Windows Server: How to Determine Update Supersedence and Find Replacing Hotfixes

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Sometimes it can be unintuitive to find out what hotfix or update replaces other updates. Sometimes you think you need a hotfix that is no longer available. In this cases you can try to find superseding update using the procedure described below.

Example

Assume you need to fix issues described in Microsoft Support Knowledge Base Article 975530 — “Stop error message on a Windows Server 2008 R2-based computer that has the Hyper-V role installed and that uses one or more Intel CPUs that are code-named Nehalem: "0x00000101 - CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT"”. The hotfix for this article is currently unavailable for online request. Though file information for this hotfix is published in the KB Article, so that you can find a superseding hotfix.

  1. Take a note of the files included into the hotfix and their versions.

    1. Select only files within the LDR branch (i.e. those which minor versions start with 2). Note that you might not necessarily receive this version of files after you actually install the hotfix.

    Example:

    KB975530 Hvax64.exe,
    Hvix64.exe    		 6.1.7600.20595

  2. Put the following into the search bar of your favourite Internet Search Engine:

    1. remaining file names,
    2. full product name,
    3. define the search scope equal to support.microsoft.com.

    Example:
    http://www.bing.com/search?q=%22Hvax64.exe%22+%22Hvix64.exe%22+%22windows+server+2008+R2%22+site%3Asupport.microsoft.com+language%3Aen

  3. You’d get a list of hotfixes that contain the files you’re interested in. Now look up versions of the files in these hotfixes according to the information from the KB Articles.
    Example:

    KB974909 Hvax64.exe,
    Hvix64.exe    		 6.1.7600.20514
    KB975530 Hvax64.exe,
    Hvix64.exe    		 6.1.7600.20595
    KB981618 Hvax64.exe,
    Hvix64.exe    		 6.1.7600.20678
    KB981791 Hvax64.exe,
    Hvix64.exe    		 6.1.7600.20691

  4. Chose the most recent one (or just any one that has higher version than the hotfix you actually need).
    Example:
    Instead of KB975530, which is not available, you can choose either KB981618 or KB981791, which both are newer and currently available for online request.