Windows 7 Update KB2952664--huh?

[Towermax]

It's called "Compatibility update for upgrading Windows 7"

The description of the update is "This update helps Microsoft make improvements to the current operating system in order to ease the upgrade experience to the latest version of Windows."

Anyone know what this actually does?

 

[HOSED]

It seem hard to find any details; since I am staying on Win 7 I will not install it. I hid it.

 

[smakme7757]

It seems pretty self explanatory. The update changes "something" in Windows 7 to make upgrading to Windows 8 less problematic 🙂.

 

[Towermax]

It seems pretty self explanatory. The update changes "something" in Windows 7 to make upgrading to Windows 8 less problematic 🙂.

Yeah, I got the same message. Amazing, huh?

But that's not what I asked. I asked if anyone knows what it actually does, i.e., what specific changes does it make?

 

[smakme7757]

Yeah, I got the same message. Amazing, huh?

But that's not what I asked. I asked if anyone knows what it actually does, i.e., what specific changes does it make?

You would be hard pressed to find anything more than: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2952664

Maybe you can ask Microsoft for the source-code 😉

 

[WilliamM2]

And almost two years after the latest operating system was released. This should be under optional updates.

 

[code65536]

For now, it's still flagged as optional even though it doesn't appear in that category. You have to explicitly select it (even if you turned on recommended updates) to get it to install.

In any case, I suggest looking at the file list in the KB article. People familiar with how Windows works should be able to recognize from that file list that it's just an update to the system's compatibility shims and shim database, so it's not a big deal, really, since compatibility shims kick in only for specific known-to-be-problematic applications in the database.

Updates to the compatibility shims and database are quite frequent (pretty much any update that says "compatibility" is this sort of update), so I don't know what sets this one apart from the many that have preceded it. Maybe targeting specific applications that are known to interfere with the upgrade process? *shrugs*

If someone *really* wants to know, they can download Microsoft's application compatibility toolkit (Microsoft lets end-users--mostly corporate deployments--make their own shim databases, and that's what this toolkit is for), and load up the database files included in this update and compare it against the database from the previous update and see what was changed. It's unlikely to be anything worth writing home about, though. 😛

 

[ViRGE]

In any case, I suggest looking at the file list in the KB article. People familiar with how Windows works should be able to recognize from that file list that it's just an update to the system's compatibility shims and shim database, so it's not a big deal, really, since compatibility shims kick in only for specific known-to-be-problematic applications in the database.

It's interesting to me that so many of the files are from Win8.1. The bulk of them are version 6.3.9600.

 

[Towermax]

For now, it's still flagged as optional even though it doesn't appear in that category. You have to explicitly select it (even if you turned on recommended updates) to get it to install.

In any case, I suggest looking at the file list in the KB article. People familiar with how Windows works should be able to recognize from that file list that it's just an update to the system's compatibility shims and shim database, so it's not a big deal, really, since compatibility shims kick in only for specific known-to-be-problematic applications in the database.

Thanks, that was useful info. And it's interesting--this update was listed as an "Important" update when I first spotted it. Now it has been changed to an "Optional" update.