Fix for VS.NET 2005 C# IDE hang is now available (through PSS)

Right before the launch of Visual Studio.NET 2005 I reported about a hang of the C# IDE while you were typing code. The hotfix is now available through Microsoft's PSS, and the KB article can be found under this link:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;910832

This isn't a publically available fix, you have to call PSS to obtain it. Personally I don't understand why Microsoft still tortures its customers to go through this overhead to obtain a fix: the customer first has to explain everything to the PSS employee, then the customer will receive a URL, then the customer has to go to that URL to download the hotfix. Why not cut out the hassle with calling PSS, explaining what's the problem and let the customer download the darn hotfix by themselves? We're all adults here, the customer can perfectly decide what to do and what not to do, IMHO. Because, the time the customer spends on this is often not 'free' and often the time period between initial finding the hotfix KB article and actually obtaining the hotfix .exe is quite long, especially when you're outside the US.

Now, before you start babbling about legal issues and other irrelevant nonsense, take a moment and go to http://download.micrsoft.com and type in 'Fix' and just select 'All' products. You would expect 0 results, right? No, you get a lot of results back. A lot of them are intermediate releases, non-security related fixes. Why are those released to the public and others aren't?

I mean: who decides if a fix should become a public fix or a fix to obtain through PSS? It's not as if a customer is denied to obtain this particular fix, as it's a bug, a fix is there, so no support calls are charged, there's just overhead: the customer has to spend precious time waiting for the fix for no reason at all, and PSS has to perform actions which are completely irrelevant: the customer will get the fix anyway.

I also wonder how much progress Microsoft has made with that central place where known issues of VS.NET 2005/.NET 2.0 are listed...

12 Comments

  • Fair comment. And an interesting question posed about when a fix becomes a public one or one released through PSS.



    Why aren't all fixes public anyway? Is MS concerned about the quality of the fixes? Surely nothing that a simple EULA can't solve.

  • *sigh*



    I agree. Yet one more thing I have to do that takes time out of my day.



    URL to hotfix = good



    Calling for a download URL = bad, inconvenient, waste of time

  • They do this to control piracy.

  • They've talked a million times about why they do it that way. If they don't release a fix, it's because it hasn't been adequately tested, and they want to be able to have a tech, who is assigned to solve that problem, talk to the person having the problem, so they can collect additional data. If enough people have the problem, and enough people report positive results without side effects, they release it.



    They don't just do it to spite you, and it's not because PSS thinks you're not an adult.

  • A million times, huh? Ok, lets grab your analogy.



    How many people have experienced the 'assembly locked' problem during ASP.NET project compilation? How many people have experienced vanishing user controls on winforms apps? I bet literaly thousands if not more.



    The fixes for those problems are years old. Still not enough tested? Yeah right.



    Plus: we're not talking about a change here, we're talking about a code-bug, which is fixed. That's something else. A code bug is a different thing than a design flaw.



    You apparently never run into problems with MS software, you're always happy and smiling. That's great, but not everyone has that experience and when a developer runs into a bug, the fix for that bug should be available on a public website, like _every other software vendor on the planet_ does.

  • Oh, and Robert, I know what the real reason is, as told me by a given MS employee, and it's far from what you're claiming.



    Besides that, it's a HOTFIX. Every developer out there knows what 'hotfix' means: a fix which has been tested so-so but could fail. This also can and should be (and also is) stated in the EULA.

  • If you have a premier support contract that most big companies have you can always get these type of hotfixes.



    And I believe everybody knows someone that has access....

  • Look at it like this:



    The bug you are experiencing slipped through somer serious testing.



    The fix you are being issued with has not even had that level of testing...



    What MS should do is roll up these fixes once proven solid into a package smaller than a service pack.



    [)

  • The fix is released publicly once it has gone through a thorough testing processes. When you call PSS, they tell you that the fix has not be completly tested.

  • No tests are performed on patches once they're released. So if a test is released today, it still won't receive other testing than the tests it has got before today, even if you call PSS in 2008.



    The crap about 'it's not YET thouroughly tested' has to stop: fixes ARE tested, but once they've been released to PSS, NO tests are performed on them, period. So waiting for tests is useless, those tests will never happen.



    Try to get a fix for vs.net 2003, like a patch which was released in May 2003. That fix hasn't received any more tests than the fix of this particular blogpost.

  • Hey Dennis not all hotfixes make it to the Premier Support site. :(



    Maybe it's oversight but I somehow don't think so.



    BTW, this hotfix ISN'T availble through Premier Support--unless they're just filtering me. ;-)

  • Also consider that more often than you probably can think we receive (I work in PSS for Microsoft EMEA) requests for a hotfix that has nothing to do with the software customer is using...

    Often someone find a KB article that describes a problem in .NET Framework 1.0 and that has been fixed in 1.1; he has .NET Framework 1.1, but he still request for that hotfix that obviously will not work... Usually in this situations we try to help that customer anyway (of course if possible without spending a lot of hours in troubleshooting); by the way, as far as I know none of us will send an hotfix which will clearly not help the customer because of a wrong version, language mismatch etc...



    Have a nice day

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