back to article Microsoft recommends you ignore Microsoft-recommended update

Earlier this month, Microsoft gave the world .NET Framework 4.7 and urged users to install it for the usual reasons: more fun bits to play with and a security improvements. But two days later the company urged Exchange users not to install it ASAP, because it hadn't validated it yet. Last Friday - 10 days after the launch of …

  1. a_yank_lurker

    A new meaning to

    "Clueless in Seattle" brought to you by Wiley E. Coyote.

    1. Captain DaFt

      Re: A new meaning to

      Really? Wile E. Coyote's only ever been a danger to himself.

      I would have thought this Fustercluck more along the wiles of Larry, Moe, and Curly.

      1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

        Re: MS - Getting more like the inept

        Keystone Cops every day.

        A great laugh but honestly, they need to grow up and face the facts that their software testing is crap and they should stop releasing anything until they get that sorted out.

        More like 'release and be dammed' than 'softly softly'.

        Thr World of MS is full of danger. You have been warned.

        1. Alumoi Silver badge

          Re: MS - Getting more like the inept

          ... that their software testing is crap and they should stop releasing anything until they get that sorted out.

          Didn't you get the memo? The users are the (paying) alpha/beta testers now. How can they NOT release anyting?

      2. TG2.2

        Re: A new meaning to

        you may have missed the point... Microsoft *IS* a danger to itself, if releasing 4.7 bricks one of its core server applications.

      3. a_yank_lurker

        Re: A new meaning to

        The Three Stooges were competent compared to Slurp's ineptitude.

      4. Shadow Systems

        @Captain DaFt, re: Wile E. Coyote.

        I disagree. Mister Coyote is a danger to others, especially anyone walking at the bottom of the cliff he just fell off, once he reaches the bottom at terminal velocity.

        *Chunky Salsa splatter*

        Ewwwww... =-)p

  2. Shadow Systems

    It's shit like this...

    ...that makes me want to drop a gigaton nuke on MS HQ.

    You rolled out an update to the general public & then tell us you haven't even finished validating it yet?

    Nuke 'em from orbit, repeatedly, until it glows in the DAY, just to be sure.

    *Frustrated howl*

  3. Bob Vistakin
    Facepalm

    Must have been like this when the Roman Empire collapsed

    Surviving only on the fear of past glories, whilst all it's emperors either went insane or fiddled watching it burn.

    1. Emmeran

      Re: Must have been like this when the Roman Empire collapsed

      It's like re-watching IBM/Apple (first collapse not this one)/DEC/RIM/HP all over again.

  4. Lion

    Flailing Helplessly

    The Windows Update Team must be down to one full time employee by now. This poor sod is the only one who knows how to and when to issue a patch. Yes, I know that is not true, but for all the fubars that have occurred since April 2015, you get the impression that they are flailing helplessly.

    There was an entire build that got released by mistake, bogus OEM drivers that mysteriously appear, updates that break all manner of windows products and now an update that has not been fully validated. I am wondering if the Windows 10 patching scheme (and the W7/8 rollouts) have become so unwieldy that they have lost control of it all.

    It also appears that it is not a priority to get the fixing, fixed.

    1. Tim99 Silver badge
      Windows

      Re: Flailing Helplessly

      Perhaps it's to encourage us to embrace the cloud? Maybe they haven't followed that idea through far enough. If everything is in the cloud, we might not need Windows (on "real" desktops) at all, cut everything back, fire more of the staff and sell lots of their own server based stuff - A bit like a mainframe, only shinier and not so reliable...

      1. Bob Vistakin
        Facepalm

        Re: Flailing Helplessly

        @Tim99 Yeah, that'll fix it.

      2. Stuart Castle Silver badge

        Re: Flailing Helplessly

        I can see many upsides for cloud based computing.

        As a company, you don't have loads of servers you need to update. This will reduce costs, not only in the purchase of new hard and software, but electricity, space and staff. The cost reductions are offset somewhat by the need to install a beefy connection, and the costs of maintaining cloud servers, but still it's likely to be considerably cheaper.

        There are serious downsides though.

        1) You are introducing a lot of extra hardware/software between you and your servers. If the servers are in house, you will have probably a router, a few switches and several network cables. Moving the servers off site, you also introduce a lot of hardware/software run by your telecoms provider. In computing, as in life, introducing more stuff that can go wrong increases the likelihood that something will. Yes, you can introduce redundant hardware and links, but that costs money, and one of the selling points of basing everything in the cloud is that it reduces costs.

        2) With the reduced staff, you may not have staff that can fix things if the system fails.

        3) One person, typing the wrong commend, or pulling the wrong cable, could potentially affect hundreds, or thousands of customers rather than just one. OK, that's not much of compensation if you are affected, but it's still a downside.

        1. Amos1

          Re: Flailing Helplessly

          You missed one. "When you outsource critical business functionality you have put your company's future in someone else's hands." And your outages will just become pat of the other 99.999%'ers who are also down and have zero leverage to get prioritized.

