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Microsoft Yanks Three Bad Patches Of Their Last Outlook Patch (computerworld.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the patches-of-patches dept.

An anonymous reader quotes ComputerWorld's Woody Leonhard: I just received word from Gunter Born that Microsoft has pulled three of its Outlook patches... There's no specific recommendation that you uninstall the yanked patches -- indeed, there's no description of the problems caused by the latest round -- but earlier versions of the bad patches-of-patches had a nasty habit of crashing Outlook... Microsoft still hasn't fixed any of the Office 2007 bugs it introduced in the June security patches.
If you're keeping score at home, the yanked patches are:
  • KB 4011042 - July 5, 2017, update for Outlook 2010
  • KB 3191849 - June 27, 2017, update for Outlook 2013
  • KB 3213654 - June 30, 2017, update for Outlook 2016

78 comments

  1. One bad piece by SmaryJerry · · Score: 2

    I didn't update but the update made me unable to search contacts. Meaning I HAD to update or else couldn't search contacts. Not a big deal but maybe this was one of the problems?

    1. Re:One bad piece by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or maybe it wasn't.

    2. Re:One bad piece by sysrammer · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yeah. For me, all indexing stopped at a certain point. I could search older stuff in Outlook, but not newer. It broke File Explorer searches too. I reported it to my IT on 6/30. They ignored it until Wed when the owners started having issues.

      Then they said "We have a patch!". Then "Wait, we have another patch!". Then, "Ok, we have to clear your cache and *then* we have a patch!".

      Indexing still broken.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    3. Re:One bad piece by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The format of TFS looks like my format I am going YMCA take down notice rigth away!

      https://slashdot.org/comments....
      -cremier

    4. Re: One bad piece by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I didn't update but the update made me unable to search contacts. Meaning I HAD to update or else couldn't search contacts. Not a big deal but maybe this was one of the problems?

      Cool story bro... But none of that ever happened, did it?

    5. Re: One bad piece by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course not, and all those other similar responses, they're fake too. lol, bubble much?!

    6. Re:One bad piece by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      These updates caused issues with search in general. Mailboxes were re-indexed, which in large environments like mine caused a drastic increase in server load to the point that Exchange was almost unreachable

    7. Re:One bad piece by Thud457 · · Score: 1

      Magic 8 Ball calls it again!

      --

      the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  2. Attachments by Clueless+Nick · · Score: 1

    Are any of these concerned with Outlook blocking attachments that have very long (alphanumeric) file names? I've seen that happening last week.

    --
    Chat with other atheists http://secularchat.org
  3. Yo Dawg by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I heard you like patches....

    1. Re:Yo Dawg by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      Patches, I'm depending on you, son.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    2. Re:Yo Dawg by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Patches? We don't need no stinki'n patches.

    3. Re:Yo Dawg by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's no use, Mr. Nadella - it's patches all the way down.

    4. Re:Yo Dawg by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's no use, Mr. Nadella - it's patches all the way down.

      I'm here to chew bubblegum and install patches, and I'm all out of bubblegum.

  4. The testers have long since been axed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If you were a tester at Microsoft you either learned analytics and got reassigned or you got laid off. Now patches are dogfood tested and monitored via OCA. This works well enough for the latest and greatest products but not for older products still getting patches like Outlook 2007. Maybe one day Satya and his minions will figure out that those test labs really did add value.

    1. Re:The testers have long since been axed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which is why the Windows 10 mandatory updates -- you can postpone them but not completely avoid them -- are a really bad idea.

    2. Re:The testers have long since been axed by DavidRawling · · Score: 1

      But in my Microsoft bubble, patches can never break anything because they're only ever tested together, never separately!

      The fact they're never tested at all has no impact on the veracity of the prior statement...

  5. I patched Outlook years ago ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...by installing Thunderbird.

    1. Re:I patched Outlook years ago ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Essentially unsupported now by Mozilla Foundation. You can do better.

