Office 2003 Bug Locks Owners Out

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Office 2003 Bug Locks Owners Out

Posted by kdawson on Sunday December 13, 2009 @07:20PM from the file-available-but-not-to-you dept.

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."

74 of 247 comments (clear)

Tag: Not a bug, defective by design. by ozmanjusri · 2009-12-13 19:24 · Score: 5, Insightful

Actually, it's not really a bug, just the usual friendly reminder from Microsoft that there's a new version out and it's time to ante up again.

--
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
1. Re:Tag: Not a bug, defective by design. by rtfa-troll · 2009-12-13 20:48 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I guess in some way you're right. When Office 2003 goes unsupported, the certificate will expire and people will be forced to upgrade and that probably is something Microsoft has documented and understands (and thus a "feature"). However, I still think we could call this an operational screw up. I really don't think they want to remind people of their power to do an Amazon on all and any of your files until they have people nice and solidly locked in.
  
  --
  =~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
2. Re:Tag: Not a bug, defective by design. by deniable · 2009-12-13 22:47 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  'Destruction' of archived records is a no-no in some places. We'll see if anybody important gets bitten.
Screw Up Or Forced Upgrade? by Afforess · 2009-12-13 19:25 · Score: 5, Interesting

I know a LOT of people still using MS Office 2003. Some people dislike the Ribbon System with '07's version. Some people are too cheap to upgrade when the old copy still "works". Now, Microsoft isn't making any money from all those old copies of 2003, so what's stop them from "Programming Obsolescence" into their software?

It sounds a bit sinister, yes; but it's not technically illegal. It might even be in the oft-skimmed EULA. Or maybe it's just similar to the way HP printers always fail a week after the warranty expires.

--
If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
1. Re:Screw Up Or Forced Upgrade? by darkpixel2k · 2009-12-13 19:41 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I know a LOT of people still using MS Office 2003. Some people dislike the Ribbon System with '07's version. Some people are too cheap to upgrade when the old copy still "works".
  That's why there's OpenOffice. An experience that brings you back to the good 'ol days of Office 2003 for free. Actually, it may even bring you back to the days of Office '97.
  
  At least until the next version comes out. Then you have the ribbon too. God, I hope it can be disabled.
  
  --
  There's no place like ::1 (I've completed my transition to IPv6)
2. Re:Screw Up Or Forced Upgrade? by AuMatar · 2009-12-13 19:44 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Luckily open office writes to an open, patent unencumbered format. So if you dislike the UI- find a fork with a better one. Or a completely different program. No vendor lock in.
  
  --
  I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
3. Re:Screw Up Or Forced Upgrade? by shrimppesto · 2009-12-13 19:46 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Why did you put "works" in quotes? Office 2003 still does, in fact, work. It works just fine.
  A lot of people are still using Office 2003 because the number of new features that impact daily usage seems to shrink with every new release. Why upgrade when the version you have does everything you need it to, and the new version doesn't do anything you wish it did?
  There's always someone who will benefit from [insert new feature here]. But for the rest of us, Office has suffered from a paucity of innovation since 1995. If anything, things have gotten worse -- e.g. they keep trying to make Microsoft Word "smart," but the result is a program that's too smart to be obedient and too stupid to do what you actually want it to do.
  The writing's on the wall for Office. If the folks in Redmond don't figure out something reeeal soon, Office is toast.
4. Re:Screw Up Or Forced Upgrade? by broken_chaos · 2009-12-13 20:03 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  It's still vendor lock in if there's no competing product that reads their open formats.
  Umm... There are a huge number of programs that read/write ODF (OpenOffice's default format). Wikpedia has a fairly extensive list of software that handles the various ODF files.
5. Re:Screw Up Or Forced Upgrade? by Maxo-Texas · 2009-12-13 20:05 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I get your point but this is a little different.
  Not having perfect page layout might take you 30 minutes to fix. Worst case, the text is in a zip file and can be pulled out.
  Not being able to read encrypted data would be a little bit more serious.
  