          Here, have some service credits to make up for all those lost sales and lost productivity. K thx

        2. Someone Else Silver badge
          FAIL

          @ Stuart Castle -- Re: Flailing Helplessly

          So, to sum up: The "advantages" of cloud computing aggregate to the suits in the Corporate Suite, while the disadvantages fall on the poor sods who are the developers, and the poorer sods who become the "customers".

          Have I got that right?

          Ain't that (Corporate) America!

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Flailing Helplessly

          "1) You are introducing a lot of extra hardware/software between you and your servers. If the servers are in house..."

          Then it's not "cloud based computing"

          1. Kiwi

            Re: Flailing Helplessly

            "1) You are introducing a lot of extra hardware/software between you and your servers. If the servers are in house..."

            Then it's not "cloud based computing"

            You can set up your own cloud servers y'know.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Flailing Helplessly

              "You can set up your own cloud servers y'know."

              Ahem. You missed the "in-house" part.

              1. Kiwi
                Coat

                Re: Flailing Helplessly

                "You can set up your own cloud servers y'know."

                Ahem. You missed the "in-house" part.

                But I have mine set up "in-house". It's in my mate's house, in the closet in his spare bedroom. Only because he has an all-you-can-eat internet feed and I can't afford to do much myself mind, if I could I'd have it in my own house...

      3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Flailing Helplessly

        "Perhaps it's to encourage us to embrace the cloud?"

        Well, something certainly seems to be blowing in the wind!

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Anon to avoid flying cabbages.

    "It also appears that it is not a priority to get the fixing, fixed."

    It appears that their priority of fixing their fixing needs to be fixed. - TFIFY

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Anon to avoid flying cabbages.

      Judging by the level of Downvoting that is given to any post critical of MS, it seems that the MS Release Engineering team are busy deflecting criticism from their failings rather than getting the problems fixed.

      A sign of the times perhaps. MS gives up on engineering and employs only PR people?

      1. Kiwi
        Coat

        Re: Anon to avoid flying cabbages.

        Judging by the level of Downvoting that is given to any post critical of MS, it seems that the MS Release Engineering team are busy deflecting criticism from their failings rather than getting the problems fixed.

        So far on this thread it's only the one of them..

        So..

        That'd be the entire team then?

        1. Tim99 Silver badge
          Pint

          Re: Anon to avoid flying cabbages.

          Sir, have one of these >>============>

          So far on this thread it's only the one of them..

          So..

          That'd be the entire team then?

          Concise, and much funnier than my inadequate post.

          1. Kiwi
            Pint

            Re: Anon to avoid flying cabbages.

            Concise, and much funnier than my inadequate post.

            Much thanks. Here, come along and join me :)

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Anon to avoid flying cabbages.

        Well so far, I'm seeing the usual one down vote which you get regardless of topic.

        It's either a Googlebot experiment, or some sad lonely individual going "FEEL MY WRATH, FEEL THE POWER OF MY DOWNVOTE!"

  6. redpawn

    Like Trump

    Microsoft has an image to keep. By consistently producing bad code they can't be faulted for getting it wrong in any given instance. It's just like Trump. Take no notice. Just trying to own the world.

  7. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

    Typical Big Corp

    This type of behaviour is typical of any big corporation. They get so big that no-one can truly control the monster and each part is desperately trying to look after itself, rather than thinking of the bigger picture.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Typical Big Corp

      > ... each part is desperately trying to look after itself, rather than thinking of the bigger picture.

      Thankfully. Given their ability to extract from the majority of the worlds computers, and an absence of morals, if they were well focused they'd be a larger problem than they are now.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Google vs Microsoft...

    Google just announced dropping Gmail Inbox Ad slurp because of falling Cloud sales vs Amazon/M$. Corporate customers complained of confusion about email slurp. Wonder if M$ will be forced to drop Win-10 slurp eventually, as Enterprise customers start questioning how well firewalled off they really are from Home user guinea-pigs like in Google scenario. Views?

  9. bombastic bob Silver badge
    Alert

    How am I supposed to IGNORE the update...

    how am I supposed to IGNORE the update, when it's being CRAMMED up my ARSE?

    1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      Re: How am I supposed to IGNORE the update...

      You ignore it by paying extra cash to be a business user (who can delay updates for a month or two) rather than a beta tester home user.

      1. Teiwaz

        Re: How am I supposed to IGNORE the update...

        You ignore it by paying extra cash to be a business user (who can delay updates for a month or two) rather than a beta tester home user.

        That's god advice, but, considering what they did to their 'Professional' version - think I'll play it safer and just not run their crap if I can avoid it.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: How am I supposed to IGNORE the update...

        Simple. Let it update, then ignore it. Then try to ignore any problems the update may cause - well, that may be a little harder to ignore. Do you have vacation time coming?

        1. werdsmith Silver badge

          Re: How am I supposed to IGNORE the update...

          It affects MS Exchange. I doubt many exchange admins in biggish enterprises are applying patches immediately unless there is a serious security exploit they need to fix. They use WSUS or whatever it's called now and do it when they are ready and after the thickos have tested it for them in the wild.