    2. Re:I patched Outlook years ago ... by chipschap · · Score: 1

      Gnus!

    3. Re:I patched Outlook years ago ... by oddware · · Score: 2

      Er ok, the last update was June 23, 2017, version 52.2.1.

      How is that unsupported?

    4. Re:I patched Outlook years ago ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thunderbolt works great with Exchange. Thanks for the valuable input!

  6. Outlook 2016 for Mac - horrible lately by brxndxn · · Score: 2

    I don't know if the update applies to Outlook 2016 for Mac or not.. but after the last update, I have been having the worst experience. I have one email address with my company that I've been with over 10 years. It's hosted with Rackspace. I have hundreds of folders with emails sorted. Periodically, all my emails for that email address disappear out of Outlook and then I see Outlook downloading all 26,000+ emails again. I tried right-clicking and repairing the folder and it made duplicates of every email and email folder. It's done the re-download multiple times now - and I cannot access the emails in Outlook until it's finished. It also adds recurring meetings back to my schedule even if they've been deleted for over a year. I spent hours with Microsoft support (via chat) until I gave up. They had me start a logging service and then another. Then they wanted me to upload the log file but the utility did not support a log file larger than maybe 15mb and my log file was 2.7GB. It basically felt like I was jumping through hoops where they'd give me longer and longer tasks to see how much I would do for them. It's a total mess. Office 2016 is buggy as all hell on the Mac.

    --
    --- We need more Ron Paul!
    1. Re:Outlook 2016 for Mac - horrible lately by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's pretty normal. We share an ISDN connection at work between almost forty people, so when it does, it is very noticeable for hours when someone is redownloading everything.

    2. Re:Outlook 2016 for Mac - horrible lately by ckatko · · Score: 1

      Why do you post? Like... is anyone even going to read your dribble? Did you actually think people would react and care? Or did you actually think your post would contribute to the information for readers and help them make a choice in their lives? Did you think people would come to your house and high five you for your bravery?

      The fact you posted anon, is pretty clear you knew you'd be received poorly. But even then, nobody is surprised or really cares that you talk out your butt. So... was our lack of care a success... or a failure?

      Why post that comment at all? Do you post everything that pops into your head? Are you angry or depressed at your life right now? Life gets better. Hang in there.

    3. Re:Outlook 2016 for Mac - horrible lately by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please don't stop taking your meds. Now please go back to the basement like a good boy.

    4. Re: Outlook 2016 for Mac - horrible lately by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ISDN? (What year is this meme.jpg)

    5. Re: Outlook 2016 for Mac - horrible lately by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Must be the USA or North Korea.

    6. Re:Outlook 2016 for Mac - horrible lately by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Chris, take those last two short sentences, save, and use in the future. Don't feed the trolls, but if you do, the response always has to be shorter. The post after you got it right, barely.

    7. Re:Outlook 2016 for Mac - horrible lately by Thelasko · · Score: 2

      It's bad for Windows as well. Outlook won't load unless you mouse over the splash screen. (you will likely only notice on a system with multiple monitors) Phantom new emails. Your inbox says there are new emails, but when you search for them they aren't there. Recurring meetings will also randomly get updated.

      --
      One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
    8. Re:Outlook 2016 for Mac - horrible lately by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OMG, thanks for that. I've never been able to figure out why Outlook took different amounts of time to load (sometimes over five minutes). Now, I can get it to load in seconds with that secret. I am genuinely curious how that bug would have been introduced or what causes that.

    9. Re:Outlook 2016 for Mac - horrible lately by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I just wanted to jump in clear up some confusion. No, life doesn't actually get better, that's a common misconception.

      As for the rest, totally agree. As a long-time mac, Linux, and Windows user, if I had to pick one OS to use for the rest of my life, it'd be Mac OS, no question. I'd choose Linux over Windows 8/10; however, I'd have picked Windows 7 over Linux back in the early 2010's when Gnome 3 was all tablet-centric.

