Daily Archives: September 17, 2020

• Patch Lady – Office retail flipping to 365?

  Posted on September 17, 2020 at 20:56 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  Got this in the mail the other day

  Susan –

  Since you are the undisputed Queen of Microsoft update patches, so I wanted to share my story with you. I haven’t ever run into an update like this.

  My office computer – a Dell XPS desktop running Win10 has Microsoft Office 2016 installed. This is a stand alone set up in my home office. No network, no Exchange server. Just about the simplest set up possible.

  In August, I ran the update to Office. Afterward, I opened Outlook and was amazed at the extensive design changes. New icons, fonts, spacing, and features like the search bar had been moved. Most curious was that when starting Outlook, the splash screen said Outlook 365. I noticed similar cosmetic changes in Excel and Word.

  I thought it curious but I was very busy with some projects so I adapted and moved on. This week, I was surprised to see that all the changes disappeared! My icons, fonts etc reverted to the pre-update appearance. All the prior mentions of “365” are gone.

  I did a quick google for problems related to the update and nothing I saw mentioned temporary conversion to 365 as a feature or flaw. My computer seems to run fine and I am happier with the older design but that was just a weird sequence of events. I guess Microsoft giveth and Microsoft taketh away!

  Then also received this email

  Also, just now when I went to open a Word document I noticed it says “Office 365”.  I don’t ever remember seeing that before and I definitely don’t have the online subscription.  I bought both Word and Excel as stand alone programs two years ago and now I also notice that the screens for Word and Excel look different including the appearance of the icons.  Microsoft couldn’t have just changed my programs to subscription only programs with the Win 10 update could they?  I am so annoyed because the icons look different and I have to be sure what each on is now to avoid making a mistake.

  These are two credible reports I received that retail versions of Office got an update that caused them to get 365 “branding” as well as design changes… and then in September they got their original branding back.  Okay Microsoft… what were you up to?

  Office Patches/Security Patch Lady Posts

• MS acknowledges blue screen bug when installing the Aug or Sept cumulative update on Win10 version 2004 Lenovo machines

  Posted on September 17, 2020 at 14:29 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Mayank Parmar at Windows Latest has the rundown on Microsoft’s latest confession:

  In a new support document that was quietly published over the weekend, Microsoft has warned that it has observed a number of other critical errors caused by KB4568831 or newer, which also includes the September 2020 patch…

  The problem appears to have been caused by a compatibility issue between Windows 10’s cumulative update, UEFI settings, and Lenovo’s Vantage app. With a cumulative update, Microsoft made a change that restricts how processes can access PCI device configuration and feature in UEFI could trigger this behaviour, which causes a Blue Screen.

  KB 4568831 is the Win10 version 2004 “optional, non-security, C/D/E Week” preview patch released in late July.

  Yes, the bug’s been around for six weeks. No, it hasn’t been fixed. But there is a manual workaround, discussed in Parmar’s article.

  Tell me again how version 2004 is ready for prime time.

  Windows Patches/Security August 2020 Black Tuesday, September 2020 Black Tuesday

• Keizer: PatchLady: Win10 upgrades aren’t worth the effort, per poll

  Posted on September 17, 2020 at 09:47 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Gregg Keizer at Computerworld has another look at Susan Bradley’s latest poll.

  A majority of IT administrators polled this summer said that the twice-a-year Windows 10 feature upgrades are not useful – or rarely so – a stunning stance considering how much effort Microsoft puts into building the updates.

  About 58% of nearly 500 business professionals who are responsible for servicing Windows at their workplaces said that Windows 10 feature upgrades – two annually, one each in the spring and fall – were either not useful (24%) or rarely useful (34%)…

  “Microsoft spends the greatest amount of development in releasing these twice-a-year feature releases and … enterprises are not rolling them out fast enough to take advantage of them,” noted Bradley in an email reply to questions.

  If you’re a Plus Member, you can read the full results of the poll in the Plus Newsletter 17.33.0.

  Survey, Windows Patches/Security Patching experience survey, PatchLady