Latest Microsoft Update Provides Some Needed Bug Fixes

If you aren’t normally in the habit of installing updates when companies release them, you’ll probably want to make an exception for KB4484439.

It is a non-security update for Windows Installer editions of Office 2013 and 2016 products.

If you use Office 2016, and frequently edit Word documents that feature custom XML values, these will cause Office 2016 to hang or create serious delays when opening. The recent patch fixes that issue.

In a similar vein, if you use Skype for Business 2016 and the device you’re using is awakened from sleep mode, it could cause Skype to hang, forcing you to end task and restart the program. The most recent patch addresses that issue as well.

Finally, there’s a bug in Excel that causes it to become unresponsive after using Control+Shift+Arrow keys for scrolling when the user is sharing Excel in a window via Microsoft Teams. As with the others we’ve mentioned so far, the most recent patch fixes that.

As the name of this patch indicates, none of the items mentioned above are security flaws, but depending on what software you use and how you use it, this patch could solve some serious problems for you.

You can grab the patch from the Microsoft Download Center or via the Microsoft Update Catalog and install manually, or by using the Microsoft Update Service, which will install the update automatically.

Note that you’ll probably need to restart your computer after applying this patch. The best approach is to simply plan for it and reboot when the installation is complete. If that’s impractical, just keep an eye out for any odd behavior from your Office products (2013 or 2016), or Skype, post patch installation and definitely reboot if you start seeing any unusual behavior.