Microsoft pulls three shonky Outlook patches

KB3191849, KB3213654 and KB401042 all withdrawn due to a series of bugs - unless you had auto-updates turned on

Microsoft has withdrawn three patches intended to fix security flaws in its Outlook email client as a result of a series of bugs.

These include KB4011042, issued on 5 July, which was intended as an update for Outlook 2010, KB3191849, which was released on 27 June and updated Outlook 2013, and KB3213654, which was issued on 30 June and updated Outlook 2016.

It comes after its June patches introduced a series of bugs into Office 2007 and Microsoft, meanwhile, has published a series of manual workarounds.

Problems with the updates were publicised on Günter Born's Born City blog.

"After installing Office security updates from June 13, 2017, users observed several issues," wrote Born. These issues included a broken search function, a broken iCloud connection and even blocked RTF attachments. Microsoft has acknowledged these issues, but hasn't properly fixed all of them yet.

With automatic updates switched on, furthermore, while the updates will be installed they won't be automatically yanked if they are withdrawn. Hence, anyone affected will have to manually uninstall the updates.

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