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January patches but no Excel fixes

Microsoft has released its monthly security patches for January 2015 but no fix for the broken patch from last month!

All the talk has been about Google’s disclosure of a security flaw in Windows just before Microsoft released a fix for the problem.  Lots of accusations flying both ways on that topic which distracted from Microsoft’s poor handling of a patch for Excel.

We told you about the December patch fail and Microsoft has done little to help customers since the faulty patch was released.  Excel controls continue to fail, important and complex worksheets stop working.

The faulty patch is still being pushed out automatically by Microsoft’s Update system with no immediate warning of the problems that will arise if you use the patch.

For example, the Microsoft Security Bulletin has no mention of the problems that occur when you use the Dec 2014 patch.

You have to drill down to the bottom of Knowledge Base article 3017349 to find out about the ‘known issues’.

On the good side, the Excel support team have a blog page with better details – but there’s no link to that page from the security bulletin nor KB article.  Anyone clicking around the Microsoft web site won’t be directed to the one page that will really help them.

All this is quite typical of Microsoft, which may be why it’s not considered newsworthy.  Microsoft always tries to downplay their mistakes even if that means making life more difficult for customers.   The delay in fixing the broken patch shows the low priority that the company gives to fixing, and therefore admitting, their mistakes.

The difficulty in finding information about the faulty patch is also SOP at Microsoft.  When forced to admit a mistake, Microsoft will always try to hide it away where only the most determined customers can find it.

At Microsoft it’s more important to maintain the corporate ego than fix mistakes or make life easier for customers.

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