Microsoft's Patchwork Falls Apart Again!

[CommanderFrank]

Microsoft once again has had to recall yet another patch, this one was supposed to improve Powerpoint and does nothing but render it useless after the update is applied. Microsoft hasn’t had the best track record for its updates over the past months and it doesn't look to be improving over time.

By The Register's count, this is the sixth time in eight months that Microsoft has had to withdraw a patch.

 

[TheSoldier]

Patches are supposed to fix things?

 

[Eulogy]

Yet people complain when MS doesn't have something fixed in 90 days or less.

 

[Ur_Mom]

Yet people complain when MS doesn't have something fixed in 90 days or less.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Yes, I'd like a quick working patch every time. But, it's not going to happen every single time. It can't.

 

[hardmacksmith]

Something happened in this patch set that borked my installation... totally f'in random. I love computers.

 

[dr/owned]

It'd be useful to know what % of people this patch borks their PPT install. If it's something like 80% then holy hell MSFT are you guys not testing your patches before deploying them? If it's only 10% then it's not as big of a deal.

 

[leeleatherwood]

This is exactly why you should disable automatic updates.

Even the business world the systems admins wait at least a week before applying patches, for this very reason.

 

[Sp33dFr33k]

Their QA process has gone to complete shit. We've had to stop patching systems the week of patch release and wait at least 2 weeks until the bugs are found and patches are recalled or re-released.

Something seriously needs to change with their system.

 

[prime2515102]

This is why the update system for Office 365 is such a great idea.

 

[WhyYouLoveMe]

Even the business world the systems admins wait at least a week before applying patches, for this very reason.

Bingo

 

[jfreund]

I don't know if it has anything to do with PPT, but the recent Visual Studio 2012 patch keeps hanging and failing on my systems.

 

[Quix]

Did you know that there is a bug in Microsoft Access where if the machine it's running on has more than 1 month of uptime all the fields with calculations in them fail to display. It's been a problem since Access 2007 and they haven't fixed it yet. There is a hotfix for Access 2010, but not 2013 or 2007 (too old now).

If they can't fix something like that, in the 2 years it's been a problem then I don't trust them to fix anything. Especially in Office, a product for which they really no longer have any staff that understand it. All the people who designed it have quit or been promoted and there have been so many versions that it's all held together with duct tape and bailing wire now.

 

[13xforever]

It'd be useful to know what % of people this patch borks their PPT install. If it's something like 80% then holy hell MSFT are you guys not testing your patches before deploying them? If it's only 10% then it's not as big of a deal.

More like 0.1% (which is still tens if not hundreds of thousands installations)

Their QA process has gone to complete shit. We've had to stop patching systems the week of patch release and wait at least 2 weeks until the bugs are found and patches are recalled or re-released.

Something seriously needs to change with their system.

No, it is miracle every time that they release a patch that doesn't break something for someone. You can't comprehend just how thorough and rigorous the QA should be for something as widespread as Windows and Office. You have to check virtually an infinite combinations of hardware and software.

 

[chithanh]

You have to check virtually an infinite combinations of hardware and software.

But this time the problem affected Windows RT. There were only a handful of RT models ever produced, and you cannot install any software outside the Windows Marketplace.

The "infinite combinations of hardware and software" excuse doesn't apply here.

 

[dgingeri]

Do they even test these things? These recalled patches weren't just not working under certain circumstances, but rather not working under any circumstances. It's like they weren't tested at all.

 

[ManofGod]

Thank you for the heads up. Now I am aware that if needed, I will have to roll back or remove this patch. So far, no one has called in with this issue but if they do, we will be able to take care of it, thanks. Also, it appears to me to be an issue with a single file that is not reporting itself correctly.

 

[mullet]

I wonder if the reason why the patches have been failing is that Microsoft handed this job off to the NSA?

 

[heatlesssun]

Do they even test these things? These recalled patches weren't just not working under certain circumstances, but rather not working under any circumstances. It's like they weren't tested at all.

I have this patch installed on a half dozen Windows 8.1 machines running Office 2013 and PowerPoint is opening on all fine. The problem for Microsoft is that they really can't test every scenario out there and sometimes they miss something.

I'm thinking they need to stage patches and get them more widely deployed earlier on to catch these kinds of things.

 

[ianken]

Do they even test these things? These recalled patches weren't just not working under certain circumstances, but rather not working under any circumstances. It's like they weren't tested at all.

From what I understand during the last round of layoffs the vast majority of those let go were in test. Doesn't seem to be working out so well.

 

[Sp33dFr33k]

From what I understand during the last round of layoffs the vast majority of those let go were in test. Doesn't seem to be working out so well.

Test and IT funding is always the first to go. Executives don't see the value in either department.

 

[az_max]

....... this one was supposed to improve Powerpoint and does nothing but render it useless after the update is applied......

Powerpoint and useless go hand-in-hand