I ask you:
What is the purpose of the Microsoft Access ‘Fixes or workarounds for recent issues in Access’ webpage/portal?
The reason that I ask this today is that we have seen a number of bugs, both past and present:
and many more simply never get logged.
I’ve also always found it odd to have a fixes page in which you couldn’t submit issues for review. And please don’t tell me we have the Feedback Portal, that thing isn’t curated in the least! Things I flagged 6-7 months ago as SPAM, still remain.
Moreover, if you check the Fixes page (as of July 2022) it indicates a last update of February 2022! You’re telling me that since February there haven’t been any issue to report. Seriously! We all know that isn’t the reality of Office/Access.
What’s the point of a webpage to helps us know about current application problems and fixes, if it is selective in its content?
What’s the point of a webpage that takes days to list new problems? Thus, people rely on alternate sites rather than the official one?!
How is it we see people posting information regarding bugs and workaround in personal blogs, social media sites (LinkedIn, …) long before we see any such information from Microsoft, if we ever see any such information at all? The ‘Fixes or workarounds for recent issues in Access’ page should be the driving information source, yet it is miserably lagging behind.
What is the threshold for Microsoft to list a bug exactly?
Why aren’t they all listed to provide visibility and proper support?
How hard is it to post new issues, as soon as they surface, with a status of [INVESTIGATING]! It can be updated at any point thereafter, but at least that would clearly indicate Microsoft is on top of the situation. Heck, even give an ETA for an update on the issue.
So, I ask you, the way things stand right now:
Is there a reason for the webpage?
Does it actually serve any real purpose?
Daniel, I just want to say how much I appreciate your efforts to keep the Access team accountable for the quality of their product. It has come to the point for me that Microsoft is NEVER the first place I look to for information about problems I encounter or their possible solutions anymore. I may be wrong but I get the impression of a team that has gone to some effort to actually insulate themselves from their legacy developer community in order to focus on enticing new users with flashy new innovations and quality has unfortunately suffered. It is voices like yours that hopefully will draw focus back to the user base that got them to this point in the first place.
Thank you for those kind words. I really do appreciate them.
Sadly, Microsoft doesn’t care, not in the least, what I think (or anyone else for that matter)! No one holds them accountable. I wish someone did, but that simply is not the case. This is why we are in the mess we are in.