Microsoft Apologizes for Office 2003 SP3 Blunder
Microsoft Corp. changed course on an update to Office 2003 that blocked certain older file types from opening, after receiving a flurry of criticism from users and online publications.Office 2003 Service Pack 3, a free package of updates and fixes released in September, blocked users from opening files created by older versions of Word, Excel and Power Point, mostly programs launched in 1995 and earlier. The change also kept users from opening some files made in Corel Corp.’s CorelDraw.The Microsoft team blamed at first the insecure file formats, not only of other developers software, like CorelDraw, but their own: 揝ome older file formats, including some form Microsoft, are insecure. The decision to block the formats is strictly to protect your machine from being compromised, said Viral Tarpara from Microsoft in a recent blog.Now this self-deprecating statement seems even more unusual as Microsoft has changed its mind and its official stance. Microsoft announced last week that the company had erred in blocking the files. David LeBlanc, senior software development engineer for Microsoft Office said in his blog: 揥e stated that it was the file formats that were insecure, but it is actually not correct. A file format isn抰 insecure it the code that reads the formats that more or less secure. The parsers we use for these older formats aren抰 as robust as the code we抳e written more recently, which is part of our decision to disable them by default.To correct its mistakes, Microsoft has now posted on its website a number of files that would help make the registry changes automatically. The company has also altered the support document in question so that users are now able to unblock different file formats that had earlier been blocked, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Corel. Microsoft was compelled to release a statement that Corel files were safe to open in Windows Internet Explorer or Corel products. The blocking only occurred when a Corel document was embedded in an Office 2003 file. Microsoft acknowledged it took a slightly backdoor approach to blocking this specific Corel content, and acknowledged it did not clearly communicate its attentions to Corel. The company has also made available other downloads that would help unblock the file formats in question.
Tags: developers, fi, lte