KB4078130 Update to Disable Mitigation against Spectre, Variant 2

@RingTailCoon the information I had previously posted was from a discussion on another forum.

I did several tests on this issue today.

When MS released the Spectre Variant 2 critical update I already had set FeatureSettingsOverride to 0 and FeatureSettingsOverrideMask to 3. When I ran the critical update on my computer it only changed the FeatureSettingsOverride to 1 leaving the FeatureSettingsOverrideMask still at 3.


Here are my personal findings for when running the Spectre Variant 2 critical update with various value combinations of the FeatureSettingsOverride and FeatureSettingsOverrideMask :

1. If the registry entries does not exist the update will create the FeatureSettingsOverride and FeatureSettingsOverrideMask entries and set both to 1.
2. If FeatureSettingsOverride was set at 0 and FeatureSettingsOverrideMask at 0 the update will change both to 1.
3. If FeatureSettingsOverride was set at 1 and FeatureSettingsOverrideMask at 1 the update will make no changes to these two entries.
4. If FeatureSettingsOverride was set at 0 and FeatureSettingsOverrideMask at 3 the update will change only the FeatureSettingsOverride to 1 while still leaving FeatureSettingsOverrideMask at 3.
5. If FeatureSettingsOverride was set at 1 and FeatureSettingsOverrideMask at 2 the update will change only the FeatureSettingsOverrideMask to 3 while leaving FeatureSettingsOverride set at 1.
6. If FeatureSettingsOverride was set at 1 and FeatureSettingsOverrideMask at 3 the update will make no changes to these two entries.
7. If FeatureSettingsOverride was set at 2 and FeatureSettingsOverrideMask at 2 the update will change both to 3.
8. If FeatureSettingsOverride was set at 3 and FeatureSettingsOverrideMask at 3 the update will make no changes to these two entries.

"FeatureSettingsOverrideMask" defines the bit range for "FeatureSettingsOverride"

SaggyMaggyPoo said:

Did the repair install anyway which does seem to have solved the rebooting issue (though it's early days yet!). I also downloaded InSpectre and ran it on both our laptops and both say they are vulnerable for Spectre, giving the following information:

This system's protection against the Spectre vulnerability has been deliberately disabled by system settings. Even if the system's hardware is able to manage the Spectre threat, the operating system's settings will need to be changed to enable Spectre protection.

Windows' Spectre vulnerability protection (only) has been deliberately disabled by settings in this system's registry. Although overall system performance will be improved, this system will be vulnerable to Spectre attacks. Meltdown protection has not been disabled.

I ran the KB4078130 update on both laptops initially, but then did a repair install on one, which presumably replaced the registry, so not sure why both would be showing vulnerabilities to Spectre.

Assuming the reboot problem is fixed, is it possible (does it make sense) to change the registry setting(s) back to 0?

Dell are advising not to update the BIOS yet so I guess we just have to wait and remember those back-ups!

You should be able to change the registry values with no ill effects, however, it's possible that the system restore didn't note the change in the registry entries when you ran the KB4078130 update for whatever reason - did you make a restore point before running the update?

I'd also check for what updates you have installed to see if it is still showing as installed (from appwiz.cpl, click Show Installed Updates at the left)

Geneo said:

It means you are overriding Spectra variant 2 patch (the one requiring a microcode update as well as windows patch). The microcode has been problematic.

Haven't received any for my GIGABYTE GA-H110M-S2H...

storageman said:

Do you have F25a installed ?

Yes yes :) That was the last one that they released.

GA-H110M-S2H (rev. 1.0) | Motherboard - GIGABYTE Global

Whe-hey! Finally I got the CPU update! (F25c) (Update CPU-Microcode) only Inspectre keeps on blabbering that Spectre prot. is still disabled and I can't get it enabled (keeps turning off...)

So HOW dó I turn it back on?

edit oops never mind, had to restart haha!

So to enable both I assume you, @RingTailCoon set FeatureSettingOverride and FeatureSettingOverrideMask to 0 (zero), correct?

Caledon Ken said:

So to enable both I assume you, @RingTailCoon set FeatureSettingOverride and FeatureSettingOverrideMask to 0 (zero), correct?

Yes