Microsoft pausing the rollout of Spectre and Meltdown patches to AMD systems

Following reports that its Spectre and Meltdown fixes were leaving some AMD systems unbootable, Microsoft has stopped the patches from rolling out to certain devices.

The company is blaming AMD's failure to comply with "the documentation previously provided to Microsoft to develop the Windows operating system mitigations to protect against the chipset vulnerabilities known as Spectre and Meltdown."

See also:

• Warning: Microsoft's Meltdown and Spectre patch is bricking some AMD PCs
• Microsoft releases PowerShell script to check if your PC is vulnerable to Meltdown and Spectre
• Microsoft issues an emergency fix for Windows 10 to address processor bug

There's no word on when the patches will be fixed, but Microsoft says that it is working with AMD to address the problem. Acknowledging that some people have been left with a computer that they are not currently able to use, the Windows-maker offers a trio of links to helpful resources for the three most recent versions of the operating system:

• Troubleshoot blue screen errors in Windows 10
• Resolving Blue Screen errors in Windows 8.1
• Resolving stop (blue screen) errors in Windows 7

In an update to the Microsoft Support article relating to the patches, the company says:

Microsoft has reports of customers with some AMD devices getting into an unbootable state after installing recent Windows operating system security updates. After investigating, Microsoft has determined that some AMD chipsets do not conform to the documentation previously provided to Microsoft to develop the Windows operating system mitigations to protect against the chipset vulnerabilities known as Spectre and Meltdown. To prevent AMD customers from getting into an unbootable state, Microsoft will temporarily pause sending the following Windows operating system updates to devices with impacted AMD processors at this time:

January 3, 2018—KB4056897 (Security-only update)
January 9, 2018—KB4056894 (Monthly Rollup)
January 3, 2018—KB4056888 (OS Build 10586.1356)
January 3, 2018—KB4056892 (OS Build 16299.192)
January 3, 2018—KB4056891 (OS Build 15063.850)
January 3, 2018—KB4056890 (OS Build 14393.2007)
January 3, 2018—KB4056898 (Security-only update)
January 3, 2018—KB4056893 (OS Build 10240.17735)
January 9, 2018—KB4056895 (Monthly Rollup)

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