Office 365: Office in the Cloud still promising?

Office 365: Office in the Cloud still promising?

By Katherine Murray

In a hardworking, digitized world, it’s hard to imagine tools more sought after than those that show up reliably on any portable device and work well — or at least as well as advertised.

Whether Microsoft’s Cloud-based Office 365 is that tool — in fact or even in potential — is still an open question.

We look to Cloud computing to simplify our work lives — that’s what we need it to do. So when I first heard about Microsoft Office 365, I was excited by the possibility of accessing my files, getting e-mail, scheduling appointments, and having online meetings from anywhere I had Web access (including via my smartphone). As the owner of a small business, I relished the idea of using my favorite Office programs wherever an Internet connection was available. (Plus, the “greenness” of the idea attracted me.) Add in a SharePoint team site with document libraries and a free public website, and Office 365 seemed to be a pretty solid solution for a small-business owner working with folks scattered all over the globe.

Working with the Professional and Small Business version of Office 365, I was initially attracted to its Web services — glitches and bugs notwithstanding. It seemed well suited to giving users a way to easily organize and share files in one online space and allowing them to work with the Office apps they preferred. At the same time, it relieved them of the task of maintaining the system. Users could happily focus just on their work.

I also liked that Office 365 maintains user files in a secure environment (built on the concept of redundancy, so data is well protected yet easily accessed). Whatever you were working on, you could get to it from almost anywhere, using any Web-enabled device at hand.

Trying to read fine print for Cloud services

This arrangement sounds good, but I soon discovered that current reality isn’t quite in sync with the vision. Although Office 365 is continuing to evolve (as any good Cloud offering should), I find myself waiting — at the cost of U.S. $6.00 a month — for the true benefits of Office 365 to reveal themselves.

The first obstacle to a happy Office 365 experience is Microsoft’s complex payment plans. Different services are available for different plans at different monthly rates. Microsoft says this variability is a “simplicity versus flexibility” trade-off.

Thankfully, there’s only one contract for small-business users, though it unfortunately doesn’t include a subscription to the desktop version of Office Professional Plus 2010 — which you will likely need if you want to do any serious word- or number-crunching online.

When I looked into adding the Office application suite to my Office 365 subscription, I almost immediately got lost in the product descriptions listed on Microsoft’s website. Some of my unanswered questions included: What are the Office Web Apps really equipped to handle? Why do I need Office 365 when I can use the Office Web Apps for free as part of Office Professional 2010? Does the version of Office on my desktop give me direct access to Office 365, or does it just plug me into SkyDrive? If I choose to subscribe to Office Professional Plus as part of Office 365, is that the same thing as downloading the software from the Cloud to my PC? In other words, is this the same suite of Office apps, available from different points?

Consulting the Office 365 online forums, I discovered that good answers were fairly rare and many comments were flavored either by frustration or marketing-speak. So with that, I set off to find the answers myself — which I’ll now share with you.

How small an Office can you get away with?

I started by investigating the capacities of Office Web Apps. Could I use them exclusively to get my work done? Would I still have all the Office tools I need, using a variety of devices? Would I be able to post and share files in my SharePoint team site? Not installing Office 2010 on my desktop could save considerable software costs and headaches.

Because Word is the application I use most frequently, I took a close look at Word Web App — and quickly found its capabilities to be seriously limited. And I mean seriously, as in “write a few words, format them a little, and add a picture” limited. (See Figure 1.) Word Web App seems to be built more for reviewing documents than for any serious editing or formatting.

Microsoft does make clear that Office Web Apps should be seen as Office “light.” So I didn’t truly expect the service to provide all the features available in my full-blown version of Office. But I was surprised Web Apps were that limited. (When I first evaluated Office 365, I thought Office Web Apps were limited partly because they were still in beta. Apparently the limitations were intended.)

Figure 1: Word Web App gives you a bare-bones set of word-processing features.

Word Web App might be sufficient if your small business just needs to get the text onto the page — nothing fancy, such as columns, headers and footers (or even page numbers), or mail merges (heaven forbid).

So for my application, it was obvious that Word Web App wasn’t going to cut it. That meant no cost savings by eliminating Office from my desktop computer.