  --
  She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
6. Re:Screw Up Or Forced Upgrade? by gandhi_2 · 2009-12-13 20:08 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  This has nothing to do with open formats.
  If you encrypt and digitally sign (aka DRM) your OO.org files, and loose the ability to decrypt them, you are in the same boat.
  This is a story about DRM, not formats. A story about the forgotten idea of key escrow idea and of DRM cert servers, not file formats.
  
  --
  THL phish sticks
7. Re:Screw Up Or Forced Upgrade? by mr_matticus · 2009-12-13 20:15 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Sure it does, so long as you didn't lock up your own files with Microsoft's rights management services.
  Considering that this is used mostly, if not entirely, by corporate clients implementing access control, the idea that it's Microsoft doing evil in the background is foolhardy. Locking documents out because of the failure of a security certificate would hardly convince a corporate client to upgrade to a newer version of Office.
8. Re:Screw Up Or Forced Upgrade? by ozmanjusri · 2009-12-13 20:27 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  What did I do today? Well, I didn't like the ribbon bar in the new OpenOffice, so I forked the project.
  Wow, that's crazy. Why did you bother going to all that trouble when IBM's already done it for you?
  If you don't like Symphony, there's plenty more choices. That's the great thing about being open and having competition, right?
  
  --
  "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
9. Re:Screw Up Or Forced Upgrade? by Nefarious+Wheel · 2009-12-13 20:34 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  At least until the next version comes out. Then you have the ribbon too. God, I hope it can be disabled.
  Agree. The Ribbon was a tremendous step backwards in user friendliness, all in the name of eye candy. It sucks. Way too long a familiarisation curve. In contrast, I'm having zero trouble -- almost zero thought -- in using the plain vanilla Gnome / Open Office interface to do the stuff I need to do on the home laptop, i.e. load documents, edit them, and store them.
  
  --
  Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
10. Re:Screw Up Or Forced Upgrade? by mikael_j · 2009-12-13 21:26 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  ...to handle writing scientific reports on Linux, and AbiWord wasn't up to the job (Note to trolls: please don't bother with shill posts for TeX/LaTex. I'm sure it's very good, but I've got work to do.)
  Excuse me but would you also consider someone who tells a carpenter that a hammer is a much better tool for driving nails than a stapler a troll because you can't be bothered taking three seconds to figure out what end of the hammer to hold?
  /Mikael
  
  --
  Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
11. Re:Screw Up Or Forced Upgrade? by the_womble · 2009-12-13 21:37 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I like Gnumeric too.
  Abiword is a good lightweight word-processor, but not as feature rich as OpenOffice.
  What exactly is your problem with Latex? If the learning curve is too much, you use Lyx.
12. Re:Screw Up Or Forced Upgrade? by TheLink · 2009-12-13 22:31 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  The ribbon is bad in many cases because displays have got wider more than they have got taller.
  --
  
  Too many replies beneath your current threshold
13. Re:Screw Up Or Forced Upgrade? by Antique+Geekmeister · 2009-12-14 00:29 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  I'm a carpenter. And the particular hammer that is LaTeX is a wonderful, powerful hammer, that is too heavy to lift for many home workmen. That's not a "3 second job", and the constant recompilation to get viewable or printable output is a serious burden.
14. Re:Screw Up Or Forced Upgrade? by mikael_j · 2009-12-14 01:03 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Actually, my experience with LaTeX is that if you look at it as HTML with different keywords and keep some decent documentation nearby (there are several good PDF books available for free online) it is easier to use LaTeX if you want sane printable results than it is to use MS Word or another word processor (hell, the reason I started using LaTeX to begin with was because I got fed up with trying to force word processors to give me decent output).
  /Mikael
  
  --
  Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
15. Re:Screw Up Or Forced Upgrade? by mikael_j · 2009-12-14 01:30 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Only if the WYSIWYG tool is capable of doing things right without messing them up, which is the main problem with MS Word btw, the output just ends up being a bit wrong, still good enough that most people who are just printing out office memos don't care or notice but anyone who gives their document a second look (and isn't just looking for typos) will notice that it's not looking right compared to some "professional" documents they've seen in their lives.
  Also, if your number one issue is "I don't want to write markup, never never never!" then there's always LyX.
  /Mikael
  
