Windows Spectre / Meltdown patch utility

[PierreG]

I've been having a lot of very strange issues with my various Windows devices (W7 and 10 based) lately, and so I read up on the dreaded Spectre / Meltdown situation and how the patches were causing havoc on various systems. The effects can range from various forms of crashing to degraded performance and the possibility of data loss. Ouch.

I've seen all 3 issues on my old Dell D630 laptops. The data loss hit my Windows 10 unit when it black screen crashed and ate the contents of a .tracktion edit file while working in Waveform 9. Can't say for sure if the patches are the root of the problem, yet I decided to turn them off. The Microsoft method was a mess so I struck out to find a better / easier method.

What I found was this slick and free utility - InSpectre.exe from Gibson Research. It's a one for all Windows versions app that shows the status of the patches on your system, allows you to enable / disable them with a button push (modifies the registry) and offers a very detailed and comprehensive explanation of everything related to these patches.

You can find the utility here: https://www.grc.com/inspectre.htm