So you need the full Office suite, after all

If you have Office Professional 2010 installed on your desktop, you can use all its available features and then use the Save & Send command in the File menu to post files on your Office 365 team site. Click Save to SharePoint, Browse for a Location, and Save As; a dialog box then displays the Office 365 team site as one of your Workspaces choices. (See Figure 2.) To save the document to the site, simply choose the shared folder and click Save.

Figure 2: You can easily save a file created in your desktop version of Office to your team site in the Cloud.

If you don’t have Office on your desktop — and you don’t want to go through the hassle of purchasing, deploying, and supporting it — you can subscribe to Office Professional Plus as part of Office 365. This $15-per-user-per-month license enables each person to install Office on up to five devices. That’s a great feature if you use your desktop, laptop, netbook, tablet, and phone interchangeably.

Microsoft says that the desktop version of Office Professional Plus (available only through volume licensing) and the Office 365 version are not the same product. That’s puzzling. Perhaps the distinction is not so much in bits, but source — you need to have an active Office 365 subscription to access its version of Office Professional Plus. Whatever the differences, any version of Office Professional I pay for must have all the features I need for my business.

How do you define ‘collaborating in real time?’

As mentioned above, collaborating with teammates in real time was one of the features that made Office 356 an attractive prospect. As an Office 365 Professional and Small Business subscriber, I can share a file and work — virtually — shoulder-to-shoulder with one or more teammates.

I can also collaborate with people outside my team by giving them access to my Office 365 account via my SharePoint team site. The process is, however, clunky — for example, if an outside user has Windows Live or Hotmail accounts, they get bumped to a different site for signin. But if you don’t mind clicking through a few hurdles, collaborating this way is doable.

Overall, Office 365 does a nice job of orchestrating collaboration, ensuring that all changes made in a file get reflected in the final version. If you have multiple authors working on the same piece, that’s one less thing for you to worry about.

Office 365 needs real-world customer support

Mature services come equipped with good customer support. Businesses provide real customer support by communicating clearly, consistently, and well with their customers — through their websites, forums, and technical support. If you’re providing services — especially for small businesses — you make it clear that you take customer questions and concerns seriously. Your effort to communicate well builds trust with your customers, and they feel better about you as a company (and might even like your products more).

This is a place where Office 365 needs triage. As the premier Cloud offering from Microsoft, Office 365 support should do a stellar job of “being there” for people who are trying to put together what they need to use the service successfully. You need read only a few forum posts to gather that many Office 365 users feel frustrated and lost trying to get the system working to their satisfaction. (It’s what they’re paying for.) Users are writing in with questions about business-critical concerns, and those questions might go unanswered for long periods of time. Many of Microsoft’s responses sound more like marketing messages than technical answers.

Posters aren’t asking trivial questions. Office 365 isn’t working the way it’s supposed to, there are connectivity issues (such as “why can’t I see the Office Web Apps on my iPad?”), and users can’t see how to migrate data from Microsoft Business Productivity Online Services or Office Live. (Both services are being phased out, and users are now being asked to subscribe to Office 365.) These are just a few of the user concerns found on Office 365’s forums

Some of the limitations I find in Office 365 service right now are understandable, given that it’s a new product expanding to serve a huge — and rapidly evolving — Cloud space. Perhaps Microsoft will hit its Office 365 stride as enterprise and education areas continue to adopt the service. (Microsoft says it has expanded greatly in these markets.) I hope that those of us using the Professional and Small Business plan will see our services mature and stabilize as well.

A possibly bright future, despite growing pains

With a bit of maturity, Office 365 should be a good solution for low-cost, secure, shared team space — a place where you can touch base with your colleagues, track schedules, communicate with customers, and to some degree collaborate in the Cloud.

Office 2010 and future versions are critical components of the Office 365 system. Which version you pick — desktop, subscription, or Web App — will depend on the features you need. But it’s good to have choices.

That said, none of the good in Office 365 is going to matter much if Microsoft doesn’t do a better job of supporting its struggling Office 365 subscribers. You just can’t move people — or companies, or schools — to a subscription model and then disappear when they need your help. The entire premise of Cloud services is relieving customers of responsibility for maintenance and tech support. That’s part of the promise. How Microsoft will make good on that promise remains to be seen.