  --
  Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
16. Re:Screw Up Or Forced Upgrade? by wvmarle · 2009-12-14 02:02 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  If YOU lose your own key, then that's your own fault. Forgetting to take your keys and closing the door behind you, that's simply your own silliness. And no news.
  Here it is a third-party vendor (Microsoft in this case) that basically changes the locks to your files. As if the developer of the apartment building where you live suddenly changes the locks of all the flats. Locking out everyone who locked their doors. Even if they did not lose their own keys.
  And that is bad. Very bad.
17. Re:Screw Up Or Forced Upgrade? by marcansoft · 2009-12-14 03:24 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  LyX is your friend. It's a wonderful WYSIWYM(ean) editor for LaTeX.
18. Re:Screw Up Or Forced Upgrade? by Nefarious+Wheel · 2009-12-14 09:18 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Unfortunately most people are just resistant to change.
  Course maneuvers. I've survived as a programmer for forty years. If I were resistant to change I'd have quit thirty-nine years ago. I've also seen rather a lot of very good, and very bad UI design since the introduction of the command line and have adapted to all of it.
  The Office Ribbon UI is a tremendously bad concept, because it intrudes on the process of using the application in a negative way. Every little smooth, automatic, dynamic expansion and compression of menu items contrasts with the items you have already scanned and mentally noted, and costs you a re-think as to the arrangement of items.
  Familiarity is definitely the issue here, because you are forced to read and interpret transitions that previously were static enough to select by reflex. No amount of familiarisation can compensate for a UI designed (deliberately or otherwise) to avoid your becoming familiar with object placement.
  The Windows XP interface and associated Office products had a decent UI design. The current Ribbon UI is simply crap by comparison.
  
  --
  Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Locks OUT!? by AndGodSed · 2009-12-13 19:28 · Score: 2, Interesting

I was about to type out a long post extolling the virtues of... erm... something... and then I blinked back to my screen and realised I had just envisaged what a mistake like this from an upstream supplier (in this case Microsoft) would have on my work day.
I am in IT and I would have had hundreds of phonecalls for this by now, and it is only 09:24... sheesh to apply a hotfix like this to all my clients...
woops there I went again imagining what this would mean for my workday... I can't actually say that any of our clients use the RMS service on their office documents.
Wowee, dodged a bullet there.
Good luck to all the IT grunts out there in the trenches trying to get this fixed right now...

--
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
1. Re:Locks OUT!? by msclrhd · 2009-12-13 19:52 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  What's worse is when Microsoft does not exist anymore at some point in the future. Eventually, the certificates will expire again; then -- without Microsoft to renew them anymore -- you're screwed.
  Want to access your important, digitally protected documents? Sorry.
2. Re:Locks OUT!? by Imrik · 2009-12-13 21:34 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Don't worry about it, even after the certificates expire, you have Microsoft's guarantee that no one will be able to access your secure data.
3. Re:Locks OUT!? by Rogerborg · 2009-12-13 22:04 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Who the fuck enables the "copy protection" feature in every-day office work?
  The government?
  
  --
  If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
4. Re:Locks OUT!? by jimicus · 2009-12-13 22:17 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  That's what happens when you hand the keys to your kingdom over to someone whose best interests don't align with your own.
  Saying you should avoid that is all very well but it's practically impossible in any business.
  Want to take out a loan? The moment the bank thinks you may be in trouble they can and will send you a rude letter saying "Repay the whole lot. Now."
  Want someone to do your accounts? Paying an outside company will be a sight cheaper than paying a wage to someone who you only need for a few weeks of the year, but the accounts they prepare will be full of disclaimers to the effect of "We have prepared these using information supplied by our client...." and it's you the tax man will come after if he smells a rat. Too bad if the office junior did your accounts and the senior person who signed them off was in a hurry to get home that day - they'll never admit it in a million years.
  Want an email, calendaring and contacts platform? Free clue: The F/OSS exchange alternatives are generally just as complicated as Exchange itself, with the added bonus that finding someone who knows them can be a hell of a lot harder.
5. Re:Locks OUT!? by deniable · 2009-12-13 22:53 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Oh hell no. It'd make tracking leaks too easy.
6. Re:Locks OUT!? by Nerdfest · 2009-12-14 01:17 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  What's worse is when Microsoft does not exist anymore at some point in the future
  Not a huge worry. Everyone will be off enjoying the parties anyway.
amazing... by wizardforce · 2009-12-13 19:31 · Score: 4, Insightful

Putting that amount of trust in a third party that has the power to lock you out of your own files... It boggles the mind as to why that is acceptable in anything of importance.

