Windows Client Guidance against speculative execution vulnerabilities

yeah i here you all my Kid just bought a HP Envy laptop from Best Buy for collage , i did the latest Bios that said it had security fixes, low and behold it was it seems only for Meltdown, nothing in it for Spectre i have my feelings that it was not even for meltdown and that was done by windows like on our systems, it makes me wonder is HP and amd going to fix this or do they think they are still impervious to it.

Ground Sloth said:

If you get the patch from the Microsoft Update Catalog, then Windows will load the microcode update into CPU memory on startup instead of the BIOS/UEFI. That's the only difference.

Good to know. Thanks for your input.

Hi,

Actually it's just an emulation and that KB from MUC will only work on FCU (1709) and nothing else.

Cheers,

fdegrove said:

Hi,

Actually it's just an emulation and that KB from MUC will only work on FCU (1709) and nothing else.

Cheers,

One would be hard pressed to think otherwise. Thanks also for your input. Always there at the right time...:)

fdegrove said:

Hi,

Actually it's just an emulation and that KB from MUC will only work on FCU (1709) and nothing else.

Cheers,

No actual microcode is being loaded into CPU memory on startup?

Hi,

Ground Sloth said:

No actual microcode is being loaded into CPU memory on startup?

Not that I know of, no. Besides what CPU memory would that be ? There's only a number of cacheing memory blocks, right ?

Cheers,

Hi,

I asked you about a month ago if Windows loads the microcode update into CPU memory, and you said that it does.

I wasn't sure what exactly it was you meant by "CPU memory" at the time but assumed you meant DRAM memory in general.
The way the emulation works there's no need to acces the CPU's hardware, it makes the OS believe the MC is what is presented by the software patch which is only active for as long as the OS is active.

MC is CPU firmware so it's not something that resides in volatile memory.

Cheers,

The BIOS/UEFI updates the CPU microcode by loading the update into volatile memory on the CPU during boot. I thought Windows essentially did the same thing during startup. Thanks for clarifying.

Hi,

The BIOS/UEFI updates the CPU microcode by loading the update into volatile memory on the CPU during boot.

MC is a software interpretation layer that sits between the cpu's firmware and the computer system as a whole and resides in the cpu's non-volatile memory. Once it's updated it stays that way untill the next update etc.
In a way it can be viewed as a piece of software that talks to the cpu telling it how to "read" and "execute" instructions coming from the system.

Cheers,