  7. Outlook not so good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...because it's LUDDITE software! Use Applook instead, because it can app apps while apping other apps!

    Apps!

    1. Re:Outlook not so good by sysrammer · · Score: 1, Redundant

      ...try again later.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
  8. outlook 2007's new bugs are intentional? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    since it's EOL now, just another way microsoft is "encouraging" people to upgrade to 365 subscriptions?

  9. At least one of those fucked up modern auth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    (Which the rest of the world calls federated authentication)

    I don't remember which one it was, probably the June one but one of those fucked up refresh tokens so people would get a federated auth prompt every hour

    our help desk loved that shit since they are outsourced and get paid per ticket

  10. Baffles me by Presence+Eternal · · Score: 0

    I cannot fathom why any part of the Office suite is relevant in 2017. Not only that, but it's selling very well if I understand correctly. Is Excel's business logic STILL a must have? Is exchange impossible to replace? Are the document templates world class? Why is this software is still selling?

    1. Re:Baffles me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Excel has no real replacement, Exchange has no real replacement if you are heavily into collaboration. Outlook arguably has replacements but if you are heavily into collaboration and have to have the rest you may as well use outlook too. There really is nothing currently on the market that can replace the office suite. The online cloud apps are pretty much a joke and in the case of google a bad joke. the open source suites will work to an extent as long as you aren't leveraging the collaboration benefits or needing excel or doing anything overly complex in documents. basically the cost of Ms office is still less than the pain of trying to adopt an alternative for most.

    2. Re:Baffles me by chipschap · · Score: 1

      Excel has no real replacement

      I've heard this before; I suspect it is for "power" users where LibreOffice lacks some of the really high-end stuff. I do want to put forward the idea, though, is that much of this "use" may be "abuse" --- pushing spreadsheets to do things that ought to be done another way that is less susceptible to error and easier to check and audit. Overly-complex spreadsheets are rather hard to error check.

      Exchange has no real replacement if you are heavily into collaboration.

      Someone else should respond here, but it seems there are many, many collaboration options out there.

      The online cloud apps are pretty much a joke and in the case of google a bad joke.

      Perhaps true for power users but for typical users? I'm not so sure. Google Docs is fine for many things, maybe not a 600 page novel or a complex legal filing, but for memos, letters, reports? Seems to work. Same with Google Sheets and even the presentation program.

    3. Re:Baffles me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      google Docs is a piece of shit. We just finished getting off it after a 2 year bad experiment of ditching MS Office as out CTO loved (past tense now thankfully) google. The pain for the average user and loss in productivity just isn't worth it. You don't even have to be doing anything all that complex to run into serious issues. As for your ridiculous assertion that they must be a power user to need all the extras. many of the simple benefits like pulling in Excel tables and graphs into your word document or email etc are key features that either don't exist or suck badly in the alternatives. the alternatives too exchange are all dead now.

    4. Re:Baffles me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ?? Google Docs is not suitable for anyone who works in Office for day to day work.

      Gmail: Does not have the feature of "attaching an e-mail to another e-mail." This is critical in an office environment. Someone needs to send an e-mail thread to someone else (they weren't on the thread originally or they can't find it etc). No, "forwarding" the e-mail is not good enough. One, because there may be a need to attach multiple e-mails (e.g., here's the correspondence about Joe's bad performance review) and two because it alters the e-mail. The recipient can't "reply all" or take other action.

      "Docs" (word substitute): Grossly deficient in formatting and other capabilities. If a client sends over an NDA in word format and you need to fill in your name and sign, you might not be able to do that. Maybe you can, maybe you can't, it depends on how complex the formatting is. You say "600" is too many, and you are damn right it can't handle one that big - but even 100 pages is very taxing on Docs, assuming it does what you need.

      Presentation: Grossly deficient in formatting. In sales pitches, having a slick powerpoint deck is critical. Having an amateur-looking deck is like coming in wearing a dirty wrinkled suit. Yeah it has not actual bearing on the merits of what you say but you will lose the RFP.

