Another Botched Patch Tuesday Sends Microsoft Customers Reeling

Due to a recent article entitled Does Microsoft have a Quality Problem?, I was granted the opportunity to speak with the VP of Customer Support Services (CSS). I've yet to post the information from that interview, but hope to in the coming days. But, the interview was stellar. Microsoft did a very good explaining their current release methods and processes, ensuring to me that they seem to have a handle on it. The process was sound. The methods were logical. And, when asked about how Microsoft is handling the new accelerated product release schedules, it sounded to me like they had already developed the appropriate response.

But…

My article on update quality was due to a 2 year history of botched update releases, causing customers severe pain. Yet, this month's releases include a total of 6 updates that have been confirmed to cause problems. Microsoft is warning against some of them, and has already pulled one that for Exchange 2013. Tony Redmond talks about the Exchange 2013 update HERE and he also alludes to the quality versus speed of release issue that I've highlighted and is becoming more evident.

Here's the updates you need to be aware of.

This month's botched updates include: KB2876063, KB2859537, KB2873872, KB2843638, KB2843639, and KB2868846.

To Microsoft's credit, in a perfect world, where Microsoft products are the only ones in use, updates should never be a problem. However, there's no company or customer that uses only Microsoft products. And, no matter how Microsoft architects a product to work, customers will continually use them the way they see fit – which is often times very different than Microsoft intended. Update development and release is tough due to the variances and complexities, but Microsoft needs to get a handle on this now, before we're 2 years into an accelerated product release cycle and customer's environments are sitting broken.

BTW: I'm still working on the article describing Microsoft's update and release process, thanks to my interview with the VP of CSS. I hope to have that posted soon, so check back. You'll see, as I did, that their process is very logical and even admirable.