Office December non-security updates

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Microsoft releases non-security patches for Office 2016, 2013, Click-to-Run After a bobbling start, the patches are available in Windows Update and WS
[See the full post at: Office December non-security updates]

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My WSUS is failing to synchronise after a first attempt which showed 35 available updates. This is extremely unusual.
WUMT in Windows 10 found 19 updates for Office 2016, which appear to me to be a bit too many.
I think the installation should be put on hold even for those more adventurous types as there may be unresolved problems either with the updates or Microsoft Update servers.

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I’m not seeing any notices in all of the usual places.

Just noticed a post in patchmanagement saying the poster couldn’t get WSUS servers to sync today. “SoapException: Fault occurred”

We may be waiting a while for Microsoft to get its act together.

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No 2016 updates here in the U.S. on W10 Insider, but they do show up for a friend with 2008R2 in Canada.

I was about to reboot, thinking that my WU was on the blink. Guess not.

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Seeing the same thing on my WSUS. 35 updates found on first attempt but failed. Subsequent manual tries yielded a failure with no updates found.

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Office updates? (That’s what they should be.)

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https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/office_sustained_engineering/2016/12/06/december-2016-non-security-office-update-release/

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Ahhhh.. THERE it is. Thank you.

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You are welcome
this blog always announce the MSI version updates, and make a note for C2R versions
C2R versions get the updates on patch tuesday

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Yes, Office 2016 updates. They’re just not available today via WU for whatever reason, at least here. I thought that the WSUS anomalies mentioned here might have been evidence of a larger problem, but maybe not.

Oddly, Settings/WU doesn’t even find a Defender update, which is very strange since those are pumped out multiple times a day. And mine was last updated at 6:45AM, so a manual update via Settings/WU should have definitely updated it.

Updating via the Defender app just now did work, not that I ever update it that way or any manual way (did it as a test to see if new definitions were available). Maybe my WU is borked suddenly, but I have rebooted.

Any other W10 Insider users?

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I don’t think it’s insider specific, but just in case… Which ring?

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strange theres a whole load of Office 2016 X64’s cooling theyre heels in the WUD inbox since 30 mins ago here just a waiting for the howls of protest or nods of approval.

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It has been back for few hours now.
WSUS is currently synchronising the Office updates.

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Woody, I just checked my computer and still no Office updates (I have Office 2010) available in WU.

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I don’t see any Office 2010 updates listed. Maybe you’re off the hook this month…?

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Am seeing the 19 Office 2016 updates as listed in the MS Blog linked to in the main post. These updates showed up in WU (Windows 8.1) at 4:17 am 7/12 (December 7) UTC+10.

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Thanks!

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Fast.

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Woody, I’ve faithfully followed your MS-DEFCON advice for a number of years. In Oct. 2016, as a still hopeful member of Group B I chose only Security patches and .Net patches from the “Important” list. But I had to give up in November when the Defcon instructions got too complicated for my computer skills. (I’m definitely not confident enough to join Group C or W and prepare to jump to A if the rats start leaving and the ship starts to go down.)

I’m still keeping the choices on the “Change Settings” page made months ago, but I wonder if Microsoft is paying any attention.
I had selected: “Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them.” I also made the same choice for Recommended updates. “Notify but let me choose whether to install.” (I rarely installed the Recommended updates unless they were Security or maybe .Net.)

My patch history now shows that on Nov. 19 the 44 patches installed were a mix of Important and Recommended, about 50-50. I don’t think they were identified as either Important or Recommended on the installation page. The Optional patches were not checked so I left them that way.

Maybe I should change the Recommended box on the Change Settings page. It appears that MS will install whatever it wants to install and has decided that Windows 7 people need both Important and Recommended patches.

Does Microsoft know what it’s doing with patch installation or are they making things up as they try out different patch ideas on millions of computers?

JNW

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@BobbyB
If you are running Office 64-bit, this means you should also update immediately. Just kidding 🙂
Office 64-bit is generally not recommended even by Microsoft due to incompatibilities with mainstream add-ins but maybe other reasons which are not fully disclosed too.

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I don’t see any other updates than for Office 2016.
No updates for Office 2013, 2010 or 2007.
They may not be ready and the delay may indicate just that.

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Sorry, I noticed those for Office 2013, but they look like they have failed in WSUS. It may only indicate that the complete synchronisation has failed, but not the individual updates. I would be very careful with the current set of updates until further information is made available.

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KB3118373 – October 4, 2016, update for Excel 2016 has been expired in WSUS.

From https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3118373

This update is no longer available now. After you install this update KB3118373, you receive the following error message:

Microsoft Excel has stopped working.
See KB3198535 for more information.

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What a mess. KB3118373 apparently was expired long time ago, on 10/8 (US format) but only now the expiration was synchronised in WSUS. :‑O

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I think you need to uncheck the box that reads “Give me recommended updates the same way I receive important updates.” And uncheck any recommended updates you don’t want, to be on the safe side, before you press the Install button. The settings you have chosen will apply to all the updates shown and only the check box will determine whether recommended updates are treated as important or not.

