Microsoft usually has very well marked Windows development cycles. This operating system receives a security update on the second Tuesday of each month, and a quality patch on the penultimate week. However, when quite serious bugs appear, which affect the correct functioning of the operating system, it may happen that we see an emergency patch after the deadline. And this is what just happened with the new KB5004760 , a new update now available for Windows 10 users.
Windows emergency updates usually only arrive when quite serious errors occur that affect many users, or that affect the correct functioning of other programs within the OS. This new update belongs to the latter, and directly affects the PDF viewers used by users to open these types of documents.
KB5004760: Solution to problems when opening PDF
This new patch arrives out of time to solve several problems that, for Microsoft, have been considered quite serious. The update focuses on correcting a problem that prevents opening PDF files using Internet Explorer 11 , or any other program that is based on the 64-bit version of WebBrowser Control . Surely very few users open PDF files using Internet Explorer, but there are many viewers, especially OpenSource, based on this other engine. Luckily, everything is working normally again.
Another bug fixed in this patch is a rendering issue . PDFs with a gray background could only be viewed correctly if we had the Adobe Acrobat plugin installed. Now, after installing this update, everything works normally again.
Furthermore, the patch also fixes some other bugs to improve the task of opening PDF documents within the operating system.
Unfortunately, this new patch has not arrived without problems. Along with its details, Microsoft has published a series of bugs that may appear on computers that install this new patch. For example, Japanese IME keyboards may fail to type certain characters, and handcrafted ISOs that include this patch may have the classic Edge removed and not come with Edge Chromium installed.
How to install the patch. I must do it?
This patch, in addition to being out of date, is optional. The first thing to keep in mind is that, if we have not experienced any of the problems that are marked as fixed, it is not necessary to install the update, as it will not do any good.
This update is available to all users from Windows 10 version 1903 to the latest 21H1. In addition, it is not programmed to arrive through Windows Update, but we must access this link, the Microsoft Update catalog, to download and install it manually.
These fixes will also be included in Microsoft’s next cumulative patch, set to arrive next Patch Tuesday (July 13). Meanwhile, this emergency update will help us to solve the problems we may have when opening this type of document on our PC.