      Sheets: Has about the same level of power as the Apple II spreadsheet I learned to use in junior high. Excel has a buttload of powerful tools embedded because finance people etc. actually need them.

      If your actual job isn't using office (e.g. if you're an engineer who just needs to put together requirements documents every now and then), fine, go with Google and be happy. Otherwise you can't subsist on Google apps.

    5. Re: Baffles me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft will probably never justify their vendor lock in mentality, but we can still use their products until something better comes along.

    6. Re:Baffles me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      do YOU want to rely on cloud-delivered "apps" where a local application that does not require internet access will do, and is more than likely the better tool for the job? oops. some moron just nicked a fiber across town. your office internet and cell phones are completely out for 8 hours. and holy shit, your spreadsheet and word processor are gone, too. oops. no thank you.

      the cloud sucks, man, get off the hype train before it crashes.

    7. Re:Baffles me by Voyager529 · · Score: 1

      I agree that switching away from MS Office frequently involves death by a thousand paper cuts; alternative products to MS Office tend to assume that end users do things 'correctly', which they frequently do not. We have one client whose "CRM" system involves dragging Word documents into the 'Notes' field of contacts in Outlook. I all too regularly see entire documents embedded where they shouldn't be, but "technically work". Word unfortunately has had a long standing history of shifting things around at the slightest provocation, so lots of people have templates where everything is where it's supposed to be and they just update the information, but the formatting would technically break if used under any other circumstance. LibreOffice is getting better all the time, and browser-based document suites solve issues like schedules and simple lists that need to be seen by everyone. However, I think it will be very difficult for Sheets and Excel Online to truly get to the point of replacing desktop Excel without collapsing under its own weight.

      Regarding Exchange, it depends on how big the organization is and how much scaling is required. Basically, if multiple Exchange servers are a requirement, yeah, there aren't many alternatives that don't bring their own form of hell into the picture. For smaller (sub-1,000 mailbox) installs, however, Kerio and IceWarp are wonderful alternatives that aren't nearly as expensive as Exchange + Windows, and they run on Linux while still providing Activesync support.

  11. Re:outlook 2007's new bugs are international? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dude, get with the days. If not you be PwNeD! MsfT do u bigst favour of u life. Go All Teh Way wit BackOrifice 666. Neverlook backward.

  12. FAIL. by sproketboy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Fail again M$

    1. Re:FAIL. by ckatko · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They modded you flamebait. But... is anyone who works to maintain MS products really upset by your comment? I do, and MS has been going downhill for the last decade.

      It's a complete shit ecosystem. Microsoft is no longer a cohesive company. Every product doesn't work with every other product. Dynamics CRM doesn't easily integrate data with Dynamics NAV and will fail on anything except the simplest/emptiest starter companies. Windows 10 has high DPI support... too bad 99% of Microsoft apps don't actually support it. SQL browser ~2015 "works" until you open up a certain dialog and it turns into a super-shrunk, damaged, form element that's completely unusable. Edge browser came out... oh sorry, Edge isn't actually supported in Dynamics CRM. ... Because "Fuck you. That's why." So half of Microsoft tells my clients "Upgrade to Edge, IE is old news!" and the other half say, "Sorry, Edge isn't supported." Which causes tons of friction between IT and management who get new and pretty brochures telling them to upgrade, and then they find out they can't use Magical Widget X because of a MICROSOFT product.

      Windows 10 is a bloated pile of shit. Go ahead, try and install it on a 5400 RPM laptop if you dare (with 6 GB of RAM and >2.5 GHZ processor) and it'll run like a pile of cow dung. It will literally spend HOURS doing nothing but running telemetry, superfetch, "application compatibility", and windows defender. Go to Task Manager, and watch your disk usage be 100% for hours. And disk queue length (the time it takes for a new disk request to be fetched because of the current backlog)? I've seen it hit over 26 SECONDS and I've even got screenshots to prove it. 26 seconds before you loading a file in NOTEPAD can even get a chance to load. The laptop is literally unusable without me manually disabling these services through group policy and registry hacks.

