KB3013455 (MS15-010) causes font corruption

Anonymous
2015-02-10T21:06:56+00:00

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]

Windows for home | Other | Windows update

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2015-02-12T05:17:15+00:00

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
2015-02-18T18:42:43+00:00

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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  1. Anonymous
    2015-02-12T16:16:53+00:00

    Hi All,

    I am a little confused why a patch that fixes a vulnerability in ClearType is making text bad on my Vista 32 bit system when I have ClearType turned off.  I am using standard font smoothing and not ClearType.

    Anyway... the patch is still creating a problem for me so I had to uninstall it to make the use of the operating system not cause a problem 100% of the time vs a vulnerability that may happen around 0.0001% of the time.  

    Also if I have ClearType disabled I question how I could be vulnerable to a problem that exploits a bug in functionality I have disabled should be able to impact me.  If I download a document that attempts to use ClearType the OS should just say NO that is not on and end of story you don't get exploited.   However if you can still be exploited with the option off I question how well the OFF button on that functionality works.

    I still think Microsoft should have been able to identify a way to mitigate this issue for people like me who don't use ClearType without making the fonts go unreadable.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-02-12T16:10:37+00:00

    I just want Microsoft to know that this issue has had me wasted (my) time and money (my boss's money) in resolving this problem.

    I didn't know which update was causing this. So I had to remove all the updates (14 of them) and install one by one till I found out which one was causing the font corruption. 

    I'm a computer programmer and this issue was messing up with the editores I'm using for programming. Not to mention my browsers.

    From what I have read here, it seems that Microsoft is not giving big importance to this issue.

    I need to read what I'm programming and not guess what's on the screen!!!

    So until this issue is not fixed, I'm not going to install this "faulty" update.

    My boss is asking who is going to pay for our time wasted in fixing the companies computers due to this update?

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-02-12T15:57:46+00:00

    Thank you very much for this post - these are the same results I am getting, and I have the same views as you do about this sorry situation.  All power to your elbow!

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