Users condemn Microsoft for removing KB IDs from some bug documentation
Microsoft's decision in February to strip an identifier used for decades from some Windows update release notes continues to draw the ire of customers.
On Feb. 18, the company announced on its Windows IT Pro blog that it would no longer include the KB identifier — KB for Knowledge Base — in the URLs of all online release notes associated with Windows update release details. The KB identifiers have been used by Microsoft for several decades to pinpoint individual bug fixes and guide customers to the appropriate documentation.
"One of the primary ways that many find release notes is through the use of a KB identifier (KBID)," Christine Ahonen, a program manager at Microsoft, wrote in the post to the Windows IT Pro blog. "We use a unique identifier for each Windows update. Once a KBID is created, it is then used to identify the update throughout the release process, including documentation."