System Firmware Update - 12/10/13 fails to install

You know, there are only a handful of companies in the US that can claim, the size, $$ and impact of many of the individual divisions within Microsoft.  If we look at any of the 'Giants' of the industry, the HP's, Lenovo's, Dell's, etc,, they, individually would fit inside any one of the Major divisions within Microsoft.

I don't know whether I consider that good or bad, but I mention it to try and make a point when comparing the actions of one of these 'Giants' and gauging it against what Microsoft can or should do.  I don't think 'Stonewalling' is in the Microsoft dictionary or playbook.  I think if this issue was big enough, Senior management would have a response.  But this issue, though it strikes us hard, is still only a few thousand units at best.  A few thousand units does not create a Stonewalling issue or ignorance by Senior management at Microsoft, type of situation.

Again, I'm not sure whether that's good or bad.

Last week I mentioned the 'Fix' would not be available on Patch Tuesday.  yeah, it was a guess on my part, but a guess based on a gut feel. 

Surface is a small team within Microsoft.  Heck, its not even one of the Minor divisions.  With smaller teams, faced with multiple scenario's like we see right now with the Surface Pro, to go from Problem recognition, root cause, fix, test and release, in 4 weeks, is pretty good.  For you and I, it sucks.  But this is not a normal everyday fix.  When we see 'breaks' and 'fixs' occur normally, especially around release, its a pretty good bet the 'break' was known, and the 'fix' was in the works, prior to release.  We see this with no product releases all the time...having updates ready on release!.

But this December update I think was a mistake.  They did not anticipate this. Besides the negative impact, I think this was a breakdown in internal process.  There will be an internal impact because of this.  Whether it was Surface management or Surface Testing, or Release Management.  Something broke and they did not expect it.   In the November update it was the ordering of the individual updates.  With the December update, ( guess here) it was the readiness of the drivers and other components to an unreversable Firmware update.  When I say firmware, I mean Firmware, not a driver.  When this update went in, it broke stuff, and the stuff stayed broke.

I think we'll see the Fix shortly.  I'm guessing by tomorrow...maybe even today.  I think we'll see our Surfaces restored to the brilliance they had before December 10th.  I think Microsoft, Surface specifically, will not let this happen again.  I don't believe this was just the next in a long line of questionable releases.  I think this was a pure break, an expected and unaccounted for mistake. One in which they had no answer or response. If Microsoft is the company I believe they are....this type of breakdown wont happen again.  

Now, I wish I could use my Surface today....

I had to reinstall programs, since I had not done an 'image' backup... I didin't trust what Microsoft had done, so I figured a clean install of software was the best way to go.  It all went quickly.  The SP2 rocks. (when it works)   

I was wondering about restoring from a disk image, but I agree that there are potential issues with bringing over some of the problems from the previous computer.  I'm not an expert on hardware and operating system issues, but my understanding is that firmware updates are not on the disk image.  However, some drivers are involved so I wouldn't be surprised if some of the material associated with the firmware update results in changes in the disk image.

I'm one of those affected in only a minor way (power drain when type keyboard attached) and I immediately went into hunker-down mode (avoid sleep and hibernation, disconnect keyboard when shutting down, no SD cards) so I'd rather wait days or weeks until Microsoft fixes this rather than take the chance of a disk image restore to a new computer or configuring a new computer the way I like it.

But I agree that Microsoft's response has not inspired confidence.  I wonder whether senior management has been deluded into thinking this affects only 0.3% of users.  With so many people getting replacements, they should have enough information to know that claim is wrong.

Microsoft should issue a statement as to what is going on.  It is hard to tell whether they are stonewalling or senior management doesn't understand the seriousness of the situation.