Know thyself: applies to your hard drive, too

By Kathleen Atkins Nothing works better than a nearly full hard drive to stimulate a fit of cleaning. But wait — what exactly are those hundreds of security-licensing-slc-component-sku- … files taking up so much valuable space?

That’s the question that Lounge member LeonW had the good sense to ask in the Windows Vista forum before he deleted a mass of files. He thought better of his original plan to remove them after he got an answer. More»

The following links are this week’s most interesting Lounge threads, including several new questions to which you might be able to provide responses:

☼ starred posts — particularly useful

If you’re not already a Lounge member, use the quick registration form to sign up for free. The ability to post comments and take advantage of other Lounge features is available only to registered members.

If you’re already registered, you can jump right into today’s discussions in the Lounge.

The Lounge Life column is a digest of the best of the WS Lounge discussion board. Kathleen Atkins is associate editor of Windows Secrets.

At the Oscars: Not everyone loves a clown

By Kathleen Atkins Accompanied by two tall, khaki-clad young women, Sacha Baron Cohen came to the Oscars Sunday in a pink-and-gold dictator’s ensemble and black Kmart socks. He was carrying an urn containing ashes. The ashes, Cohen explained to interviewer Ryan Seacrest, were the remains of Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, a friend and former doubles tennis partner who had wanted to come to the Oscars. Oops! An ash accident! A chagrined Seacrest shortly discovered the kindness of strangers; he was offered a napkin, a towel, and a lint brush — just the items you want for repairing unexpected damage at the premiere film awards. Play the video

Readers react to antivirus 'resource pig' story

By Fred Langa Our Feb. 16 Top Story reviewing resource usage among six free antivirus tools generated a flood of reader mail. Here’s some follow-on discussion about AV resource use, based mostly on questions and comments about Microsoft Security Essentials.

Did Fred miss the point of MSE’s problems?

Reader Kumar’s letter questioning my performance conclusions for Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) is representative of many e-mail responses to our Top Story, “Is your free AV tool a ‘resource pig’?”

• “I enjoyed Fred’s article. However, I think it misses the point of why some people think MSE is a hog.

  “It’s not about the RAM it consumes on an idle computer. Nor is it about how much time it takes to load. MSE isn’t heavy, it’s busy — overly busy.

  “The main issue is its pre-emptive scanning, scanning even files that the computer doesn’t otherwise read. Just browse to a folder with lots of files and see for yourself.”

I didn’t see any scanning problems in the test setup; nor have I seen them on my personal-use and office PCs, all of which run MSE.

But I have no trouble believing that MSE — like any other AV software — can and does cause slowdowns in some PC setups.

If MSE causes trouble on your system, try the numerous performance adjustments available in MSE’s Settings tab. You can, for example, control when scans occur, what files and folders will be scanned, how much CPU time the scan will consume (circled in yellow in Figure 1), and much more. Assigning less CPU usage can lengthen the overall scan time, but it also can prevent your PC from bogging down during the scan. You also can tell MSE to scan only when your PC is idle.

Figure 1. MSE’s many performance settings include limiting CPU usage during scans.

Other adjustments shown in Figure 1 include setting MSE to scan only on certain days of the week and at specific times of the day. By scrolling through the categories in the Settings tab’s left pane, you can also choose the type of scan MSE performs (quick or full); prevent MSE from scanning selected folders, files, types of files, and processes; and control whether ZIP archives are scanned. You can set whether MSE gives “always on” real-time protection, whether a system restore point is created prior to scanning, and more.

Taken together, these choices can have a huge impact on performance. I think my tests show that MSE isn’t intrinsically hobbled by poor performance. But if MSE isn’t performing well on your specific system, you just may find that a few simple tweaks will give you the minimal system impact you’re looking for.

For more information on MSE’s settings, see the Jan. 13, 2011, Top Story, “Two great security tools get free updates.”

Were the AV-utilization test setups valid?

Bill Garfield raised an important issue about the choice of test platforms.

• “I understand the reasons for your test bed necessarily being what it was (six virtual machines). However, I do not feel that a virtual platform in a lab setting is a fair representation of real-world conditions.