      Except wait, every new Creators Update makes it harder to "fix" Windows 10. On a laptop that came out in 2013!

      Meanwhile, my 2 GB RAM Celeron Chromebook running Linux is happily clinking away. It loads in less than 10 seconds. I can use zram to compress my tiny RAM into something usuable.

      Meanwhile, we ported a client's FULL suite of Sage CRM data over to Dynamics CRM. Literally everything. Even e-mails were correctly saved from outlook and merged with corrected links, to Dynamics CRM. Except Dynamics CRM is such a piece of shit, they literally have bugs in their DATA IMPORT form that refuse to actually apply things like timestamps and creation date fields. There are NO docs that officially say it's broken. And the only fix involves hours of finding the problem, finding an obscure blogger who made a solution... except his solution is also malformed and you have to fix it. And oh yeah, all CRM changes have to go through their GIGANTIC CRM SDK that rivals DirectX in size.

      Another two wonderful features of MS?

      1) They've completely outsourced all of their support to India. Enjoy strange timezones, hard to understand accents, and a complete lack of actual experience to solve your problems. If you can't Google it, they don't know the answer. I've been on TWO separate support tickets with "Microsoft" the last two weeks and spent a literal three hour meeting--half of which was trying to get a bloody screeshare app to work for them.

      2) Windows Updates that brick our machines. (OP post? What?) We're stuck with IE12 because of CRM's only support for IE. And so we have to modify the IE personal security settings slightly from default to keep things running smoothly. OH WAIT. Windows Updates we just found out have been WIPING OUR SECURITY SETTINGS. Because yeah, that's a reasonable idea. Wipe a business's custom security settings every two weeks when we apply Windows Updates.

      My job should be developing solutions for my clients. Clients don't enjoy being billed for fixing Microsoft's broken shit. So thanks, MS, for making my life infinitely harder than it needs to be because your company is falling apart from the ins

    2. Re:FAIL. by sr180 · · Score: 3, Informative

      > Windows 10 has high DPI support... too bad 99% of Microsoft apps don't actually support it.

      I would argue this. Windows 10 doesnt properly support High DPI. There are issues all over the place. Theres no consitency - even amongst its own windows 10 bundled programs. There's constant bugs and issues. Scaling going haywire. Remote desktop to other servers is a crap shoot. And hell, dont remote desktop to your own High DPI machine from a machine thats NOT high DPI - you'll most likely need a reboot of the high DPI machine to fix the issues caused there. Im still looking at windows explorer completely unscaled on a 4k monitor because I was silly enough to remote in from my laptop over the weekend.

      We rolled out 4 4K monitors as a test. They were universally hated across the company because of windows. Im stuck with 2, and the Mac guy has 2. He's loving life!

      --
      In Soviet Russia the insensitive clod is YOU!
    3. Re:FAIL. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "Linux has plenty of problems but the difference is... they're actually reported and solvable." - Ayup - too bad that no manager I ever talked to give a flying fuck about whether problems are avoidable/solvable. They just drink more MS Cool Aid and believe every glossy paper.

    4. Re:FAIL. by thegarbz · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Windows 10 has high DPI support... too bad 99% of Microsoft apps don't actually support it.

      Please list them so we can audit your 99% number. Because the way I see it the only things that don't support high DPI is some older MSI installers, and some of the management console things. Pretty much everything user facing does support high DPI and has for a while.

      Go ahead, try and install it on a 5400 RPM laptop if you dare (with 6 GB of RAM and >2.5 GHZ processor) and it'll run like a pile of cow dung. It will literally spend HOURS doing nothing but running telemetry, superfetch, "application compatibility", and windows defender.

