Windows 8.1 (KB5018474) and Windows 7 (KB5018454) Patch Tuesday updates arrive

Patch Tuesday on a orange and black background

Microsoft has released its Patch Tuesday updates for Windows 8.1 (KB5018474) and Windows 7 (KB5018454). To get the Windows 7 update, you will need to be a customer that has purchased the Extended Security Update (ESU).

The improvements this month for both versions of Windows are the same, they are as follows:

Improvements

This cumulative security update contains improvements that are part of update KB5017361 (Windows 7) / KB5017367 (Windows 8.1) (released September 13, 2022) and includes key changes for the following:

Addresses an issue that leads to User Datagram Protocol (UDP) packet drops from Linux virtual machines (VMs).

Updates daylight saving time (DST) in Chile to start on September 11, 2022 instead of September 4, 2022.

For more information about the resolved security vulnerabilities, please refer to the Deployments | Security Update Guide and the October 2022 Security Updates.

Known Issues (Windows 7)

Symptom	Next step
After installing this update and restarting your device, you might receive the error, "Failure to configure Windows updates. Reverting Changes. Do not turn off your computer", and the update might show as Failed in Update History.	This is expected in the following circumstances: If you are installing this update on a device that is running an edition that is not supported for ESU. For a complete list of which editions are supported, see KB4497181. If you do not have an ESU MAK add-on key installed and activated. If you have purchased an ESU key and have encountered this issue, please verify you have applied all prerequisites and that your key is activated. For information on activation, please see this blog post. For information on the prerequisites, see the How to get this update section of this article.
After installing this update, file copies which use Group Policy Preferences might fail or might create empty shortcuts or files that have 0 (zero) bytes. Known affected Group Policy Objects are related to files and shortcuts in User Configuration > Preferences > Windows Settings in Group Policy Editor.	To mitigate this issue, do ONE of the following: Clear the "Run in logged-on user's security context (user policy option)" check box. Note This might not mitigate the issue for items that use a wildcard (). In the affected Group Policy, change "Action" from "Replace" to "Update". If a wildcard () is used in the location or destination, deleting the trailing "\" (backslash, without quotation marks) from the destination might allow the copy to be successful. We are working on a resolution and will provide an update in an upcoming release.

Symptom

Next step

After installing this update and restarting your device, you might receive the error, "Failure to configure Windows updates. Reverting Changes. Do not turn off your computer", and the update might show as Failed in Update History.

This is expected in the following circumstances:

If you are installing this update on a device that is running an edition that is not supported for ESU. For a complete list of which editions are supported, see KB4497181.
If you do not have an ESU MAK add-on key installed and activated.

If you have purchased an ESU key and have encountered this issue, please verify you have applied all prerequisites and that your key is activated. For information on activation, please see this blog post. For information on the prerequisites, see the How to get this update section of this article.

After installing this update, file copies which use Group Policy Preferences might fail or might create empty shortcuts or files that have 0 (zero) bytes. Known affected Group Policy Objects are related to files and shortcuts in User Configuration > Preferences > Windows Settings in Group Policy Editor.

To mitigate this issue, do ONE of the following:

Clear the "Run in logged-on user's security context (user policy option)" check box.

Note This might not mitigate the issue for items that use a wildcard (*).

In the affected Group Policy, change "Action" from "Replace" to "Update".
If a wildcard (*) is used in the location or destination, deleting the trailing "\" (backslash, without quotation marks) from the destination might allow the copy to be successful.

We are working on a resolution and will provide an update in an upcoming release.

Known Issues (Windows 8.1)

Symptoms	Next step
After installing this update, file copies which use Group Policy Preferences might fail or might create empty shortcuts or files that have 0 (zero) bytes. Known affected Group Policy Objects are related to files and shortcuts in User Configuration > Preferences > Windows Settings in Group Policy Editor.	To mitigate this issue, do ONE of the following: Clear the "Run in logged-on user's security context (user policy option)" check box. Note This might not mitigate the issue for items that use a wildcard (). In the affected Group Policy, change "Action" from "Replace" to "Update". If a wildcard () is used in the location or destination, deleting the trailing "\" (backslash, without quotation marks) from the destination might allow the copy to be successful. We are working on a resolution and will provide an update in an upcoming release.

Symptoms

Next step

To mitigate this issue, do ONE of the following:

Clear the "Run in logged-on user's security context (user policy option)" check box.

Note This might not mitigate the issue for items that use a wildcard (*).

In the affected Group Policy, change "Action" from "Replace" to "Update".
If a wildcard (*) is used in the location or destination, deleting the trailing "\" (backslash, without quotation marks) from the destination might allow the copy to be successful.

We are working on a resolution and will provide an update in an upcoming release.

Both of the updates will be available for their respective systems through Windows Update. If you need to download them for an offline installed, then you can get them from the Microsoft Update Catalog (Windows 7 update, Windows 8.1 update).