Make Sure You Have The Latest Microsoft Updates

While Software Quality Assurance Engineer, Ernie Jackson, was testing Autodesk Design Review 2007 to get to the bottom of a customer problem, he found a VERY significant issue on the Microsoft side. Ernie was testing this issue on the on a lab box that was missing the 7 most recent Windows updates. (We "ghost" our QA machines so testing can start with a stable, known configuration. When new versions of our software are available for testing, we start by blowing away what is on the test machine by restoring the ghost image. In Ernie's case, this ghost image was old enough that it lacked the latest Microsoft patches.) With that ghost, Ernie was crashing reliably with Customer Error Reports (CERs) by using the View -> Navigator toggle or the palette fly out. He could get Autodesk Design Review to crash within 1 to 2 clicks - depending on the state of the Navigator. Ernie updated the display card driver, but there was no change; however, when Ernie updated Windows using Microsoft Update, he could not make Autodesk Design Review crash at all, even by toggling the Navigation panel many times.

This CER bucket represents 35% of the total for Autodesk Design Review SP1. This is something QA rarely encounters, because they keep their lab machines up to date; however, many IT departments do not allow their users to update their systems. In such cases, it is incumbent on these Autodesk Design Review users to contact their IT departments to get the latest Microsoft updates.

Way to go Ernie!