      Well yes, just like when you install Linux the first thing it does is update the slocate database. The thing is after those first few hours it runs just fine, and certainly faster and leaner than all its predecessors. Incidentally I have no problem running it on a machine lower specced than yours. 4800RPM drive, 4GB of ram and a 2GHz machine. No problem here. Just don't try and run the latest Adobe CC software on it.

      I've been manually disabling Windows Defender on that laptop.

      Why? It is the leanest antivirus software there is. The initial scan when you first install the system takes a little while and then there is literally no reason to disable it other than stupidity or because a corporate overlord has a contract with Mcafee.

      Add that Windows 10 will reboot "quietly" without telling you

      No it won't. You sound like you have a massive hardware issue. Or maybe its a PEBCAK issue where you've set the computer to automatically reboot without warning, like set your active hours to midnight instead of during the day and turned off the function that gives you the reboot warning, deferral options etc. Except even then it prompts you.

      Oh wait, with this recent Creators Update, Microsoft found out people were doing that, and MOVED THE PAGE. So now, it's another 3 clicks of pages, to get to the button that disables defender. A "subtle" act of conditioning to make it harder for lazy people to modify from Microsoft's godlike will for our lives.

      Oh no, a feature most people shouldn't use, that is irrelevant for nearly everyone is no longer front and centre of a redesigned menu. Help help I'm being oppressed!

      Microsoft has literally designed a operating system that can't actually run... on modern hardware.

      literally
      lt()rli/Submit
      adverb
      in a literal manner or sense; exactly.

      Maybe you need to learn english. Not sure if you should do that before or after learning how to use a computer.

      Waiting 20 seconds for a page to load on a machine with GIGAHERTZ processors is pure lunacy. And it's happened to every single laptop with a slower hard drive at our company. Do they even TEST their software? Is anyone running the ship? Who thought these decisions would be a good idea?

      Agreed. It seems there is a common factor here. You.

      And yeah, my job is literally installing and maintaining their software. So I AM allowed to complain. If I could convince every client to magically switch to Linux overnight, I would. Linux has plenty of problems but the difference is... they're actually reported and solvable.

      Normally I don't suggest people quit their day job, but in this case it may be for the best.

    5. Re:FAIL. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Christ, you are a condescending douche-nozzle.

    6. Re:FAIL. by Highdude702 · · Score: 2

      Why do I have to set active hours? And can only set a max of I believe 15 hours? Microsoft is allowed to tell me when I can and can't use my computer? That doesn't seem right as I bought the damn thing myself. It's not like they are just letting me borrow it, even if it really seems that way. I don't know why you're defending Microsoft's largest garbage project ever. It's like they hired a bunch of 22 ear olds fresh out of college that have never coded anything except "Hello World!"

    7. Re:FAIL. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounds more like PEBKAC. Maybe you are just inept and too stupid to realize it.

    8. Re:FAIL. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Linux has plenty of problems but the difference is... they're actually reported and solvable."

      A good part of the solutions are "should have bought different hardware"

      Another heap are "why do you need to run ...? [I'm not from your field, don't understand you job or your needs, but] clearly this other software is just as good and free!!!"

    9. Re:FAIL. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep, but it keeps the money rolling in for me, so I'm happy. If my clients switched to Mac's tomorrow, I'd be on welfare.

  13. Outlook 2007's new bugs are intentional? -- Maybe. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Software bugs make more money for Microsoft.

    At a news conference, Satan, the CEO of Hell, said that although Microsoft is only .01 percent of Hell's Evil, they are impressed with Microsoft's progress in being abusive.

  14. Microsoft was just circling the drain by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

    Now it's more like hanging onto two bars of the grating from underneath, desperate to avoid joining Windows 8.

    1. Re:Microsoft was just circling the drain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      circling the drain? you mean by being more profitable and successful than anytime in their entire history?

    2. Re:Microsoft was just circling the drain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      circling the drain? you mean by being more profitable and successful than anytime in their entire history?

