Windows Security Update (KB2753842) Causes OTF Fonts To Disappear

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Hello,

I recently came across an issue where clients where experiencing missing fonts when viewing a PowerPoint project in presentation .  They could view the fonts correctly in editing mode no problem at all but when they went to presentation mode, they just disappeared.

This problem doesn't happen when you're using TrueType Fonts at all, just OpenType Fonts and if you were to drop the font size down to 12 or below, the OTF fonts show correctly in presentation mode.

The CAUSE is a Windows Security Update which addressed some security holes with OTF files.  There a quite a few WSUS servers which are set to install Security Updates by default, so I recommend you decline this update asap but only for client platforms as it's not likely you'll be using a client side app on a server.

The RESOLUTION.  Well to remove the update in Add/Remove but in order to remove the update in a silent manor different commands are required for XP and Windows Vista/7 workstations.  I put together a simple batch script which you can push out via Group Policy or run manually to remove the update from client workstations.  SEE BELOW.

Note: Once you have removed the update, you will need to reboot the workstation for the change to take effect.  I set this to run as a shutdown script in GP.

Also note:  apparently it's not just effecting PowerPoint. A lot of other application are reported to have issues such as Corel Draw.  I would expect quite a few companies that use custom OTF fonts will see issues from this update.

Hope this removal script helps.

------------------------


@echo off

REM Removal of Security Update KB2753842 which causes OTF fonts to disappear in PowerPoint Presentations
REM Created by Ben Owens 14-12-2012

REM Check Windows Version
ver | findstr /i "5\.1\." > nul
IF %ERRORLEVEL% EQU 0 goto ver_xp
ver | findstr /i "6\.0\." > nul
IF %ERRORLEVEL% EQU 0 goto ver_7
ver | findstr /i "6\.1\." > nul
IF %ERRORLEVEL% EQU 0 goto ver_7
goto warn_and_exit

:ver_xp
"C:\WINDOWS\$NtUninstallKB2753842$\spuninst\spuninst.exe" /quiet /norestart
echo Windows XP
goto exit

:ver_7
wusa /uninstall /KB:2753842 /quiet /norestart
echo Windows 7

:exit

------------

Comments

  1. Anonymous20 December 2012 at 19:30

    Yes, same problem created in Adobe Flash.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown31 December 2012 at 05:51

    Yeah I do faced the same issue with adobe Flash Professional of Adobe CS6 product. That particular updates is keep pop-in up.Is there any way to block/stop that "KB2753842" security updates.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ben Owens3 January 2013 at 02:31

    It depends on your environment. If you download updates straight from windows update, you can modify your settings so that you have to manually approve them. If you're in an environment where you don't have that control then it's a bit cloche but have a word with the system administrator or person who controls wsus anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ben Owens15 January 2013 at 15:46

    Apparently resolved according to Microsoft....
    ....

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2753842

    Known issues with this security update

    The original version of security update 2753842 had an issue related to OpenType Font (OTF) rendering in applications such as PowerPoint on affected versions of Windows. This issue was resolved in the version of this security update that was rereleased on December 20, 2012.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Unknown2 March 2013 at 12:03

    Thank you Ben very Much. I have selected the Windows Update settings manually. I deselect that particular updates from the List & try to avoid again any System Crash..

    ReplyDelete

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