  “Real-world conditions matter. For example, on my wife’s new ASUS laptop (Win7, 64-bit, 8GB RAM, Intel Core i7), MSE performs amazingly well. But on my Gateway desktop (Win7, 64-bit, 8GB RAM, Intel Core i5, 256GB Crucial M4 SSD), it’s a slug. Once you graduate into the sub-30-second boot times afforded by the newest breed of SSD drives, any event that lengthens the boot sequence is really noticeable.”

You’ve put your finger on a perpetual problem in software testing, Bill.

In the real world, system configurations can vary tremendously. At a minimum, different hardware means different drivers using different amounts of memory and interacting with the OS or other software in different ways.

Even if the hardware’s identical, the collection of installed apps (or versions of the same apps) will vary — especially over time — and there’ll inconsistencies with updating and within the base operating system.

Moreover, some users maintain their systems with exquisite care; others rarely (if ever) do any elective maintenance. In other words, a real-world system can be almost anything at all — and that’s impossible to test for.

That’s why I used a relatively simple, standardized setup. It minimizes the variables and lets you see how well software performs in its native state, absent other interactions.

With that in mind, if MSE is inherently a resource pig, it should be evident even on my simplified test setups. Because my results showed no significant impact on performance, I feel confident concluding that there is no fundamental resource issue with MSE itself.

So in those cases where MSE has heavy resource use or poor performance, it’s a symptom of a different kind of problem — perhaps it’s in conflict with other installed software or its settings need changes, as noted above.

The tips given elsewhere in this column may help resolve installation-specific issues with MSE. Keep in mind, however, that no software works perfectly on all PCs at all times. If MSE — or any other software — performs poorly (even after you’ve adjusted its settings), simply try a different tool.

Which firewall was used with the AV tests?

Ted Chrobot was among several readers who asked for the best firewall to use with Windows.

• “What’s a reasonable personal-firewall product for XP and Win7?”

I used Windows 7’s built-in firewall for my tests, Ted. I also use it on my Win7 personal-use and office systems. It’s never caused me trouble.

XP’s firewall is less advanced than Win7’s, but I still use it on my remaining XP boxes. (However, I no longer keep sensitive or important files on them.)

If you’d like to get the most from Windows’ built-in firewalls (you’ve already paid for them, after all!), consult our March 17, 2011, story, “Outbound blocking for Windows Firewall”; it contains information and links for XP, Vista, and Win7.

Also, numerous sources provide ratings and rankings of third-party firewalls. You can, for example, visit major download sites such as CNET’s Download.com (firewall pages) or MajorGeeks.Com (firewall pages). These sites feature user ratings that can help steer you to solutions that work for your particular setup.

Caution: ClamWin is unfinished software

Alan Nolan, and others, sought to amplify a point I made in the original article: ClamWin is a work in progress.

• “ClamWin’s site says, ‘Please note that ClamWin Free Antivirus does not include an on-access, real-time scanner. You need to manually scan a file in order to detect viruses or spyware.’ That makes it completely different from the other AV scanners. A warning in the article would be good.”

Yes, as I said in the original text, ClamWin isn’t even quite to version 1.0 yet. I included it because it looks promising and worth keeping an eye on. But ClamWin has enough unfinished pieces to keep it off my personal recommended list for now.

Was MSE’s RAM-use number in error?

Ppaulas was one of many readers who wondered about the MSE RAM-use numbers:

• “Great article, but what the heck does this mean? ‘MSE … used about 1MB.’ Is it a typo for 100MB or 1GB?”

After receiving several letters like this, I began to doubt my original findings so went back and redid the AV-resource-impact tests for MSE. But there was a complication: I was on a two-week trip (in fact, I’m writing this while still on the road) and didn’t have access to the hardware or software setups used in the original tests. So the retest baseline setup was slightly different.

For example, a patch Tuesday had come and gone since the original tests, and Oracle had updated VirtualBox, so the OS and virtualizing software were not 100-percent identical to those used in the first tests.

Still, the retest showed essentially the same relative results as originally published, with very minor variations. In my retest, a Win7 setup with MSE used 4MB RAM more than the same setup without MSE. Although this is different from the 1MB quoted in the original text, it’s a negligible amount and probably accounted for by the unavoidable variance in the underlying software.

