KB 2919355: You can’t patch the desktop like a phone

In sifting through the more than 1,000 Windows 8.1 Update (KB 2919355) complaints and Microsoft’s responses, one observation keeps dogging me. Windows 8.1 Update is in many respects being treated as if it were a phone update. More than anything, I detect a distinct lack of urgency in Microsoft’s responses — particularly in releasing revised updates that work across the board.

It took Microsoft eight days to get a new version of the yanked Windows 8.1 Update out the WSUS corporate server chute. Even now, almost two weeks after KB 2919355 appeared in Windows Update, there’s still no definitive solution to the myriad installation problems, much less a new version of Windows 8.1 Update that just works.

If you mess up a phone update, lots of people may complain, but the basic functions of the phone generally survive. All that’s lost permanently is the reputation of the software folks. The next phone comes along with a killer camera and better screen, and all is forgiven and usually forgotten.

Not so on the PC side — when Microsoft screws up a major patch like this one, all hell breaks loose.

If you’re an admin rolling out Windows 8.1 Update through your WSUS server, what do you do when word suddenly comes down that the patch has been yanked? Do you uninstall the patch on the machines that have it? Good luck. Do you call the people with the new version and teach them how to use it? Or do you simply fall on your sword and start looking for a new job? It might be easier than answering the CEO’s pointed questions.

What if you’re a small systems consultant and one of your customers has a few machines that won’t take the update? And yeah, the machines that — for reasons unknown — fail to install Windows 8.1 Update look identical to the ones on the next desk that successfully installed. Do you apologize to your client and say it won’t happen again? Do you teach some of the people in the office how to use the boot-to-desktop interface while avoiding the ones who still have to use Metro? Will your customer choose to go with some other consultant who obviously knows what they’re doing and would never let such a thing happen?

Then there’s the informal family consultant. Your Aunt Mildred keeps getting “Error 0x80070020” messages. Her hot-shot nephew can’t figure them out, in spite of four calls, two hours on the line, and six more hours connected to the computer. So much for that college degree — better to ask the 8-year-old next door.

Adding to the frustration and the heat: Microsoft’s unprecedented statement that you must install Windows 8.1 Update before next month’s Black Tuesday or you won’t get any more patches for Windows 8.1. Guys, you might be able to get away with scare tactics like that on the phone side, but here in desktop land it just makes people angry.

To the best of my knowledge, Microsoft has never had a requirement like that before. It has never said, on the desktop side, that “if you don’t install Patch B, you can’t get Patch C or later.”

Sometimes Microsoft has prerequisite patches. For example, prior to installing Internet Explorer 11, IE10, and Windows 7 SP1, Microsoft required specific updates — generally to the installation routines — that handled odd situations. If you tried to install Windows 7 SP1, for example, and didn’t have the prerequisite patch, the SP1 installer would slide it in for you.

Sometimes Microsoft requires you to patch Microsoft Update before it’ll install any new updates. That’s reasonable (although it’s been abused in the past to sneak in changes to Genuine Advantage, prompting lawsuits and uncommon amounts of vitriol).

When Microsoft releases a new version of Windows or a Service Pack, it continues to supply security patches to the old version of Windows or the Service Pack for years. Some people have this bizarre idea that issuing a Service Pack absolves Microsoft from maintaining an older version — not so. Here’s Microsoft’s official statement on the subject:

When a new service pack is released, Microsoft will provide either 12 or 24 months of support for the previous service pack, varying according to the product family

Windows 8.1 Update, of course, isn’t a Service Pack. It’s a, uh, er, an Update to a, uh, um, point-one release. Neither “updates” nor “point-one releases” are covered in Microsoft published support commitments, as best I can tell. Microsoft can make up the rules as it goes along — which is certainly what we’re seeing.

Frequently, Microsoft issues security patches that are dependent on earlier security patches. (Many of them completely supersede earlier patches, but that’s a horse of a murky color.) When Microsoft issues a security patch that hinges on earlier security patches, it has an unambiguous (if complex) policy, documented in KB 824994:

A cardinal point exists for the original release version of the product and each service pack (SPx). GDR and hotfix copies of the same files are put in different folders in the software update package for each cardinal point in the product’s release cycle. For example, before Service Pack 1 (SP1), security updates, critical updates, updates, update rollups, drivers, and feature packs for Windows Server 2003 contain two copies of the same files in RTMGDR and RTMQFE folders. After SP1 is released, Windows Server 2003 security updates, critical updates, updates, update rollups, drivers, and feature packs may contain copies of the same files in RTMGDR and RTMQFE folders and SP1GDR and SP1QFE folders. Files in the GDR folders contain only GDR-class fixes. Files in the QFE folders are cumulative and contain both the GDR-class fix and all previous hotfixes that affect the included binaries. Because Microsoft provides support for the current and the next most recent service pack (N and N-1), security updates, critical updates, updates, update rollups, drivers, and feature packs may contain up to six versions of the same files.

In English: If Microsoft issues a patch that requires earlier patches, the installer will apply the earlier patches prior to installing the current patches. That’s even true when Microsoft has a Service Pack in the middle, so I’d certainly expect it to be true with point-one releases and Updates. There’s not a hint of this “you must install Windows 8.1 Update prior to receiving new patches for 8.1” horsepucky in KB 824994.

If Microsoft wants to change the rules, that’s fine. In many cases, it will have to change the rules in order to make rapid release possible. I understand that — and sympathize. But if Microsoft changes the rules, it should tell us how (and hopefully why).

Changing patch rules by fiat may be acceptable practice in a phone world, but it’s a recipe for disaster on the desktop.

This story, “KB 2919355: You can’t patch the desktop like a phone,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.