performance issues.

www.bleepingcomputer.com

However, the root cause is a change introduced in the June 2026 KB5095093 preview cumulative update that causes a conflict between the new Windows USB-C Connection Manager interface and the Intel Innovation Platform Framework (IPF) Processor Participant driver.

Various articles note that the patch may apply itself to non-Dell computers.

Bleeping Computer is becoming a must-visit around the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month.