That said, please note that my original test was not — repeat, not — designed to pinpoint how much RAM and other resources the tested software used.

Rather, it was intended to answer the much broader question, “Is MSE a resource pig, compared to other free AV tools?”

To repeat, the retest reaffirmed the conclusions of the published article. Although the exact numbers can vary from setup to setup, MSE has a light resource footprint relative to the other tools.

Turning tables: A word of thanks, from Fred

To all the many who wrote in, thank you! It’s great to know you’re reading these articles so closely. And I’m always happy to expand on, correct, or otherwise respond to issues raised in your e-mails.

In fact, there are a few more MSE-related questions I’ll cover in upcoming columns.

As always, feel free to write to me — and all the Windows Secrets authors and editors — via the Editor@WindowsSecrets.com mailbox.

The Windows Start menu super guide — Part II

By Woody Leonhard In my Feb. 23 Windows Secrets Top Story, I took you through the intricacies of pinning apps, folders, and files into Windows 7’s start menu. In Part II, I show you how to change the Start Menu’s frequently used programs list and also modify the essential All Programs menu.

As noted in Part I, Start menus in Windows XP and Windows 7 (shown in Figure 1) look different but have many similar functions. So though the focus of this series is on the Win7 version, many of the Start menu customization techniques also work with Windows XP.

Figure 1. The Windows 7 Start menu is made up of three sections to make finding applications, folders, files, and system tools easier.

Overriding Windows’ self-generating list

Although you might think that the Start menu is a relatively fixed component of Windows, the OS actually creates much of the Start menu on the fly, every time you click the Start button. Which is why you might see a bit of a delay between clicking the button and seeing the full Start menu on screen.

This perpetual, dynamic reconstruction applies particularly to the Start menu’s frequently used programs (FUP) list (located in the lower half of the Start menu’s left column), though you might not immediately notice it. Most Windows 7 users probably believe they have little control over this list — especially since Windows (or your PC manufacturer) may stack the deck by loading certain programs first, whether they’re used or not. In the following section, I’ll show how to unstack that deck.

After that, I’ll discuss customizing the familiar and often-used All Programs (“Programs” in XP) command. This is the part of the Start menu Microsoft specifically designed to be easily modified — more so than many Windows users realize. You can, for example, add submenus and change or delete items to your heart’s content — all of which is really pretty easy.

Take control of the frequently used programs list

Since the FUP list is continually refreshed, you’d think it would show the apps frequently launched — the most-often used at the top, the second-most-often used next, and so on. Unfortunately, it often doesn’t work that way.

For example, programs pinned to the upper-left corner of the Start menu are not counted by the FUP list routines — which makes sense because those apps are already in the Start menu. Oddly, FUP is more likely to list apps you launch through All Programs or via a desktop icon, but less likely to list apps you’ve pinned to the taskbar. Some apps won’t make the FUP list at all, no matter how you start them. The reasons and algorithms behind this aren’t published anywhere, as far as I know.

Moreover, Windows maintains the FUP list in the Registry, which means you can’t drag-and-drop items onto the list or move them up or down within the sequence.

After watching the FUP list for a while on a newer Win7 machine, you might notice that programs you neither want nor need (Customer Care Access, anybody?) tend to stick higher up on the list. That’s because Microsoft (or the hardware manufacturer) salted the list with apps it particularly wants you to use. For example, I had to run one program a dozen times before it bumped Windows Media Center off the top of the list. (As far as I know, the behavior isn’t documented anywhere — in fact, the FUP’s ordering proclivities are only rarely mentioned in any Microsoft documentation.)

The small triangle wedges you see to the right of items on the FUP and pinned lists (in Figure 1 they’re next to IrfanView, Notepad, and Google Earth) are fly-out links to taskbar jump lists. (These fly-out entries are precisely what you’d see if the FUP-list app were on the taskbar instead of the Start menu.)

For most FUP-list apps, the fly-out list is composed of the most recently opened documents or most recently viewed websites. But app developers can modify their jump lists — and thus the Start menu fly-outs — using direct program calls. (App developers might build custom jump lists to, for example, make it easy to jump to a specific point in a game, open a specific file, or bring up a particular webpage.)

