New IE11 update might also sneak home windows 10 ‘upgrade’ alternatives into safety patch

for decades, Microsoft has cut up its patch offerings between safety updates, trojan horse fixes, and function updates. the line between a trojan horse restore and a characteristic update has often been blurry, with both being deployed inside the identical package, however safety solutions have always been sandboxed and disbursed as their personal occasion. The business enterprise bent this rule whilst it started packaging windows 10 updates as single-shot cumulative downloads, and now it’s seemingly breaking it altogether. The contemporary internet Explorer 11 protection patch also consists of a home windows 10-related down load, as spotted through InfoWorld.

This isn’t exactly a breach of a regulation, but it truely upsets the apple cart as a long way as conforming to Microsoft’s historical practices. if you pull the KB access for the improve (KB3146449), it reads: “This replace adds functionality to net Explorer 11 on some computers that we could customers find out about windows 10 or begin an improve to windows 10.”

however, in contrast to what a few websites are reporting, it’s not clear what the browser replace absolutely did. I actually established the patch by myself device, on account that I’m nonetheless jogging home windows 7, and i've yet to look at any giant difference within the browser.

IE11 and windows 10

some sites are reporting that once installing the update, internet Explorer eleven presents you with a massive “improve” banner after travelling MSN.com. this is actual — but it’s also in no way new. I used to apply IE11 for troubleshooting and on some web sites in which I wanted it for compatibility motives. The massive pop-overs that spark off customers to improve to windows 10 started out appearing on MSN.com after home windows 10 went stay, now not because of this update. here’s a screenshot of my pre-patched version of IE11:

The post-patch screenshot is same. in case you click on via to the banner, you get the same alternatives as before. i exploit the GWX manage Panel display application to prevent W10 from stealth-downloading itself directly to my gadget, and that app has stated no changes to home windows update. There’s additionally no new browser alternatives, home windows, settings, or statistics. There’s a “backed” ad exhorting humans to improve to windows 10 jogging on MSN.com, but no evidence that this update stuck it there.

The pop-over banner seen above turned into MSN-specific earlier than the patch and it’s MSN-particular afterwards. if you set your homepage to Google.com, it doesn’t display up. That’s additionally identical to what the browser did pre-update.

For all that we’ve railed towards Microsoft’s as an alternative doubtful practices on the subject of updating home windows 10, i can’t find any proof that this update modified some thing of be aware. maybe that’s because of the unique characteristics of my gadget, I sincerely can’t tell. both manner, I consider the sentiment that MS shouldn’t be shipping those types of updates as a part of protection patches. It’s bad practice to combine and healthy things like this, and it can cause problems down the road if a hypothetical update brought about an extra security flaw. It’s not even clean if Microsoft’s efforts to push more humans to home windows 10 are running — as of last week, downloads were stuck in neutral.