Outlook 2010 patch KB 3114570 reintroduces Calendar bugs

It isn’t enough to keep a scorecard. Keeping track of the patches Microsoft releases, reissues, and rebotches is a problem worthy of a full Project Management suite — with three-dimensional rendering.

Take KB 3114570 — please. Yesterday I posted information about how that patch fixed a glaring hole in the Dec. 8 KB 311409 patch. Now it seems the KB 3114570 patch includes a bug that was first introduced in an earlier patch of Outlook 2010. Let me take this slowly.

On Dec. 8, Microsoft released KB 3114409, a nonsecurity update designed to help admins keep Outlook 2010 in safe mode. Within hours, Microsoft’s forums were flooded with complaints that KB 3114409 forced Outlook 2010 to only start in safe mode on some systems.

It took Microsoft about 12 hours to pull the patch. Its official advice: If installing the patch makes Outlook 2010 start in safe mode, you need to uninstall KB 3114409.

On Dec. 16, Microsoft released a hotfix for the problem, called KB 3114560, saying: 

Currently KB3114560 is not available from Windows Update and Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). You can download and install it only from the Microsoft Download Center. This update will be included in 2016 January Office Update release through Windows Update and WSUS. We will update this article when the 2016 January Office Update is available.

On Jan. 12 — more than a month after the first bad patch — the 2016 January Office Update landed, and Microsoft finally released a fix for the KB 3114409 forced safe-mode patch. It’s called KB 3114570. According to Microsoft, it “fixes an issue in which Outlook 2010 starts only in safe mode. This issue occurs after you install December 8, 2015, update for Outlook 2010 (KB3114409).”

Poster Jon999_ in the Microsoft Answers forum describes (and illustrates) the latest problem precisely:

After the [new KB 3114570] update is installed, Calendar appointments that span midnight (ie, appointments that start on one day before midnight and end the next day after midnight) appear in Day and Week calendar views as if they were all-day appointments, as a small bar at the top of the day column instead of covering the appropriate hours. Additionally, the end time of such appointments shows up wrong (as 00:00, regardless of the actual end time) in all views including Month view. Prior to this Update, such appointments of

Although this behavior is being called a “retrograde error” (that is, it brings back an old bug that was subsequently fixed), it isn’t clear to me when this bug was introduced, when it was fixed, and when it was reintroduced — although it’s quite evident in KB 3114570, so it’s definitely a current bug.

If you have retrograde details, please enlighten me in the comments or on AskWoody.

Those of you running Outlook 2010 on Windows 10 take special note. Windows 10’s forced updates mean you’ll get the bug over and over again, unless you take specific steps to stop the madness. Here’s what you need to do if you’re running Outlook 2010 on Windows 10 and can’t get Win10 to stop reapplying updates:

Step 1: Try using the Metered Connection trick I describe on AskWoody.com.

Step 2: If you aren’t on a Wi-Fi connection and can’t get Metered Connections to work, go to KB 307930 and download the wushowhide utility. Save the wushowhide.diagcab file someplace worthwhile — you’ll probably want to use it again — but don’t run it yet.

Step 3: Click Start > Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update > Advanced Options > View your update history > Uninstall updates.

Step 4: Scroll down to the Windows updates, click on KB 3114570. At the top, click Uninstall.  That’ll get rid of the bad patch.

Step 5: Wait a few minutes. Some people recommend that you reboot, but in my experience, simply waiting for the patch to get flagged as uninstalled is sufficient.

Step 6: Double-click on wushowhide.diagcab. You will see a Hide Updates list.

Step 7: Check the box next to the botched patch — KB 3114570 — and click Next. Click Next again and you’ll see an odd notification message (this is, after all, a “troubleshooter”). You’re done.

It’s important to understand that this doesn’t permanently hide the patch. It’ll only be hidden until Microsoft issues an update for the patch, at which point Windows Update will automatically install the update.

Let’s hope Microsoft fixes the next iteration — without breaking something else.