--
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
1. Re:amazing... by Sparx139 · 2009-12-13 20:25 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Technically, yes. I could not be bothered trawling through the source code of OOo to look for malicious code (and frankly, I doubt I'd understand most of the code anyway), so I am placing my trust in the dev team. But I know that it's less likely to happen, because it wasn't developed by a single company, but by many people. That, and if this happened, a fix would appear quickly (a lot more quickly than if it was a M$ product)
  
  --
  Our culture doesn't get smarter, it just finds new ways of being retarded.
2. Re:amazing... by phantomfive · 2009-12-13 20:33 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Simple cost/benefit analysis: if it gives you a competitive advantage, it may be worth it, even though you may have to pay for it down the road. The value of documents to businesses decreases as time passes: they are interested in making money, not in retaining archives.
  
  That said, I'm not entirely sure using Office 2003 gives you such a competitive advantage over other products. But that is not my decision.
  
  --
  Qxe4
3. Re:amazing... by MrMista_B · 2009-12-13 20:36 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  And yet people use such things as gmail, hotmail, facebook, and etc.
4. Re:amazing... by AndGodSed · 2009-12-13 21:26 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  You are referencing a SCRIPT that was MEANT TO DO HARM.
  There is a difference. The "malware" was really a simple script that asked for root before it got installed and used pre-installed programs that are available in the Ubuntu install to ping a server and download a file from another to do... something nefarious.
  The easiest fix in the case of that script would be to force wget to launch with a tty attached instead of being launched in the background. Presto you have plugged a hole that this script exploited right there.
  Security holes will be found continuously, by both sides of the fight - it is just up to who finds them first that dictates which way that scenario goes. Now if you compare the proprietary vs the open source software vendor's security track records you will note that the OSS guys are doing rather better than the proprietary guys.
  Why? In OSS the source is available for those who protect AS WELL AS those who exploit, yet the exploits are less, and are patched quicker. In proprietary land the source is available ONLY to the vendors - yet exploits abound.
  Another point is that you are comparing a targeted attack on a discovered weakness to a possible software bug that migh cause problems in the future.
  Also, you forget that in the case we are discussing the fix HAS to come from Microsoft - they responded admirably quickly with a hotfix btw - but in the case of OpenOffice (for instance) you would be able to implement fixes from a larger number of vendors, or their partners or well meaning codesmiths all over the world.
  The odds just favour OSS in this scenario to perform better, and to be fixed quicker if something breaks.
  
  --
  Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
5. Re:amazing... by selven · 2009-12-13 23:12 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  If I had my way, documents would be done using plain text and markup languages. Everything is simple and separate, so you don't have many security issues that way.
Re:So if you had no web, you'd be hosed? by El+Capitaine · 2009-12-13 20:00 · Score: 4, Informative

The cases where the user would be "hosed" are few to none.

This bug only applies to documents protected with Rights Management Services, which is part of Active Directory and the Windows Server operating system.

Therefore, the only way you would have an issue is if you were on a network that used RMS but had no internet connection, in which case you'd have your IT guy download a fix from some other internet-connected machine and deploy it to the systems with the bug.

This will not affect people who are simply running their own copies of Office 2003 without RMS or Active Directory or any other fancy add-ons.
Unexpected error? by SpacePunk · 2009-12-13 20:02 · Score: 5, Funny

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."

