We’ve had Office ‘Click to Run’ (CTR) installations for a few years now and there’s obvious problems with the technology. Obvious to anyone except Microsoft which has its usual ‘head in the sand’ approach to customers’ woes.
There’s a lack of options and notifications to Microsoft Office customers which makes CTR sometimes quite dangerous.
The ease (for Microsoft) of sending out software updates means Microsoft has become lax and sloppy with their testing of changes to Office. The attitude seems to be “if there’s a bug, we can just sneak out another update”.
The idea of Click to Run is great. A ‘streaming’ install where any updates are pushed to customers automatically and their software is upgraded seamlessly. Pity CTR isn’t everything that Microsoft originally promised.
Not streaming
Click to Run has been crippled in recent years and that’s bad for customers. It’s not the true streaming install that Microsoft originally gave us.
The original CTR could install and update features while Office was running – a true streaming install. Not anymore.
You might remember installing Office 2013 CTR. Soon after install started you could open and use Office programs while the install continued in the background. If you asked for an option, CTR would prioritize installation of that part. Eventually all of Office was installed while you got on with your work.
Microsoft has dropped that. These days you have to wait until CTR install is complete before you can use Office. Annoying but not critical.
But that change in CTR means that you have to restart Office to get any updates. The original promise of updating while using Office has been cut from CTR leaving customers worse off.
And that can be dangerous because Office can go for many days between an update downloading and being installed. Security holes aren’t blocked and Office bugs continue until Office is restarted.
No notifications
All updates are treated the same; as a silent, background process with no notification to customers.
Important security updates and fixes to patches should be notified to the customer so they know to restart Office and have the new updates installed.
At present, Office CTR downloads updates in the background but then does nothing until you restart Office. There’s no obvious notice to customers that a fix or update is available, unless you happen on the Accounts pane and see the notice there.
Many people leave Office running for days without restart and that means long gaps between an update download and it being installed. For these machines, either Outlook or Word is always open. The computer either sleeps or hibernates which pauses the computer but doesn’t give CTR a chance to update Office.
What’s needed is some more obvious notice to the user that Office needs a restart. Windows manages to do that, so why not Office?
No middle ground
There are only two choices for Office Click to Run customers – either install updates or ignore them.
Any ‘in between’ options aren’t available – like downloading updates then asking the customer to install.
Unlike the older MSI install, you have to accept all updates. There’s no ability to ‘pick and choose’ the patches to install.
That makes it easier for Microsoft, but a lot harder for their customers to avoid a buggy update.
Patches vs Features
Microsoft has always been reluctant to admit to failures and that means the documentation of bug fixes and especially fixes of broken patches is usually very poor.
Only the most determined Office customer can dig down to the details of any update and what’s included. That’s assuming there’s any useful public information at all.
The View Updates option in Office is a joke.
It takes you to a web page boasting of new features in Office 2016. No mention of Knowledge Base articles, security patches or much else.
We can fix it later
The biggest problem with Office Click to Run is the excuse it’s given Microsoft for sloppy work.
Over recent months we’ve seen a succession of flawed patches. Software ‘updates’ for Office that cause yet more bugs. Each month an update has caused more problems for Microsoft Office customers than the problem it was supposed to solve.
Microsoft seems to become lax in testing updates to Office. The ease and unobtrusive nature of CTR updates means that there’s less pressure on Microsoft to get it right the first time.
Quiet CTR updates makes it easier for Microsoft to bluff their way through mistakes. Most customers won’t even notice the bug fix since it’s applied silently when Office restarts.
Of course, there’s other factors in the Office patch failures. Heavy budget cuts may have affected the company’s ability to rigorously engineer and test updates.
All this isn’t to suggest that we should go back to ‘old’ MSI installs. Office ‘Click to Run’ can be a good install option, but Microsoft needs to make the effort.
