Re: Office 2004 SP1 - What did it Fix??

From: John McGhie (john_at_mcghie.name)
Date: 10/22/04 

Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 01:30:29 +1000

And as usual, we have Pierre vigorously impersonating a "rebel without a
clue" :-)

Yes, SP1 *is* an "early" service release: the real one can usually be
expected around 12 months after the product ships.

I could explain why, but Pierre has seen the explanation a dozen times
before, and everyone else has a life to live.

The abridged version is "To do a service release you have to compile and
re-test the whole damn application suite. Rather than wait for that process
to complete, Microsoft on this occasion shipped as much as they had got
tested at this stage. The rest will come when it has been fully regression
tested."

But I don't recommend that anyone hold their breath waiting for Microsoft to
fix crashes caused by software neither Microsoft nor Apple manufactured.

Sorry everyone: I couldn't resist :-)

On 19/10/04 7:06 AM, in article
73fafb93.0410181306.27338d1e@posting.google.com, "Pierre Igot"
<latext@gmail.com> wrote:

> Paul,
>
> As usual, we have MVPs making excuses for Microsoft whenever the
> company fails to meet expectations.
>
> Office 2004 was released in May 2004. An update posted in October 2004
> doesn't qualify as an "early service release" to me -- although in
> Microsoft's twisted sense of time, where it takes decades for bugs to
> get fixed, it probably qualifies as "early".
>
> The fact that this release doesn't fix an issue as obvious as the one
> with Postscript fonts and the non-breaking space:
>
> http://www.latext.com/pm/betalogue/P1246
>
> is unacceptable. The fact that it doesn't fix the crash triggered by
> utilities such as Spell Catcher or TypeIt4Me:
>
> http://www.latext.com/pm/comments/1298_0_1_0_C/
>
> is just bad.
>
> But as usual, Microsoft applies its own twisted logic to user feedback
> and comes up with a bloated updater that fixes very little.
>
> And if it did fix stuff that it doesn't tell us about, then it has a
> thing or two to learn about company feedback as well. Threat of
> litigation my eye. The US department of justice itself wasn't able to
> bring MS to justice. It's not likely that any group of users big or
> small ever will.
>
> Pierre
> --
> Pierre Igot
> LATEXT - Literature & Visuals @ www.latext.com
> BETALOGUE - Weblog at www.latext.com/pm/betalogue
> "Apple Peel" Columnist @ Applelust.com
>
>> From: Paul Berkowitz (berkowit@spoof_silcom.com)
>> Subject: Re: Office 2004 SP1 - What did it Fix??
>>
>> Office 11.1.0 is not advertised as a major bug-fix release. It was announced
>> as a release that fixes security issues and stability, and also happens to
>> have some bug fixes, some of which are announced in that KB article and some
>> of which, as JE says, were not. The security issues are mostly "potential
>> holes" for possible exploits, none of which has occurred and now can'. You
>> won't notice anything. Some crashing bugs (rare circumstances) have been
>> fixed (the "stability" issues).
>>
>> As far as other bugs go, it's the usual thing for an early service release:
>> they tried to fix bugs or nuisances that thousands of people have reported,
>> if they were easy enough to fix in time. For example, there have been
>> countless reports (several hundreds right here on the newsgroups, thousand
>> more via MS Error Reporting) about Entourage's icon bouncing repeatedly in
>> the Dock when there's a server error. That has been fixed. The Word errors
>> you report above, Matt, have probably only been reported by you and maybe a
>> couple of others. That wasn't enough to get them high priority, Anything to
>> do with VBA is specialist, and quite possibly difficult to fix, to boot.
>>
>> MS apparently really is using the Error Reporting (MERP) to find bugs and to
>> prioritize. So do, everyone, keep sending in reports.
>>
>> MS never announce update releases in advance. But I'm quite sure they are
>> planning more bug fix releases for 2004. 11.1.0 is not the end of it.
>>
>> --
>> Paul Berkowitz
>> MVP MacOffice
>> Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
>> AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/> 

-- 
Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread.  Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.
John McGhie <john@mcghie.name>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Office 2004 SP1 - What did it Fix??
    ... but Pierre has seen the explanation a dozen times ... fix crashes caused by software neither Microsoft nor Apple manufactured. ... Some crashing bugs have been ... So do, everyone, keep sending in reports. ...
    (microsoft.public.mac.office)
  • Re: Office 2004 SP1 - What did it Fix??
    ... where it takes decades for bugs to ... The fact that this release doesn't fix an issue as obvious as the one ... > MS apparently really is using the Error Reporting to find bugs and to ... So do, everyone, keep sending in reports. ...
    (microsoft.public.mac.office.word)
  • Re: Office 2004 SP1 - What did it Fix??
    ... where it takes decades for bugs to ... The fact that this release doesn't fix an issue as obvious as the one ... > MS apparently really is using the Error Reporting to find bugs and to ... So do, everyone, keep sending in reports. ...
    (microsoft.public.mac.office.entourage)
  • Re: Office 2004 SP1 - What did it Fix??
    ... where it takes decades for bugs to ... The fact that this release doesn't fix an issue as obvious as the one ... > MS apparently really is using the Error Reporting to find bugs and to ... So do, everyone, keep sending in reports. ...
    (microsoft.public.mac.office.excel)
  • Re: Office 2004 SP1 - What did it Fix??
    ... where it takes decades for bugs to ... The fact that this release doesn't fix an issue as obvious as the one ... > MS apparently really is using the Error Reporting to find bugs and to ... So do, everyone, keep sending in reports. ...
    (microsoft.public.mac.office)
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