--
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
1. Re:Unexpected error? by jpmorgan · 2009-12-13 20:12 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  You would prefer 'Expected error occurred. We could have handled with this transparently, but we'd rather pop up an annoying dialog box?'
2. Re:Unexpected error? by Thanshin · 2009-12-13 20:27 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  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."
3. Re:Unexpected error? by BrokenHalo · 2009-12-13 21:06 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  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."
4. Re:Unexpected error? by L4t3r4lu5 · 2009-12-13 21:40 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I'd prefer it to say "The document you are trying to access has been secured by Microsoft Rights Management Service, but the signing certificate has expired. Please see your Administrator regarding updating or renewing your certificate."
  
  Still, I suppose no MS coder had ever considered that a time limited certificate would ever expire.
  
  --
  Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
5. Re:Unexpected error? by AlgorithMan · 2009-12-13 22:20 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  this is simple. Error handling basically works like this
  
  try { command1 command2 command3 } catch(DiskFullError E) { messagebox("not enough free disk space\n"+E.ExtendedInformations()); // this is an expected error } catch(NoWritePermissionError E) { messagebox("you don\'t have write permission in that directory\n"+E.ExtendedInformations()); // this is an expected error } catch(DirDoesntExistError E) { messagebox("the directory you chose doesn\'t exist\n"+E.ExtendedInfo()); // this is an expected error } catch(...) { messagebox("an unexpected error occured"); // this is where the unexpected errors are handled }
  
  you try to do some stuff and if something goes bad, the codes throw an exception, which can be caught by the error-handlers. and if there is no error handler for the error, then this is an unexpected error. this would crash the program, unless you do catch(...), which can also catch unknown exception types
  well, in redmond it goes more like this (see MSDN)
  
  if(!command1) { switch(ERRNO) { case 1: messagebox("Error code 1, contact your vendor"); break; case 2: messagebox("Error code 2"); break; default: messagebox("unexpected error"); } }else { if(!command2) { switch(ERRNO) { case 2: messagebox("Error code 2"); break; case 3: messagebox("Error code 3, press F1 to see some useless hexadecimal bytes"); break; default: messagebox("unexpected error"); } } else { if(!command3) { switch(ERRNO){ case 1: messagebox("Error code 1, contact your vendor"); break; case 4: messagebox("Error code 4, why don\'t you switch to linux?"); break; default: messagebox("unexpected error"); } } else { // wohoo, nothing went bad! } } }
  
  if something goes bad, a global variable (ERRNO) is set to some error code and the functions return false. the default case takes all the values of ERRNO, that are not handled explicitly Yes, this is prehistoric and non-thread-safe error handling, but what do you expect from the masters of disaster?
  
  --
  The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
6. Re:Unexpected error? by jimicus · 2009-12-13 22:24 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Every error message that Microsoft has ever written is like this.
  Sometimes they think to include a way of getting the full error in proper technical language across - maybe by writing to the event log or having a "click for technical details" option but more often than not they don't. As a Unix admin, it's immensely frustrating dealing with software which goes so far out of its way to be opaque.
7. Re:Unexpected error? by dargaud · 2009-12-13 22:30 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  I blame this kind of error messages on programmers who use exceptions. Instead of doing error checking within the routine that has the problem and crafting an error message in there, you just throw an exception, hoping for the caller to take care of it. If the caller doesn't then the exception keeps floating up until nobody has a clue to what the condition was, hence "unexpected error". I hate exceptions.
  
  --
  Non-Linux Penguins ?
8. Re:Unexpected error? by dbIII · 2009-12-13 23:16 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  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.
9. Re:Unexpected error? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-13 23:21 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I love these kind of messages. Everybody keeps calling me, it says here you know what is going on. WTF? I don't have a clue what you've done, just because I am the system administrator I am not telepathic or having some kind of better error messages mailed to me...
  Even better, you are installing something and the dialog pops up: "Contact your system administrator". I am the fucking administrator if I wasn't I wouldn't be logged in as 'administrator'...you haven't told me what the problem is...
10. Re:Unexpected error? by TheVelvetFlamebait · 2009-12-14 01:42 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  I hate exceptions.
  Are there no circumstance in which their use would be acceptable? ;)
  
  --
  You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
11. Re:Unexpected error? by GreatBunzinni · 2009-12-14 02:40 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  What you are describing isn't a problem with the exception system, as you are free to craft your exception-handling system so that it informs you exactly where the exception was thrown. If you want to blame someone then blame those who failed to learn how to use them.
  