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A friend with 14971 has the same problem, and reports are starting to trickle into the Feedback tool. Clearly MS flipped something on the server end yesterday (or even a little earlier)–inconveniently timed as far as Office updates are concerned–to disable WU for this build. Perhaps something to do with the new build that they’re supposed to put out this week, hopefully after they re-enable WU.

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No, they aren’t trying out patches.

Sit tight. Don’t install anything until the December patches roll out and I move the MS-DEFCON line to 3 or 4. At that point, I’ll have full instructions.

If you have trouble following the instructions, drop me a line here on AskWoody. If you’re having problems, it’s a lead-pipe cinch that many more people are having problems, and I’d like to get the word out to everybody.

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Weird! I wonder if it’s related to UUP?

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Heh heh heh, Woody, your labeling of the “Halt and Catch Fire” update for Excel made me smile.

For those not “in the industry”, Halt and Catch Fire dates back to a joke from IBM mainframe days (think, 1970s or possibly even earlier). Yes I was there, yes, I remember the joke near when it first came out. It was presented in a list with other instructions, such as “Jump Somewhere” and “Branch and Scramble Memory”. 🙂

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halt_and_Catch_Fire

-Noel

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@ch100,

“What a mess.”

And that surprises you?

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🙂

Good TV series, too.

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@louis
Not surprised, only that I am trying to “make order out of disorder”.
It is the nature of the current IT environment.

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Just as a follow-up, when 14986 became available today, it, and only it, showed up in WU. Once it was installed, so did Office, all 0.5GBs worth (so much for delta updates for Office).

Yes, I think it was because of UUP.

And speaking of delta updates, 14986 require somewhat more than 3GBs of downloading, pretty much exactly what any build required before the advent of UUP….

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Interesting! I noticed it was very slow.

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Doing some testing with the December16 Office 2013 non-security patches, on W8.1. I notice our SCCM client won’t seem to download and install them. And when I run a windows update, they are visible in the “important” updates, but are not ticked like other ones, e.g. november non-security updates.
Anyone else seen this?

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I cannot tell about SCCM, but I believe that you use the WSUS component of it for this purpose. There was delay in synchronising Office patches, but it seems to be resolved now.
It is normal behaviour that the Office Updates show as Important not checked for few weeks after being released.
If you are only testing or updating a home machine with little impact if anything is broken, you can go ahead, tick the boxes and install all patches on offer. In that case, you should monitor this site, WSUS or any other site which would tell you if any of the patches is later removed by Microsoft and uninstall to keep the baseline consistent.

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Not quite for the expected audience of this site, but because we are at Office patches and there is discussion about SCCM and WSUS sometimes, the latest Lync 2013 Cumulative update for Novemeber 2016 has been retired. This is affecting only enterprise systems administrators and not end-users.

“An issue was discovered in the Lync Server 2013 November 2016 Update (build 8308.974) that causes contact searches on mobile clients to return no results. Because of this issue, the November 2016 Update is no longer available for public download. The Skype for Business team is working on a fix that is scheduled to be delivered soon in a new update.”
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3200080

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Now, if they would do THAT the next time there’s a bug in a Security-only patch, I’d feel much more comfortable about it.

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Aren’t they supposed to retire all obviously buggy patches, regardless of their classification?

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Retire or replace. Occasionally there are “silver bullet” patches that kill earlier patches.

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Using Win7sp1x64 on two laptops and Win8.1×64 on another.

Office not installed just;

MS viewers for PP, XL, Word.

Outlook as part of live.com email.

I install all viewer updates.

Do I need office or outlook updates?

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Probably not but when the time comes* run Windows Update and see what it recommends. Frequently you have bits and pieces of Office in odd places.

* Don’t do it now! Wait for the MS-DEFCON level to change.

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I posted in the other thread, IE9 has finally been retired for Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2.
A version of IE which like IE7 I have always considered transitional and incomplete, being released between 2 (very) good versions, for their time at least.
I still think that IE10 is a better version than IE11 although they are very similar. IE10 unfortunately receives very limited support as it is officially supported only for Windows Server 2012.

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Woody
Thanks for speedy reply

I always wait for the defcon change 🙂

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December updates for Click-To-Run Office 2013 broke whole lot of computers today – the fix was to rollup to October version

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I saw this:

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/odsupport/2016/12/15/issues-activating-office-2013-click-to-run-clients-with-shared-computer-activation/

Any other reported problems?

Thanks for the heads up!

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The issue is not solely on Microsoft – managed Bit Defender AV saw an update as an attack. In some cases it just blocked access to the msointl.dll preventing upgrade, in other cases, it deleted the file, rendering entire Office 2013 suite useless. Replacing the file from a knwon, non-affected client resolves the issue, not even repair is needed.

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I hadn’t updated Office 2013 this month, and everything worked okay until 19th Dec. Tried to use Excel on 20th, and it wouldn’t open; couldn’t open Word either. Checking the event viewer, it seems that there was a License Check on 19th… not sure what is going on, but it’s wasting a whole heaps of work time. Checking on Task Scheduler, the Office Software Protection Platform’s task was set at Disabled, and on Enabling it, it showed as Ready, but “User “NETWORK SERVICE”” quickly disabled it again.
Has anyone else struck this?
While I was able to use QuattroPro on 20th, it doesn’t run my macros in Excel spreadsheets.

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