Microsoft Botches More Patches In Latest Automatic Update

snydeq writes "'No sooner did Microsoft release the latest round of Black Tuesday patches than screams of agony began sounding all over the Internet,' writes Woody Leonhard, reporting on verified problems with Microsoft Automatic Updates KB 2817630, KB 2810009, KB 2760411, KB 2760588, and KB 2760583. The latest round of MS Auto Update hell comes on the heels of one of the worst runs in MS Patch Tuesday history — and just in time for Microsoft to expand the scope of its automatic update damage. 'Does this make you feel warm and fuzzy about automatic app updates in Windows 8.1?'"

Comments

Re:This is why I have a 1 week delayed install pol

[Anonymous Coward]

It's OK, these specific bugs are minor... an unexpected UI change in office 2013 and an update to office 2007 that says it's not installed after it has been installed.

way overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not sure how this qualifies as a patch disaster. There appears to be nothing wrong with the patch. The issue appears purely to be people that haven't updated their outlook while installing the latest patches lose a folder pane, annoying but hardly a disaster and fixed by updating their machine. The issue is applying a new patch to an out of date version.

Re:way overblown

[hedwards]

Spoken like somebody that hasn't wasted hours trying to figure out why the computer is running so slow. Only to discover that the computer is running so slow because MS decided to disable UDMA on the drive without bothering to ask permission or even bother to mention that they'd done so.

And that's hardly the only example, MS ought to be paying people to use their shitty software as they sure as hell shouldn't expect to be paid for the privilege of beta testing their software.

Re:way overblown

[Blakey Rat]

If Windows does that, it:
1) is a result of hardware failure (meaning: the drive kept failing writes, and did it consistently enough that Windows "stepped-down" to a more simple protocol).
2) tells the user in the form of a notification bubble, and of course it gets logged in the Event Viewer like everything else.

So basically you have broken hardware and are blind. I mean if you were running Linux and it had a similar hardware failure, you'd just have files mysteriously deleted also with no notice, so obviously the Linux way is far superior.

Re:way overblown

[recoiledsnake]

Please do your company a favor and tell your cluless IT support about the existence of this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Server_Update_Services

Windows Server Update Services 2.0 and above comprise a repository of update packages from Microsoft. It allows administrators to approve or decline updates before release, to force updates to install by a given date, and to obtain extensive reports on what updates each machine requires. System administrators can also configure WSUS to approve certain classes of updates automatically (critical updates, security updates, service packs, drivers, etc.). One can also approve updates for "detection" only, allowing an administrator to see what machines will require a given update without also installing that update.

Administrators can use WSUS with Group Policy for client-side configuration of the Automatic Updates client, ensuring that end-users can't disable or circumvent corporate update policies. WSUS does not require the use of Active Directory; client configuration can also be applied by local group policy or by modifying the Windows registry.

Re:This is why I have a 1 week delayed install pol

[Anonymous Coward]

That week makes little difference: Windows patches come weeks after the vulnerabilities are beeing exploited.

Re:This is why I have a 1 week delayed install pol

[VortexCortex]

Your virginity is assured. Rest at ease.

I've always wondered why folks think so highly of the mating game. After years of married life and kids I'm miserable, while the friend of mine who remained single and mostly dateless is now the happiest guy I know.

Rest uneasily, divorce court is rape.

Re:This is why I have a 1 week delayed install pol

[VortexCortex]

Yes, because I develop cross platform applications, but I run it in a VM on Linux too, so I just restored the MS OS partition from snapshot. If you don't have a separate partition for /home/, or if you you let Windows touch bare metal, you're going to have a bad time. Always use protection.

Unvirtualized proprietary software? Not even once.

Re:This is why I have a 1 week delayed install pol

[DogDude]

By "enjoying the show", do you mean feverishly working through dependency hell to try to make updates work at all on your *nix system?

Re:This is why I have a 1 week delayed install pol

[Ol Olsoc]

By "enjoying the show", do you mean feverishly working through dependency hell to try to make updates work at all on your *nix system?

It isn't 1998 any more. Why do you use 1998 arguments?

Re:This is why I have a 1 week delayed install pol

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

If you're seeing problems almost every month, you should investigate your systems for malware and/or hardware failures. That simply isn't normal. MS aren't perfect, but their QA for automatic updates is way better than most large software companies, and seeing failures as often as you describe is highly unlikely without some other factor causing problems.