Microsoft has said the Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 R2 will no longer receive updates unless they have the April 2014 updates installed. In other words, you can wait until November to install the April update, but you will not receive any updates from May until November until the April patch is installed.
In a recent security update from Microsoft, Steve Thomas at Microsoft posted a TechNet article stating that Microsoft will no longer issue security patches for Windows 8.1 or Windows Server 2012 R2, starting in May, because “Microsoft wants to ensure that customers benefit from the best support and servicing experience.”
Since Microsoft wants to ensure that customers benefit from the best support and servicing experience and to coordinate and simplify servicing across both Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows 8.1 RT and Windows 8.1, this update will be considered a new servicing/support baseline. What this means is those users who have elected to install updates manually will have 30 days to install Windows 8.1 Update on Windows 8.1 devices; after this 30-day window – and beginning with the May Patch Tuesday, Windows 8.1 user’s devices without the update installed will no longer receive security updates.
There have been a number of issues reported regarding installing the update from failed installations to errors when installing.
According to the same article:
Microsoft plans to issue an update as soon as possible that will correct the issue and restore the proper behavior for Windows 8.1 Update KB 2919355 scanning against all supported WSUS configurations. Until that time, we are delaying the distribution of the Windows 8.1 Update KB 2919355 to WSUS servers.
You may still obtain the Windows 8.1 Update (KB 2919355) from the Windows Update Catalog or MSDN. However, we recommend that you suspend deployment of this update in your organization until we release the update that resolves this issue.
Hopefully, Microsoft will extend support for these versions because that does not leave IT Pros much time to deploy to their networks.
