This is starting to remind me of the pre XP days:
Once upon a time, out-of-band updates meant one thing, and one thing only — that there was an active attack on Microsoft products that needed to be evaluated, tested, and quickly patched in order to protect your computer and your network from the attackers. Now when I see an out-of-band patch, I think one thing only: What did Microsoft break in its last update that now needs a fix, one that can’t wait until next month’s release?
The term “out-of-band” refers to an update that isn’t released on Patch Tuesday (the second Tuesday of the month, the normal release tempo). Nor is it released at the end of the month, when optional preview updates become available ahead of the normal tempo. (The second week of the month is also called the “B” week, and the end-of-the-month preview updates are called the “D” week.)
Lately, out-of-band updates have been 100 percent related to a bug introduced by a regular patch that impacts Microsoft’s paying customer base. The good news — if you can call it that — is that the vast majority of these introduced bugs are not seen on consumer machines. There are a few notable exceptions that I will get to below.
I’m not ready to tell my family members that it’s time to move to a Linux distro on their daily drivers. But these sorts of problems are concerning. I hope Mr. Nadella starts getting as concerned about these pervasive problems as he is on making sure we embrace AI.
Consumers
The biggest side effect of the January updates is the interaction of the January updates with classic Outlook: whether you use a PST file and where the PST is stored. Microsoft has acknowledged these issues. Office has several issues emanating from the January updates (as documented by Microsoft), but the main one has to do with POP email and storing of PST files.
Outlook crashes if you use POP and your PST file is stored on OneDrive. The only workaround Microsoft recommends is to use Outlook on the Web. An alternative is to move the PST file to a location other than OneDrive. If you don’t use PST files and don’t use OneDrive, you probably...
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Only then, the software vendor left you alone once you bought the OS and didn't mess with it. |
