14 DAY TRIAL // This month’s Patch Tuesday update cycle was full of problems, with many users getting botched updates that caused quite a lot of problems regardless of the Windows versions they were running.
Frustrated with all problems experienced with Windows products in the last couple of months, Susan Bradley, a Microsoft MVP who also works as a volunteer on the company’s support forums, has decided to send a letter to outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer to ask for clarification on quality control.
Bradley also included several links pointing to forum threads where hundreds of users complained about problems experienced after Patch Tuesday, but also to media coverage reporting the issues and revealing all kinds of workarounds in an attempt to help users while Microsoft investigated the flaws.
Here’s Bradley’s letter in full and keep in mind that neither Ballmer nor other Microsoft executive has commented on this, so if you feel like there’s something more to be said, make sure you use the box after the jump to express your thoughts.
[USERCOMMENT=Susan Bradley]“As one of the moderators for the PatchManagement listserve I am part of a community that maintains and patches primarily Windows products. On behalf of everyone in this community, may I respectfully request that you assign someone in a management position to investigate what is going on with quality control with Patch testing lately?
This month in particular leaves me deeply disturbed that issues that should have been found before these updates were released are being found by us - your customers - after they are released and we are having to deal with the aftermath. This leads to increasing distrust of updating.
These issues in your newer products are deeply disturbing to me. The issues this month in particular leave end users and Patch Admins with no other recourse than to not patch and even disable automatic updates until we are assured that issues have been fixed.
I congratulate you on your release to manufacture of Windows 8.1 but I beg you to pause for a moment and investigate why we are seeing so many patching issues with your released products at this time. Bottom line, sir, this is unacceptable to all of us in the patching community, and quite frankly, it should be just as unacceptable to you.”[/USERCOMMENT]