This is now beyond a joke. Yet another month with a broken patch for Microsoft Office.
The February 2016 broken patch is known as KB3114717, after the Knowledge Base article. It applies only to Office 2013 installed via MSI (ie DVD or direct download). It also applies to Office RT for original Surface devices with Windows RT.
‘Click to run’ installs (usually Office 365 annual rental) had a fix slipped through to them around 17 Feb 2016 in build 15.0.4797.1003. Thanks to Office-Watch.com reader Gerald G. for pointing that out.
If you were unlucky enough to have this patch installed, your copy of Office might grind to a halt. Office takes up virtually all the computer processor power (CPU) leaving little for the computer to do any work.
After the usual complaints on forums, Microsoft did something quite amazing …. They put a notice on the top of the KB page.
That might not seem like a big deal … but it’s quite unusual and a welcome change of policy by Microsoft. Hopefully it’s not a one-off.
Normally bugs in Microsoft Office patches are grudgingly disclosed in forums but not mentioned on any of the pages directly related to the patch itself. Anyone looking for help after Microsoft’s mistake has to waste more time digging around the net.
A prominent notice to customers on the relevant page was a pleasant surprise to this grizzled Office Watcher.
For example, last months broken mscomctl.ocx update. For too long the KB articles gave no warning to customers that the update was troublesome. Finally, Microsoft added a ‘Known Issues’ section lower down the KB articles plus another KB with some details.
Even then, Microsoft can’t bring itself to admit an error. The ‘Cause’ of the problem is given as
“This problem occurs because security update MS16-004 may prevent certain ActiveX controls from loading correctly within pre-existing Access databases or in Design view.”
Instead of something more honest like.
“Microsoft apologizes for errors in the testing of these updates which meant it was released with bugs that stop some ActiveX controls from loading as they should.”
Maybe after the pink elephants fly by …
