KB3013455 (MS15-010) causes font corruption

Anonymous

February 2015 update KB3013455 causes 'Courier New' font corruption on some Windows systems, I can confirm it for Windows Server 2003 and 2008. You can verify it in Notepad. Removing the update fixes the issue.

Windows 7 and 8.1 are not affected by the update.

[removed information that 64bit may not be affected]

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Anonymous

Yes Remove/Add Program >> View Installed Windows Updates >> I added the column to display installation date, reverse sorted and found "3013455" ((this update), then Uninstalled it.

This was common in the late 90's/early 2000's, had to remember which updates not to install that would break things. It's been solid for at least a decade, now this.

I don't really care what the fix is for. If I can't read my screen from my chair, I need to resolve it to do my job (own a web design firm).

I share the same opinion as this article "...the bottom line here is that if you want to be able to actually read the screen, you'll want to hold off installing this update until the problem is fixed."

http://windowsitpro.com/msrc/patch-tuesday-font-corruption-kb3013455

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Anonymous

The link for all downloads is:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/search/Results.aspx?q=kb3013455&form=DLC

Choose your OS from the half dozen big options at the top and it brings you right to the download page.

Hit the big red download button and it should offer you two updates:

kb3013455 (the original that breaks fonts)

and

KB3037639 (the secondary update to fix fonts)

I installed the original, said do not reboot, and installed the second.

After reboot I appear patched and my fonts are good.

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300 additional answers

Anonymous

2015-02-12T10:48:42+00:00

I won't be opening any files or visiting any untrusted websites that contains embedded TrueType fonts.

You can disable using embedded fonts in browser. Unfortunately modern web frameworks uses custom fonts as icons store so some web sites would look bad.

Some browsers like Firefox may "preprocess" the TrueType font file so the attack might not work. All of this is result of moving the font processing code from user to kernel mode. Not sure whether it makes more good than bad things with current video chip hardware.
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Anonymous

2015-02-12T11:50:02+00:00

64 bit windows 2008 SP2 server system is affected too. Arial and Courier fonts are not correctly rendered. uninstall fixed the issue.
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Anonymous

2015-02-12T11:51:55+00:00

From my experience, I've set this to prompt years ago, there are only a few sites who really need the embedded font. Many sites do not even show a difference, others only a tiny difference (where you have to think, why the heck did they do it at all?). In my opinion these embedded fonts are a real plague. I think most "designers" of these sites are not simply aware that they require a font or simply do not care about extra download cost for nothing.

If anyone does not install this patch I heartily recommend switching embedded fonts in the browser off. At least in IE that's easy. As others have mentioned the rendering problem seems to affect only certain fonts. So, a better solution might be to install this patch and use a different font than Courier New (unless it turns out that too many fonts are affected, I don't know).

The issue described in the security bulletin is serious and you do not want to stay that open!
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