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Office 2003 Bug Locks Owners Out

Posted by kdawson on 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."

13 of 247 comments (clear)

  1. Tag: Not a bug, defective by design. by ozmanjusri · · 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 · · 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. Screw Up Or Forced Upgrade? by Afforess · · 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    If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?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 · · 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 shrimppesto · · 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.

    3. Re:Screw Up Or Forced Upgrade? by broken_chaos · · 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.

  3. Unexpected error? by SpacePunk · · 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 · · 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 BrokenHalo · · 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. Totally off the mark. by IBitOBear · · 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 · · 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.

      --
      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
    2. Re:Totally off the mark. by deniable · · 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.

  5. A copy protection system called RMS? by mattcsn · · Score: 5, Funny

    Obviously, someone at Microsoft has a sense of humour.