Microsoft Pulls "Incomplete" Bulldozer Patch

Posted 12/19/2011 at 10:32am | by Paul Lilly

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It appears Microsoft jumped the gun in releasing a hotfix to improve performance for AMD Bulldozer systems running Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 operating systems. The patch, which was released on Friday, caught AMD off guard because it's just one of two updates needed to improve performance. It was pulled within 24 hours and labeled as "incomplete" by Microsoft.

"AMD and Microsoft are continually working to improve hardware and software for our shared customers. As part of our joint work to optimize the performance of 'Bulldozer' architecture-based AMD processors we collaborating on a scheduler update to the Windows 7 code-base. The code associated with this KB is incomplete and should not be used," Microsoft revised knowledegebase article reads.

The patch was intended to address SMT (simultaneously multithreading) support and better harness the power of 8-core processing with AMD's Bulldozer architecture, which is optimized for Windows 8. Turns out two patches are needed.

"There are actually two updates needed for AMD Bulldozer CPU architecture," an AMD spokesperson told BrightSideOfNews. "Microsoft posted just the first patch and we do not believe users would benefit in any way from it. The patch was originally scheduled for the first quarter 2012 and then the users will see tangible performance benefits when using Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 operating systems."

So if you're an AMD Bulldozer user, sit tight and wait for Microsoft and AMD to square things away in the coming months.