Something about Hotfix

Microsoft hotfix is a service provided by Microsoft to fix product problems or change the product behavior. To get a hotfix, you may contact your Microsoft contact or get it from web (Hotfix KB, download center, Windows Update, office Update, Service Packs , etc).

A hotfix is available when a bug is identified and fixed. The common process is as following:

A hotfix may take several days to months from the problem being identified to a bug. It depends on the different products and different business impacts.

Not every problem will be fixed. In certain conditions, the product team triage may reject a bug. For example, if the problem has limited impacts to seldom customers, or the changes may cause other potential risks, the bug will be rejected.

As a service, there are different phases for the hotfix, based on the Microsoft Support Lifecycle:

•          10 years of support (5 years Mainstream Support and 5 years Extended Support) at the supported service pack level for Business and Developer products
•          5 years Mainstream Support at the supported service pack level for Consumer/Hardware/Multimedia products and Microsoft Dynamics (formerly Microsoft Business Solutions) products
•          3 years of Mainstream Support for products that are annually released (e.g., Money, Encarta, Picture It!, and Streets & Trips)

In Mainstream Support, you can get a free hotfix. In Extended Support, Extended Hotfix Support Agreements (EHSA) are designed to provide opportunities to extend non-security hotfix requests through the end of the Extended Support Phase. Security hotfixes are available free of charge during this phase.

hotfix.bmp

Comments

• Anonymous
  December 26, 2007
  PingBack from http://geeklectures.info/2007/12/26/something-about-hotfix/

• Anonymous
  December 27, 2007
  Hey I have a different question. What happened to the update.exe switches like "/nobackup", "/forcerestart", "/promptrestart", /e (extended error reporting) and "/overwriteoem" etc etc. There were so many flexible switches for Update.exe. Are they all removed in Windows Vista? Both pkgmgr.exe and wusa.exe have very limited number of switches. I know that Vista has a completely new servicing stack. But it seems to have introduced additional time before, while and after applying any update/hotfix instead of reducing/eliminating it. After every small update/hotfix which is today frequently being delivered over Windows Update, I see the "Configuring updates...please wait" screen for quite some time before logon. Can you blog about what exactly Windows Vista is doing during that time and whether a user can do anything to speed it up? In fact I cannot see how the entirely new servicing stack improves upon the older one except that now its possible to service the image "offline". Waiting after every restart is one of my biggest Vista annoyances.

• Anonymous
  February 17, 2008
  i have 1 problem in my machin at here i use 2000 pro but at present i face out one problem in this os the internet explorer has restart erro create so give me solution

• Anonymous
  May 13, 2008
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 14, 2008
  The comment has been removed