Some of my April 14th updates made my laptop lose my internet connection. I had to do a system restore to get back online. I tried them one at a time and it seems that some were installed as a bundle because it happened again (lost connection) even after installing them one at a time. Im not very pc savvy so, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t install any since then I don’t use Word or journal so I am not doing those updates any longer. I use to do them. My laptop is win 7 2008 software. I know some of the updates are for patching in if youre interested in win 10 beta and I am not interested at this time. KB 3038314, KB2965210, KB2965284, KB3055999 and 2952664. I think the one ending in 664 is if you want to download win10 beta. and the one ending in 5999 is the one that gave me crap. I made a list of the ones that seem to install without a hitch and followed it a second time and then after a restart, I lost my internet connection again. Im pretty much lost at this point. Do you have any suggestions? I noticed in your comment you seem pretty pc savvy and any help would be much appreciated..

There’s an increasing amount of speculation in the patching community that the increasing frequency of poorly-crafted updates is due to the huge layoffs by Microsoft (I call `em 1Soft for short), and a marked shift towards offshoring in terms of IT talent – i.e., an implication that a lack of competence is the problem. Others speculate that the problems are of a more nefarious nature, an indication that 1Soft is purposefully trying to steer folks toward the newer platforms. Either may be true, or not; I’ve never come to a conclusion . But there’s no denying that the frequency of bad patches is much higher in the past – 1Soft says 13% of 2014’s updates were faulty. Whatever may be actually driving this, there’s no question 1Soft has largely abandoned their old practice, which was to ‘bundle’ large #’s of updates into “Service Packs” rather than continue to offer them piecemeal.

Because of this, I no longer employ the same paradigm I did since the early 90’s, which was to install all updates as they were released. I learned long ago to not allow Windows platforms install updates automatically – too much chance Windows might want to interrupt what I was doing – and for the last few years, I’ve taken to waiting @ least a week after Patch Tuesday before allowing most updates to install. This allows time for any problems with a particular update to be found – and often enough, a solution or workaround to be developed – before I take a chance on it ‘bricking’ a computer.

I’ve also begun to do something I never used to have to go through – investigating what a particular update does/is for, first by clicking the list of “Important” or “Optional” updates in the Windows Update ‘home screen’, then highlighting the individual updates one @ a time and clicking the “More Information” link in the right-hand pane. The web pages those links open – typically, the Knowledge Base (“KB”) article itself. 1Soft’s old practice of including enough information in these articles also seems to have fallen by the wayside, but there’s often enough info to decide if a patch has any likelihood of applicability to one’s particular installation. For instance, KB3055999, “Update APN database entry for SaskTel (Canada) in Windows 8.1 and 8” is only applicable to those platforms, and to customers whose IP address is provided by Saskatchewan Telecommunications. If you’re not in that select group of people, there’s unlikely to be much use in installing that one. It really has come down to the point where I examine each and every patch fully before I decide whether to install it, or simply hide it. I suspect you’re going to have to do a system restore back to a working state, then determine which updates you really need, and install them one at a time. Tedious, I know, but often enough the only way to resolve this kind of thing when you’re not both handy and comfortable with the tools & techniques pros use.

Probably the best advice beyond that I can offer is to use what’s become 1Soft’s go-to resource (where a glance at the names of the employees responding will illustrate the off-shore outsourcing of IT talent I mentioned), the Answers Community, @ http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us. I recommend starting with the Wiki Article “How to ask an effective question” (link), which can help you get started; the authors of that article have several links included at the bottom that may be of use. I’m a community contributor myself (“Dogtamer”), and I promise you there’s a lot of folks there better-equipped to help you than almost anywhere else.

One other thing I recommend: don’t put all your eggs in one basket by depending on System Restore. The very first thing I do after loading a new computer is to make an adequate backup. The Windows Help article “Restore your computer from a system image backup” (link) can help you with that, and having one handy can be a lifesaver.