Earlier this year, two vulnerabilities were discovered that affected the performance of Windows 10 and had risen many debates online. We’re talking about Spectre and Meltdown, which as everyone knows, affected the performance of computers with Intel processors and Windows 10. Following the discovery of Spectre and Meltdown, both companies rushed to put the problem to an end and, although they managed to solve some of the vulnerabilities of Spectre and Meltdown, Microsoft has now reported that it will tackle the more recent Spectre V2 vulnerability.
Intel’s new processors are already immune to these hardware failures, and although Microsoft had solved some software problems, now the software company will release a new patch to tackle the Spectre V2 vulnerability to address the performance issues it causes in Windows 10.
Remember that Spectre V2 is one of the vulnerabilities that affected the most the performance of computers, as it could even reduce the performance of a processor by up to 20%, but Microsoft is going to prevent this from happening by enabling the next major update of Windows 10, Retpoline.
Spectre V2 vulnerability will no longer be a performance problem in Windows 10
With Retpoline enabled in Windows 10, Microsoft expects that they will tackle Spectre V2 vulnerability lowering its incidence to 2%. However, Retpoline will only be available to users who upgrade their computers to Windows 10 1903 or Redstone 6, which will arrive for everyone in the spring of next year.
So, the patch to address Spectre V2 can’t be launched for previous versions, so those using older computers that can’t upgrade to this version could still be affected by the vulnerability. However, all those who update their computers will be protected from the vulnerability that most affects system performance.
To have the confirmation of the real improvement in performance the patch would bring, it will be necessary to wait for the first tests, something that users of the Windows 10 Insiders program will be able to commence very soon since the Retpoline function would be about to reach these users.
However, the rest will have to wait until April, when Microsoft is expected to release the new significant Windows 10 update that will also pack this new feature to tackle Spectre V2.
