Office 2003 Bug Locks Owners Out

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "A Microsoft Office 2003 bug is locking people out of their own files, specifically those protected with Microsoft's Rights Management Service. Microsoft has a TechNet bulletin on the issue with a fix. It looks like they screwed up and let a certificate expire. There's no information on when the replacement certificate will expire, though, or what will happen when it does."

Comments

Unexpected error?

[SpacePunk]

From the article...
"Office 2003 users receive the error, "Unexpected error occurred. Please try again later or contact your system administrator,""

WTF? Is there anyone out there that can point me to an expected error? Can these wannabe programmer motherfuckers ever pass on real information on an error to the end user? Their error messages might as well say, "Our program fucked up, we're dipshits, we don't know what the fuck is going on. In fact, we couldn't have put together a crappier piece of software if we were drunk, or high."

Re:Unexpected error?

[jpmorgan]

You would prefer 'Expected error occurred. We could have handled with this transparently, but we'd rather pop up an annoying dialog box?'

Re:Unexpected error?

[Thanshin]

Their error messages might as well say, "Our program fucked up, we're dipshits, we don't know what the fuck is going on. In fact, we couldn't have put together a crappier piece of software if we were drunk, or high."

It would be funnier to get messages like: "Our program fucked up. -- Error code: ss324. Help me. I've been in a cage for the last two years. They feed me the corpses of the programmers who didn't make it through the big flood. I don't want to die. Please help! ... HH/991.DDF. For more information, contact your system administrator."

Re:Unexpected error?

[BrokenHalo]

Is there anyone out there that can point me to an expected error?

What's worse is that insulting little click-box that sits there jeering at you saying [OK]

...when as we all know, the correct response is "No, it's NOT fucking OK, you dipshit."

Re:Unexpected error?

[dbIII]

The funny thing is I can read in stuff from the 1980s that doesn't even use ASCII and these clowns can't even keep files readable for six years.
Proudly brought to you by the guys that stranded a ship with a divide by zero error and halted devices for a day because they forgot about leap years. They are only ready for the "Enterprise" is you have a few spare redshirts to lose.

Thats why I am NOT an early adopter

[Provocateur]

Now that I know that this won't affect the Isolated Basement Department, I can now safely install Office 2003...

Receipt, check. Shrinkwrap off, check. Must keep original box...

A copy protection system called RMS?

[mattcsn]

Obviously, someone at Microsoft has a sense of humour.

Re:Any workarounds?

[deniable]

It sounds like RMS is a good tool for pushing free software.

Re:Totally off the mark.

[WegianWarrior]

Same thing with women
Ah, so you're still single then?

Re:Totally off the mark.

[xouumalperxe]

all XML formats

Cool. I'll send it in OOXML then.

Re:Totally off the mark.

[Red Flayer]

Emphasis mine:

I had to do some Deep Googling to find someone hosting a copy of the PowerPoint viewer that was old enough to still support the '95 version.

What kid of juju is that? Sounds dangerous, like you might awake some Guardian of the Deep, or even He Who Lies Dead But Dreaming.

Sure hope your wife's employer has paid up their Catastrophic Accidental Awakening of Ancient Evil insurance policy.