      I suppose the OP has a different definition of "circling the drain" than most people do.

      There's a reason Slashdotters are seen as living in a bubble and the site itself has lost a tremendous amount of mind-share and influence. Most commenters are weirdos.

    3. Re: Microsoft was just circling the drain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When one of the richest global companies in the world has troubles at this low of level, you wonder how far the rot has spread.

    4. Re: Microsoft was just circling the drain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope we've known how far the rot goes, we can also spot rot as it's introduced, no matter the source. Our role is to see the damage and root around it. Be it censorship, operating system lock in, privacy invasion, or the introduction of back-doors where ever they may be and whatever the excuse used to justify their existence. But most of all to be professional in our approach and ignore feel good "trust us" pleas. Let's not, let's test and verify. Remove centralized trust regimes that have no place in this, the idea that our systems 'lock down' should be based on it is laughable. Our computers should be something we can trust, not something 'they' can trust.

      There is a lot of rot. That your still questioning how much and how far... well, wake up there's work to be done.

    5. Re:Microsoft was just circling the drain by MoarSauce123 · · Score: 1

      But at what cost? Mainly due to massive layoffs and the product they put out clearly shows: uninspired, old, and buggy. The success of a company needs to be measured in more than quarterly numbers. Given that 98% of all desktops run Windows it is almost pathetic how little they get out of this.

    6. Re:Microsoft was just circling the drain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      massive layoffs? what the fuck are you on about. their money comes mainly from Enterprises, Servers, cloud and office not from fucking desktop licenses. Windows desktops is the lesser revenue nowadays. They made 3000 redundant out of around 120,000, those were sales guys focused on the traditional enterprise on prem stuff that is slowly disappearing in favour of cloud. They have growth in revenue and profit that are both double digit and cloud growth that is triple digit.

    7. Re:Microsoft was just circling the drain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yeah I feel so sorry for them, only a 30% increase in profit this year so far. they must be devastated by that tiny 23 billion a quarter revenue number and increased marketshare in all their key markets.

  15. It's funnier if you read this as a sports headline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Apparently Microsoft is sponsoring some northeastern team called the Yanks that are going through a rough patch and have a bad outlook for the playoffs.

    --
    "Piggers are going to go all the way this year!" -The Oatmeal

  16. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  17. Outlook crashes even without the bad patches by MoarSauce123 · · Score: 1

    Outlook is the worst email client ever.

    1. Re:Outlook crashes even without the bad patches by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's why I often call it Lookout.

  18. Also Atom Z processor won't soon be supported by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Also Ed Bott reported some Z Atom processor's won't soon be supported according to Microsoft because they fail to meet requirements. I guess planned obsolescence is occurring with hardware now. Really getting tired of Microsoft and Windows 10 as a service.

  19. Windows patching. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    99 little bugs in the code,
    99 little bugs,
    Take one down, patch it around,
    12,436,852 bugs in the code!

  20. 2010 patch stopped saving of attachments by hashish · · Score: 1

    I don't know what the other patches broke; as I run only 2010/13

  21. KB4011042 by acoustix · · Score: 1

    Desperately waiting for an update to this fix. Users aren't able to send/receive certain attachments without it. I have the last patch (that MS pulled) and we're still installing it when needed. But I need a fix that will install via WSUS.

    --
    "A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
  22. About time by argStyopa · · Score: 2

    AFAICT, the June patch(es) killed our ability to open PDFs or even links directly from Outlook.

    Bit of a bitch going around manually uninstalling patch X to see if it helped (which seemed to only work about 40% of the time anyway).

    --
    -Styopa
  23. A user here couldn't open attachments..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Somebody here couldn't open any attachment connected to emails/meeting confirmations as of a couple weeks ago.

  24. Why is it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... that whenever Microsoft tries to streamline a process, they tend to make it worse? Ever since they switched to this patching system with Windows 10, it seems more bad patches have been making it into the wild.