  --
  Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
12. Re:Unexpected error? by b4dc0d3r · 2009-12-14 02:59 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Code reuse is the more likely problem. The biggest problem is that each component has to assume there is no UI. It could be in a GUI, or commandline, or silent mode, or a service, or whatever else, so it doesn't pop up an error message - it just returns a value.
  You tell your handy security library to use the internet library to connect to the microsoft server thingie, and the internet library doesn't have any reason to know about certificates. The security library assumes the certificate will always be valid (or the network will take care of that), so it doesn't have a "bad certificate" return value. Then the app doesn't check the return values (only success/fail), or it's not in the list of things to check.
  Detailing your actions makes it easier to disassemble and comprehend, so lots of proprietary coders don't do that. Bubbling up an exception could have a detailed description of why something failed, but proprietary coders don't want end users to see the gory details of what their code is doing. "Confusing error messages" is one of those things Windows users hate, so they generally either detail what you might do to fix it or, if it's too detailed or on a server instead, just skip that part.
  It's nothing the user can do anything about, so why bother reporting it? Plus you need to make translations and test cases to ensure your message pops up in all languages when the cert is expired... more work when you could just ship it, and list a known risk that the server team has to keep the cert up to date.
  I know, tldr. Black box programming combined with allowing ignorant users peace of mind will result in this type scenario every time. I always chuckle when I see "Table or view does not exist" errors in Oracle SQL when I can see the table in the list of ALL_USER_TABLES or similar. I don't have access to it, and revealing that it exists but I'm, not allowed to read from it might be a security violation the same way "bad username" vs "bad password" gives brute-force people more information to work with so you say "bad username/password combination" and now they don't know if the user exists. Maybe they thought of that, or maybe they tried to select, got 'denied' return code, and translated that into one they do have a text string for.
  So many possibilities, of which yours is the least likely. Exceptions can be done well, there just aren't enough good examples out there so it takes a serious debugging headache before someone looks at a better way of doing it. Then Management says the errors are too wordy and you're back to "Unexpected error" meaning everything from "Network down" to "I crapped my pants".
Re:Any workarounds? by DavidRawling · 2009-12-13 20:08 · Score: 2, Informative

RMS is for controlling the documents once they are outside the organisation. They're encrypted, and you can't get the key unless the RMS server lets you have it. And only Office can decrypt, and the RMS allows the author to block the ability to do things like edit, print or forward the document to someone else.
Some customers like the idea. When we implement it, rule #1 is "You no longer have sole control of the document". IIRC, there are ways to set RMS up so that internal people always have access - it'd be strange if that was what was broken.
Totally off the mark. by IBitOBear · 2009-12-13 20:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

Microsoft gets people to update by giving their product to the CEOs and "bigwigs". When everybody _else_ in the organization cannot read or use the new format for the documents, they have to keep bouncing transfered documents back to the aforementioned bigwigs. Eventually the bigwigs get tired of the fact that they cannot understand how to use save-as-older-format, and they dislike having their underlings telling them to do things, and they cannot bear to find all the files they saved and re-save them before they downgrade back to the old version... So the entire company naturally has to pay to upgrade everyone.
Repeat that at the border of the company. Every iteration of Little Company that works with and is dependent on Big Company, cannot allow themselves to be seen as unhelpful nor out of date, and they cannot bounce the documents they receive via email etc. without giving that exact impression...
Letting certificates expire is _not_ a Microsoft "strategy", it's an artifact of their adoption of "We don't care. We don't have to. We're The Phone Company" where there is no longer just one phone company, but Microsoft wants to be "The Software Company".
This _is_ egg on their face, but the only ones who will not yell "brilliant omelet" are the people who can connect the "Trusted Computing" dots. Letting the world _again_ see what it means to leave the keys to your property in the hands of any entity that doesn't _have_ to care is just another Microwhoops...