Microsoft gives you some control over what appears in the FUP lists, using the General Policy Editor. The editor (gpedit.msc) isn’t available on Windows 7 Home Premium machines, but if you have the Pro, Enterprise, or Ultimate versions, you can tweak a great deal. Details are on the TechNet website.

If you’ve been using your PC for a while, the FUP list might still be cluttered with junk unrelated to work you normally do. (Or you may not want someone in the house to notice that you’ve been playing Minesweeper incessantly.) Right-clicking an item on the list and selecting Remove from this list simply adds another — typically unwanted — app to the bottom of the list. Fortunately, it’s easy to clear all entries in the FUP list at one time; here’s how:

• Right-click the Start button (or orb) and choose Properties. Windows will pop up the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box.
• Uncheck the box marked Store and display a list of recently opened programs in the Start menu. Click Apply. That clears the list.
• Next, check that same checkbox and click OK. That tells Windows that you want to start a new, fresh list of most recently used programs.

Making modifications to the All Programs menu

When you choose Start/All Programs, Windows runs out and puts together the list of all programs by searching these two separate folders on your hard drive:

C:UsersusernameAppDataRoamingMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuPrograms
(If you can’t see the AppData folder, you haven’t told Windows to show you hidden and system folders.)

C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuPrograms

Every item on the All Programs menu comes from the folders, subfolders, and entries inside both of those folders. Since the list is assembled dynamically, you can change the contents of either or both Programs folders and control what Windows shows you in All Programs.

Folders inside the StartMenuPrograms folders are also shown as folders in the Start menu’s All Programs list. Files inside the StartMenuPrograms folders are shown in All Programs as menu entries.

The same folder name can appear in both Programs folders. For example, say your personal Programs folder has a folder called PhineasFarquahrt. But there’s also a PhineasFarquahrt in the Windows Programs folder. In that case, both folders are mashed together as one entry in All Programs.

Now that you know that secret, you can see why changing the All Programs menu is easy — and how the changes are implemented inside Windows.

Monkeying around with folders, programs, and files inside the Programs folders is one technique for changing All Programs, but there are easier ways. For example, right-click a program, folder, or file and drag it to the All Programs list. Release the mouse and choose Create shortcut here. (While dragging an item, hold it over the Start-menu orb until it opens; then do the same for All Programs.) Windows puts a shortcut in the corresponding location inside your Start MenuPrograms folder.

Voilà! From that point on, the program, folder, or file that you dragged onto the All Programs list remains on the list. It looks like magic, but it’s really quite simple.

You can also rename or delete an item on the All Programs list simply by right-clicking it and choosing Rename or Delete. It’s a good way to reduce the list to a more manageable size if you have lots of installed apps.

In Part 3 of this series, I’ll look at changing the items on the right side of the Start Menu.

Have a favorite Start Menu trick? Post it! Drop by the Lounge and show us your stuff.

It's a Windows patching clean-up week

By Susan Bradley In a week when Microsoft is keynoting the RSA security conference and announcing Windows 8 Consumer Preview, we’re lucky enough to have end-of-the-month patches that are quite tame — almost boring. And that gives us a chance to catch our collective patching breath and revisit some troublesome updates.

931125
Take a pass on this Windows XP root certificate

One of the few updates Microsoft released this week is a root certificate for Windows XP. As I’m sure you recall, we’ve had a couple of out-of-cycle updates that revoked rogue certificates. As I stated in the Sept. 8, 2011, Top Story about the security-certificate process, “Typically, this system works well. But on the rare occasions it fails — when the chain of trust is broken — it can instantly affect thousands of PCs.”

Vista and Windows 7 get their root certificate updates automatically, so you can’t decline them on these platforms. But XP users can install or delete them manually. Still, given that most certificates for websites are added as we surf the Web, I’m not convinced that XP users need these root-certificate updates. (And not installing an XP root-certificate update means you don’t have to worry about revoked certificates in the future.)

► What to do: XP users: Decline KB 931125.

947821
Improving update installations on Windows 7

I have one Windows 7 machine that throws out an error when I try installing Service Pack 1. It fails with a cryptic error code 80004005. So I’m glad to see a revised version of the System Update Readiness Tool that helps ensure you can cleanly install updates.

