The second round of October patches arrives — with a few twists and a new nag

On the face of it, yesterday’s dump of “optional, non-security” patches for Win10 was thoroughly boring:
As usual, there was no second cumulative update for Win10 1903/Server 1903. If history’s any indication, that patch will likely arrive during “D Week” or “E Week” — or some other random time, later this month or early next month.
Far more interesting are the Monthly Rollup Previews for earlier versions:
As well as KB 4520013 for Server 2012 and KB 4520015 for Server 2008.
Knowledge Base articles for the Win7 and 8.1 Monthly Rollup Previews include this tantalizing text:
Addresses an issue with evaluating the compatibility status of the Windows ecosystem to help ensure application and device compatibility for all updates to Windows. For more information, see KB 4525208.
Just one little problem. As of early Wednesday morning anyway, there is no KB 4525208. Try it yourself and see.
What “issue with evaluating the compatibility status of the Windows ecosystem” is in Win7 and 8.1? We surely don’t want to mess with the Windows ecosystem, even if it requires installing an undocumented patch, right?
@abbodi86 has an educated guess:
The ecosystem compatibility thing is just a fancy term for the Compatibility Appraiser (formerly known as KB 2952664).
If that ends up being the case, we’re seeing a re-re-…re-release of an old telemetry/snooping ghoul. I first wrote about KB 2952664 more than five years ago, and have posted updated info about it dozens of times since, most recently in a July 11 post which warns that the KB 2952664 functions had been bundled with a “Security only” Win7 patch. Microsoft has never given more than a cursory statement about the patch’s proclivities, or the telemetry being extricated.
Is it possible that Microsoft will roll this decidedly non-security snooper into the next Win7 “Security only” patch? It’s happened before, in July and September. Don’t be too surprised if it happens again.
Speaking of utterly obnoxious Win7 behavior: In a supposedly unrelated development,…
www.computerworld.com