--
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
1. Re:Totally off the mark. by L4t3r4lu5 · 2009-12-13 21:34 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Eventually the bigwigs get tired of the fact that they cannot understand how to use save-as-older-format, and they dislike having their underlings telling them to do things, and they cannot bear to find all the files they saved and re-save them before they downgrade back to the old version... So the entire company naturally has to pay to upgrade everyone.
  Or, the admins download and roll out the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack and leave the CEO with his new shiny-shiny.
  
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  Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
2. Re:Totally off the mark. by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-13 22:23 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Or the companies could hire tech people that know how to set the default "Save-as" to automatically save as the older format in the options..
3. Re:Totally off the mark. by deniable · 2009-12-13 22:45 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  And then the admins get to deal with documents that can't be handled by the converter. I had one last month, had to install 2007 to open it. I forgot to check Open Office first though. 2007 isn't as bad as the problems '97 caused, but it still causes some.
4. Re:Totally off the mark. by hairyfeet · 2009-12-13 23:53 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Uhhhh...I hate to ruin a perfectly good rant and all, but you DO know they could just choose to get the compatibility pack if they wanted to, right? It is absolutely free, and works on any version of MS Office from Office 2K-2K3. Now if they are still using Office 97 I think they got bigger things to worry about than getting a newer version.
  Now I can't tell you how well it does/doesn't work on Office XP or 2K3, since I don't have those, but so far I haven't had any problems with my Office 2K opening 2K7 files with the compatibility pack. Supposedly you can now save to the new format with the compatibility pack, but since I just save as the Office 2K .doc file, which I've found opens just fine in 2K3 and 2K7, I can't comment on that.
  So while you may hate Office 2K7 for the bloat or the ribbon (man I hate that thing!) it really isn't hard to open the new formats in the old Office with the compatibility tool, at least that has been my experience.
  
  --
  ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
5. Re:Totally off the mark. by WegianWarrior · 2009-12-13 23:56 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Same thing with women
  Ah, so you're still single then?
  
  --
  Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
6. Re:Totally off the mark. by xouumalperxe · 2009-12-14 01:01 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  all XML formats
  Cool. I'll send it in OOXML then.
7. Re:Totally off the mark. by drinkypoo · 2009-12-14 01:37 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Now if they are still using Office 97 I think they got bigger things to worry about than getting a newer version.
  What things are those? Office 97 met my needs just fine, the only reason I stopped using it is that it didn't support multiple monitors correctly, you'd put the app on the second monitor and pop up a menu, and the menu would pop up on the primary display! Goooooo Microsoft, yeah! Now THAT is quality. Now I'm back to one monitor, but I'm also on Ubuntu so I'm using OO.o.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
8. Re:Totally off the mark. by MadKeithV · 2009-12-14 01:58 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  My parents are on OO.o, my girlfriend is on OO.o, and my NetBook is on OO.o. The universal response in this admittedly small sample has been: "hey, that looks a lot more like the Office I'm used to!".
  That's a Windows PC, an iMac, and a Linux netbook by the way.
9. Re:Totally off the mark. by mattr · 2009-12-14 02:33 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  And how do you upgrade the PAYING customer with the draconian security policy?
  A totally cynical decision by Microsoft to make color palettes INCOMPATIBLE in when Office was upgraded has caused major troubles in our project. The Excel files we made, which need to use color in order to communicate complex data sets, get shown in front of large meetings and emailed to participants. I had to hand-edit many times to avoid embarrassment, the guys who didn't got embarrassed of course.
10. Re:Totally off the mark. by Red+Flayer · 2009-12-14 03:42 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  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.
  
  --
  "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
11. Re:Totally off the mark. by klui · 2009-12-14 04:56 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  The compatibility pack does not work with SharePoint versioning. If you open up an Office x document, it will convert it but the system will not know you've checked it out and have it open for editing. I've had to ask coworkers to use non-x versions hosted on SharePoint servers.
12. Re:Totally off the mark. by pixelpusher220 · 2009-12-14 05:43 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  that's assuming MS actually lets you save documents in the older format. Back when 97 came out, initially (i.e. for months) there literally was no way to read a 97 format in 95 or earlier and no way to save in 95 format from 97. After a while they came out with the ability to save back into 95 format.
  
