Pictures not showing in printed versions of reports (or in print previews)

I would respond by saying I have defended Microsoft on this issue because there has been a lot of over the top rhetoric, innuendo and inaccurate accusations as well as outright attacks because of this. All I have tried to do here is temper such response with more reason. 

Here are some facts that people need to consider.

1. This problem was not reported during public beta testing. This indicates that the feature was not widely used. As Patrick suggests there were "(HUNDREDS maybe THOUSANDS)" of users affected. Even if there were hundreds of thousands affected that is still a very small portion of the tens of millions of people who were upgraded. 
2. As soon as this problem was reported resources were devoted to solving the problem. I know this from someone I trust implicitly who is associated with the Access team. As was explained to me, the problem was the result of a change made to Office as a whole, not specifically within Access.
3. The amount of time taken to produce a fix was reasonable. This is more an opinion than a fact. But as someone with knowledge of how complex a product Office is and how much effort goes into fixing a bug like this I don't believe the time frame was unreasonable. Sure for those who were affected it was critical, but considering the number of people affected I don't think it is reasonable to expect MS to jump on this the way some people think they should have. I can certainly appreciate the frustration level. But that doesn't justify a lot of the things that were said.
4. The one place where I think MS should be criticized is on forcing the upgrade. I think it was wrong to require that people accept the upgrade and wrong no avenue to rollback the upgrade was made available. If people want to criticize MS over this, that is where the criticism makes sense. As Daniel said, people using any platform for mission critical work should not upgrade until the mission critical stuff has been tested.

I also feel Microsoft dropped the ball on this...  As I relied on my Access program to handle my customer billing and database - I could not just sit and wait to see how this resolved.  I paid an Access programmer about $500.00 to take my linked images and embed them.  He also gave me an interface for embedding any new images I might want to use - problem solved.  I am sure Microsoft spend thousands of dollars fixing this problem - and it is good to hear SOME people have found a solution.  Had I waited though

• I would probably have gone out of business by now.   For me it was a CRITICAL issue.  Sadly for Microsoft it was a hohum 'we are working on it' issue.  I am curious how long it was before they gave a way to go back to 2013... It was impossible I was told when this first crept up back in September.

Daniel and Will  feel the sting of MS lackadaisical response and are frustrated.  I was angry and frustrated - but fixed it myself and moved on.  I am still a Microsoft fan - but like almost anything else the buyer should beware.  The proper response from MS would have been to IMMEDIATELY shown folks a path to go back to the previous version of Office - and extended their purchase time until the problem was truly fixed.  But then - it would have hurt them financially a tiny little bit - and they didn't want that to happen.  So basically the 'few people' (HUNDREDS maybe THOUSANDS) who were affected by their programming error were left out to fend for themselves - sink or swim.  The moderators on here are pro MS and should be - and I do not envy the amount of grief they had to try and deflect!

I tend to agree.  I find they didn't publicly show much reaction.  It took end-users to come up with potential work arounds.  Why didn't Microsoft have a KB with a temporary work around while they worked on a permanent fix?

Now, obviously, none of us know what was going on behind closed doors in Redmond, but from an end-user standpoint, they sure took their sweet time and didn't do much to help the Access community in the meantime.

I think a lot of people can completely relate to your frustration.

That all said, this is also what happens when you switch your production to a new, untested, application.  This is why big business never switches over to new version until they've been out for quite some time to ensure such 'bugs' are completely ironed out.  I can't argue that this shouldn't have ever happened in the first place, but implementing a new version in a way that you are reliant on it is very dangerous.

Will,

No I'm not joking. Nor is it brand loyalty. Its a matter of understanding what went wrong and what was needed to fix it and what was done to fix it. 

You are upset and frustrated by the existence of this bug and the time it took to get it fixed. I understand and empathize with that frustration. But the fact of the matter is this bug was not reported until September. As soon as it was brought to the attention of the Access development team resources were put on it to fix it (your statement that nothing was done for a month is totally false). It took some time to identify the problem, write and test code that would fix the issue. You think it should have taken less time, but unless you have worked on development of a program as large and complex as Office, I doubt if you have the right perspective to understand what needed to be done. 

The fix is in place and we have heard from people who have applied the fix successfully. I can site several examples of how much Microsoft DOES care about Customer Service, just as I know there are examples of poor Customer Service as well (that MS rep who allegedly said there was no official identification). You are making a generalization based on your own specific experience and that is not being fair. 

By the way, there are still three weeks left in the fourth quarter so saying it has been broken for the entire fourth quarter is another example of your exaggerations and inaccurate statements. Again I understand your frustration with this issue and that it is leading you to state such inaccuracies. I'm just trying to insert some reason and facts into this issue.