Vista, Windows 7, and the upcoming beta of Windows 8 all contain component-based servicing technologies. This tool goes through files and the Registry, checking for inconsistencies.

► What to do: If you, too, have had issues getting updates installed, try installing KB 947821 when it appears in Windows Update. Or go to its support site for links to the patch downloads.

MS12-014 (2661637)
Indeo codec patch causing some confusion

If you attempted to install MS12-014 (KB 2661637) and it failed with the following error message, don’t panic: you’re already protected.

Setup cannot continue because one or more of the requirements for the installations of KB2661637 were not met

You received this obtuse error because you have the Ligos Indeo codecs for Windows installed, rather than the vulnerable Indeo codec noted in the update information.

► What to do: If you received that exact error message, ignore the update.

Printing problems with Adobe Reader/Acrobat 10

Adobe Reader 10.1.2 may not print on some Windows machines without the fix detailed in an Adobe support bulletin. Or both Reader and Acrobat 10.1.2 might automatically turn duplex printing on, by default.

This isn’t the first issue with an Adobe 10 patch designed to provide more security. We’ve seen similar printing issues in the past.

► What to do: If you’re running Adobe Reader 10.1.2, follow the instructions in the related Adobe bulletin.

Playing with the latest Windows 8 beta

This week, we’ll see the release of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview beta, revealed at the Mobile Device Congress in Barcelona. (And don’t most of us wish we could be there!) If you want to take a look at what Microsoft has in store, I recommend playing around with it in a virtual platform such as VirtualBox, free from Oracle.

I don’t recommend installing it on any hardware you’re not willing to completely whip if needed. This is a beta, not the released version — which should come out toward the end of the year, priced similarly to Windows 7.

► What to do: Watch out for continuing coverage of Windows 8 from your favorite Windows Secrets authors.

Revisiting .NET updates on XP systems

Recently, a friend of mine had a problem rebooting his computer. It would boot into safe mode but not complete a standard-mode boot. He replaced his ATI video card with an NVIDIA model and managed to get his system working again.

What does this have to do with .NET? The ATI card’s control-panel software was built on the .NET platform. Unfortunately, he couldn’t tell whether a weekend spent repairing his PC was caused by .NET updates or a failed video card.

My only tool for troubleshooting .NET issues is to use Aaron Stebner’s .NET Framework Cleanup Tool (site) and then to reinstall.

Because I’ve yet to see actual evidence of malware attacking .NET on workstations, I’m comfortable recommending a somewhat unusual method for handling .NET updates on XP machines. If you’re still using XP, I suggest skipping .NET patches for older versions of .NET (1.1 and 2), which have caused most of the problems. Moreover, don’t install .NET 4 unless there’s an application that needs it. (I’ve had no problems with .NET 4 updates — so far.)

For Windows 7, keep .NET Versions 3 and later patched.

To clean up the Patch Watch problem-patch chart, I’m removing older .NET patch guidelines. Going forward, I’m giving XP users a break from updating older .NET versions — until I see specific evidence of real attacks using .NET vulnerabilities.

► What to do: Keep Vista and Win7 systems with newer versions of .NET patched; skip older .NET updates on Windows XP.

MS12-006 (2643584)
SSL BEAST fix now ready for roll out

The issues caused by the Jan. 10 SSL/TLS vulnerability patch in MS Security Bulletin MS12-006 can be summed up in one three-letter term: VPN. More specifically: users running VPN clients. In most cases, the solution was to merely update to the latest version of VPN client.

I have not seen websites impacted, but I have seen VPN deployments.

► What to do: If you haven’t already done so, install KB 2643584 (MS12-006) on your machines, but be prepared to install updates for any VPN software you’re using.

Regularly updated problem-patch chart

This table provides the status of problem patches reported in previous Patch Watch columns. Patches listed below as safe to install will be removed from the next updated table. For Microsoft’s list of recently released patches, go to the MS Safety & Security Center PC Security page.

Status recommendations: Skip — patch not needed; Hold — do not install until its problems are resolved; Wait — hold off temporarily while the patch is tested; Optional — not critical, use if wanted; Install — OK to apply.

The Patch Watch column reveals problems with patches for Windows and major Windows applications.