  But the message was clear, you shall upgrade whether you like it or not.
  
  --
  People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
13. Re:Totally off the mark. by toddestan · 2009-12-14 16:14 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Why not? The next version of Office for the PC was Office 2000, and that came out around the same time as Windows ME - so if you were running Windows 98 you were probably running Office 97. At the least, I would expect MS to patch Office 97 if it had problems running in Windows 98.
Re:Unbelievable by jamesh · 2009-12-13 20:52 · Score: 2, Funny

Sorry AC - that's what you get when you have free will
- God
Me too... by argent · 2009-12-13 21:08 · Score: 2, Insightful

There's been a boatload of warnings about depending on this kind of technology.
The problem is, there's been plenty of opportunities for "I told you so", and people still buy software with time bombs built into it.
Thats why I am NOT an early adopter by Provocateur · 2009-12-13 21:08 · Score: 3, Funny

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...

--
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
A copy protection system called RMS? by mattcsn · 2009-12-13 21:27 · Score: 5, Funny

Obviously, someone at Microsoft has a sense of humour.
Re:Any workarounds? by deniable · 2009-12-13 23:03 · Score: 3, Funny

It sounds like RMS is a good tool for pushing free software.
Take off your tinfoil hat by brunes69 · 2009-12-14 00:17 · Score: 2, Insightful

The reality of the situation is much simpler.
When you buy a new PC or laptop for your company - guess which version of office comes on it - the latest.
Guess if it is cheaper or more expensive to purchase one with the old version - more expensive. And whi is going to approve to pay more for something older?
So, as new machines come into *ANY* company, no matter *WHO gets them, they have the newest versions of Windows and Office, and this is what makes the problems. In many companies, I imagine it is the CEOs and marketing who get the newest machines first - which then leads to your flawed theory. (In the company I work for, engineering gets the newest machines first, as we actually need the horsepower).
1. Re:Take off your tinfoil hat by jargon82 · 2009-12-14 00:53 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Might be true in small companies. Big shops (even medium shops, that I've worked with) like to use a standard image. New machines are either wiped and rebuilt on arrival or come wiped in the first place.
2. Re:Take off your tinfoil hat by L4t3r4lu5 · 2009-12-14 01:57 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  And who is going to approve to pay more for something older?
  Total Cost of Ownership
  Those who don't want to pay for:
  - Training for users to be able to use the new software interface
  - Training for technical staff to be able to quickly troubleshoot common issues
  - Cost in man-hours of re-writing that bodge macro which auto-fills / sorts details which is now broken in every document
  - Accompanying hardware upgrades for any computers which don't run fast enough for the new software
  
  IIRC, MS Office on new computers is a 60-Day trial, or you get MS Works instead. You'll be needing a different compatibility pack for Works documents.
  
  --
  Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Who needs java? by IBitOBear · 2009-12-14 05:46 · Score: 2, Informative

Er... Java is optional, and only required if you use the database engine (nobody does, because almost nobody knows when _not_ to use a spreadsheet, IMHO of course 8-) or some of accessibility and wizard thingies.
One of the ACs gives the actual quote and reference.
Plus OpenOffice.org (and I think core open office as well) dumped the larger desktop interface a long, long time ago.
Try something recent, and try reading the documentation, before you rail against any product.

--
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Re:Compatability pack worse than OO.o by Nefarious+Wheel · 2009-12-14 10:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

Dunno, I use MS Office at work and Open Office at home. They both work. I'm not a great fan of Java as a development language (I prefer old classics like C and (gasp) VBA for quick jobs, PHP or Python for anything significant) but I've not found any difficulty running Open Office on my home laptop (Ubuntu Karmic for those interested). In fact, I don't think about it at all -- I just run the application I want and dive into that (writing a book). In fact I'm probably not even qualified to rate OO at all, in one sense -- I just use it, and it doesn't intrude enough to even notice it. Although that's probably why I like it - the mechanics of the tool are lost completely into the background while I manage the tricky imagination-to-words interface.

--
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear