Thu 27 Sep 2007
I blogged about this stealth update issue two weeks ago. Now, Scott Dunn reports on Windows Secrets that it conflicts with the XP’s repair option. This feature allows you to recover an XP installation that became unbootable. It seems that the new Windows Update agent is not able to install the 80 latest patches if the system was recovered with the XP repair option.
Dunn also describes a workaround that fixes this problem. Basically, you have to install the old version of Windows Update which can be downloaded via this KB article. Please check out the article on Windows Secrets for more details. Notice that you only need to do this if you used the XP recover function. I guess Microsoft meanwhile is aware of this bug and will deliver a patch soon.
This incident confirms what I have said earlier about silent updates. If a patch breaks other functions, you might search for ages until you find the cause. It is hard to understand how this could have happened, especially since Microsoft knows that its opponents are only waiting for such incidents. However, I disagree with Dunn’s claim in this Computerworld article:
It’s part of the whole problem with the silent update, and all part of the pattern of Microsoft’s sloppiness. They’re keeping us out of the loop. They’re not working well with the IT community.
There are 79,000 people working at Microsoft. To allege that all or most of them show “a pattern of sloppiness” is just unfair, in my opinion. I know it always goes down well to say such things about “Microsoft”. You always get a lot of applause for it in Apple blogs and OSS forums. Whoever is responsible for this at Microsoft certainly made a big mistake and it’s okay to blame him or her for this “sloppiness”. I wished that such smart IT professionals as Scott Dunn would just stick to concrete technical criticism instead of joining in the forum chatter.
That said, I still think that Nate Clinton and the Windows Update team, should find a way to change this behavior of Windows Update. Technically, this shouldn’t be a big deal. What this incident really shows is that silent updates are always a very bad idea.
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I don’t find it a problem to point negative comments at MS as a company. It’s not about getting kudos with Apple or Linux folks as this is simple human nature that occurs with auto companies or any other company and how people perceive them. Not to mention when you get down to the legal side of things it is the company that represents any positives or negatives with their products or services.
Lastly as with any organization there is a culture or cultures among the company. I don’t mean ehtnic but a way in how the employees in this case act and react. MS has fixed some of their issues they’ve had over the last decade that led to the legal judgements against them but there are still issues and much of that is due to the culture. It takes a long time and alot of work to change a culture within a company of that size. No matter though it’s still the company that’s responsible and needs to make things right.
Jim, you understand my point better if you compare this with negative comments about people from another country or city. It is simply wrong to generalize in such a way. You may criticize its leaders, but it doesn’t make sense to “perceive” 80,000 people in one way or the other. In this case Balmer and Gates probably even didn’t know about this silent update thing. So you can blame those who are responsible, but better stay quiet about the other 80,000.
Besides, I don’t see that Microsoft’s “culture” is any way different than with other major players in this business. If you ask me, they belong to the harmless ones. I am working in IT for about 20 years and I’ve dealt with quite a few IT companies. The only real difference is that MS is more successful than others. This is the real problem of this company. And that problem is unsolvable for any company. Rest assured that Google will soon be in the same situation as Microsoft is today. It has already started.
I subscribe to the Windows Secrets Newsletter and I already chewed them a new one on this issue. That newsletter has become nothing more that another Microsoft basher. I’m cancelling my subscription. This silent update was nothing more than a human screwup. But they think that they have uncovered some big super secret. Give me a break.
I’ve always been EXTREMELY leery of running repair installs on any (MS) OS…
So, someone screwed up… I’m in IT, and I have… You have too.
Coders screw up, managers screw up, we’re just human after all.
A bad decision (non-disclosure) AND a screw-up are pretty funny, since it wasn’t me.
BTW: I have just run into the problem, and MS’s fix did not work for me. The 1st patch would not install. Out of curiousity, I tried to install WU3.0 (second patch) and it did not go in. I didn’t have time to further research the problem as my friend was in a hurry.