Microsoft Releases Replacement Patch With Two Known Bugs

snydeq writes Microsoft has re-released its botched MS14-045/KB 2982791 'Blue Screen 0x50' patch, only to introduce more problems, InfoWorld's Woody Leonhard reports. "Even by Microsoft standards, this month's botched Black Tuesday Windows 7/8/8.1 MS14-045 patch hit a new low. The original patch (KB 2982791) is now officially 'expired' and a completely different patch (KB 2993651) offered in its stead; there are barely documented revelations of new problems with old patches; patches that have disappeared; a 'strong' recommendation to manually uninstall a patch that went out via Automatic Update for several days; and an infuriating official explanation that raises serious doubts about Microsoft's ability to support Windows 9's expected rapid update pace."

Comments

Oh microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

And people still come up to me and say they can't use free software cause they need enterprise-grade quality

Re:Oh microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

What enterprise-grade quality?

Software from a billion dollar plus company, which required a PO large enough to justify firing the person who approved it, not just the one who implemented it.

If MS F's up, you can blame them as they yell at you to fix it. If your cobbled together, zero budget, but works 99% of the time solution fails, then it is 100% on you.
It is completely unfair, but that's the way it is. If the Oracle DB blows up in a patch, you can point to not having a 2nd instance to use as a test system. The finance guys can point to the lack of an extra $100k to spend on a test system and the CEO can blame Oracle/budget to the board.

If the same issue occurs on mysql, everyone points at you and you alone, since you could have just set up a second system for cheap - never mind that that would double the admin/patch/test time with no corresponding increase in headcount.

Pendants: This is done in serial, not parallel, otherwise you are not staging it properly to test it.

Never useful info given with patches

[RenHoek]

What pisses me off as a consumer is that Microsoft patches never come with any kind of useful information.

"There are X patches available", and when you click a specific patch you get "This is a stability patch for Windows 8" or something generic like that.

How can a consumer make an informed decision to go ahead and install patches or not without hours of looking up KB numbers?

I'd like more info, so that unless a patch specifically fixes a security bug, I'd rather leave the rest of the patches uninstalled as long as my system runs ok.

Re:Never useful info given with patches

[MobyDisk]

How can a consumer make an informed decision to go ahead and install patches or not without hours of looking up KB numbers?

Consumers don't make such decisions. If you want that level of control over your OS, don't use Windows. This isn't a knock against Windows or anything: it's just part of the closed-source model. You trust them. If they do a good job, then it saved you effort. If they do not, you get burned. That is the trade-off.

Re:Never useful info given with patches

[TubeSteak]

But of course that info should be right there on the windows update window.

It was there in WinXp.
Microsoft seems to think that dumbing down all their user interfaces = the future of computing.

Re:Don't know what you are talking about

[Anonymous Coward]

3 secs should be just enough to click the "more information" link.

Every time I have clicked a "more information" link, I have been taken to a completely useless webpage that contains no information about the KB in question.