Welcome to the (KB) Twighlight Zone

In my last post (“To WGA Hell (and Back)”) I detailed my nightmarish experience testing a pre-release hotfix from Microsoft. The fix in question was designed to correct a Vista problem I discussed in an earlier blog entry (“Vista’s Weak Link”), specifically, corruption of the Windows driver store cache.

The events of the “WGA Hell” scenario occurred several weeks ago, so I decided to check-in with my Microsoft contact, Neil Sandlin, to see if the final – and hopefully, less buggy – version had been released. He informed me that it was indeed available and pointed me to a pair of Knowledge Base articles (KB937187 and KB940199). I checked-out the articles and then proceeded to request the x64 version of the patch via Microsoft’s hotfix request web page.

What happened next was straight out of the Twilight Zone. In previous request scenarios I would submit the request web form and then receive a response email with the necessary download link, password, etc. All this would take anywhere from 12-24 hours, depending on the time of day when I submitted the request. In the case of the “Weak Link” hotfix, my download link/password never arrived. Instead, I received a cryptic response from Microsoft’s Online Customer Service group informing me that the hotfix I requested – which is detailed in the KB940199 (a fact also acknowledged in their response) – was “not available” and pointing me to their various paid support options for further assistance.

Let me repeat: The hotfix in question is advertised as “available” via the KB article. Yet when I request it I’m told it’s “not available” and that my only option to resolve the issue is to pull out my credit card and hope I can get the charges waived if/when I get someone on the phone at Microsoft.

Fortunately, I still have access to the Microsoft folks who developed the fix, and I will continue to harass them until the status of the hotfix is finally settled. In the meantime, I advise Vista users to treat the issue as unresolved, this despite the KB article and all other evidence to the contrary. I’ll post a follow-up entry if/when the fix really does become publicly available.