          1. Kiwi
            Coat

            Re: How am I supposed to IGNORE the update...

            They use WSUS or whatever it's called now and do it when they are ready and after the thickos have tested it for them in the wild.

            Thickos.. That would be those who don't qualify for the enterprise levels and therefore have updates forced on them when MS wants, regardless of what it breaks?

            So you're saying most MS users are "thickos"?

            1. werdsmith Silver badge

              Re: How am I supposed to IGNORE the update...

              wow, take it seriously why don't you

  10. RyokuMas
    Facepalm

    Music, maestro!

    'Nuff said

  11. Scroticus Canis
    Headmaster

    "and a security improvements"

    "and security improvements" or "and a security improvement" - was it several or just one?

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: "and a security improvements"

      No, it was several security improvement.

  12. Potemkine! Silver badge

    Fucked by MS updates, again

    I've got some users here who aren't really happy to be unable anymore to find mails in Outlook 2016 following an Office update.

    You don't push update: you are fucked because of vulns left wide open

    You push update: you are fucked because it breaks basic functionalities.

    It's like asking if you prefer being put at stake or quartered.

    I wonder if I'll be able to convince top management that Google Apps could be a nice alternative to that bloody Exchange/Outlook evil pair...

    1. Someone Else Silver badge
      Coat

      @Potemkine! -- Re: Fucked by MS updates, again

      It's like asking if you prefer being put at stake or quartered.

      Since The Three Stooges have already been mentioned in this thread, I refer to them for the "correct" answer to this conundrum. The answer (according to Curly) is the stake, because a hot stake is better than a cold chop.

  13. Kiwi
    WTF?

    Wait....

    ...someone a MS actually validates the stuff they put out?

    I though that was the job of their victimsusers!

  14. Avatar of They
    Thumb Up

    Have you noticed?

    I like the way all through this set of comments there is one or two downvote to anything against MS which obviously doesn't do any testing or logical release management.

    Like there is an ever present MS employee trying his best to suggest this isn't an MS cock up of possibly huge proportions. (how many people use Skype, or exchange, or both?)

    The lonely fanbois crying out against the anger.

    1. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: Have you noticed?

      Does anyone over 12 actually care about upvotes/downvotes?

      1. Kiwi
        Holmes

        Re: Have you noticed?

        Does anyone over 12 actually care about upvotes/downvotes?

        Well, the folks at El Reg went to the trouble to implement the system, and a number of quite intelligent and I'm sure quite a bit older than 12 talk about it, so I guess that'd be an obvious yes.

        1. werdsmith Silver badge

          Re: Have you noticed?

          Well I don't think people need to take them personally and feel the need to comment because they got a downvote, they really are piddling trivial things that matter less than toe-splash.

          1. Kiwi

            Re: Have you noticed?

            Well I don't think people need to take them personally and feel the need to comment because they got a downvote, they really are piddling trivial things that matter less than toe-splash.

            That may perhaps be your opinion, but others here share a different opinion.

            And I do understand the desire to know why an accurate response to a question can sometimes get so many downvotes without challenge or explanation. That's not taking it personally, that's wondering if you're mistaken and wanting to know what was wrong with what you posted.

            1. werdsmith Silver badge

              Re: Have you noticed?

              No fucks given here.

              Nor any down votes, or up votes. Or any notice taken of them.

  15. Howard Hanek
    Facepalm

    On Top of Spaghetti

    ...they couldn't find the end of that particular piece of spaghetti code is my guess.

  16. Mike 16

    Puts the urgent urging

    towards "The only safe thing is to tick the 'always update without waiting for approval' box" nattering from the "all your box are belong to us" crowd (vendors, carriers, TLAs...) into perspective. OK, only for those who hear about it at all, the less than .01% of folks who get their news from ElReg or the like, rather than their local news station.

    Again: Why must emergency security updates also include "oh, by the way, now we send all your family data to somebody named Blofeld, because we can (it's in the EULA!) " appendages? And as pointed out above, if you don't tick the box, you can choose letting bored teenagers also get that Blofeld feed or have all your documents rendered in Comic Sans (if you are lucky enough. That's one of the lighter punishments for updating by other means than buying a whole new computer).

    As soon as those of us who remember not having to recompile the world (or buy the update of all apps) every time a font was added (and resent how it works now) succumb to old age, humanity will presumably enter a true wonkers paradise.

  17. J. Cook Silver badge

    That is almost as funny as the time Installing IE 9 utter broke the management console for Exchange 2007 and 2010. And by broke meaning 'you can open it, but you get an error message trying to close it' which meant that you had to whip open task manager and kill the underlying MMC process that it was running. Bunches of enjoyment from that technet community thread.

    Oh wait, that's not funny at all.

    1. Kiwi
      Trollface

      Oh wait, that's not funny at all.

      For those of us who've moved away it can be, sometimes.

      (And sometimes we help with the cleanup, which shows us how not-funny it is when you're on the receiving end of this stuff!)

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