Developers Rejoice Again

Just a few short weeks ago I recommended that all developers running 64-bit Windows 7 (that is, most developers) should install a hot-fix to correct a stack corruption bug that would hit anytime a 32-bit program crashed in the debugger (if you had an AVX processor). This bug causes mangled call stacks that turn routine crashes into forensic nightmares.

It turns out that the hot-fix is not needed because the fix was rolled into the regular security updates. The fix for the stack corruption bug is included with KB2859537 (part of the August 2013 set of security patches) and most developers will get it automatically.

So please ignore my previous advice about installing the hot-fix, and instead install those security updates.

If your company does a delayed rollout of security fixes then it might be worth pointing out the value of installing KB2859537 sooner rather than later.

The broad availability of this fix is slightly weird because several people, at various companies, had asked to have the fix made part of automatic updates and were told ‘no’. But hey, I’m just happy that it’s out there and that this confusing stack corruption will soon be completely gone.

For a brief summary of the bug see this post. This also includes simple test code to determine whether you have the bug, remediation steps, and un-remediation steps.

To see the petition that may have helped convince Microsoft that the bug should be fixed see this post.

For the original post that described the bug (and some other crash-related weirdness) see this post.

Thanks to Skip and Mike for their work on getting this fix pushed through. Complaining does work.