Misery by Microsoft: IE11 mangled Google, Windows RT 8.1 bricked some devices

The release of Windows 8.1 should have been a big, happy day for Microsoft, but it turned into a massive headache and miserable day as users lit Twitter on fire with complaints.

Many Microsoft customers had not previously tried out Windows 8, and instead waited to upgrade with the release of Windows 8.1, but talk about not making a good first impression.

Microsoft blamed Google when IE11, which rolled out with Windows 8.1, failed to correctly render Google search results for some users. In WinBeta’s words, “Google is screwed on Internet Explorer 11. The search engine works absolutely fine on Google Chrome, and FireFox, and Opera, and Safari. It’s just Internet Explorer. Is this Microsoft’s fault? Or is this Google’s?”

People who didn’t want to search with Bing found a Google search temporary fix of IE11 → Tools → Compatibility View Settings and removed the check on “Use Microsoft Compatibility lists.”

Microsoft later responded, “It appears Google made some changes to its search engine that temporarily impacted the way search results rendered for some browsers. We have already made the necessary adjustments to ensure customers using Internet Explorer are not impacted.”

Meanwhile, other early adopters of Windows RT were rewarded by having the Windows RT 8.1 brick their devices.

Mashable Editor-in-Chief Lance Ulanoff tweeted, “The Windows 8.1 RT update just cooked my original Surface RT #notgood #microsoft.”

While this didn’t happen to everyone, Ulanoff was certainly not the only one to experience the error. KickThatComputer had one Surface RT tablet successfully upgrade without drama, but the other tablet threw up a Windows RT 8.1 blue screen with a boot configuration error.

Recovery

Your PC needs to be repaired

The Boot Configuration Data file is missing some required information

File: BCD

Error code: 0xc000000d

You’ll need to use the recovery tools on your installation media. If you don’t have any installation media (like a disc or USB device), contact your system administrator or PC manufacturer.

Thankfully, KickThatComputer posted a how-to solution. “Although it takes a while, and might be a bit tricky, it does seem to be fairly easy to recover from. (UPDATE: I have now received multiple confirmations that this works, and no data is lost!)”

As other unhappy users searched for help on an official Microsoft Windows support forum, the “answer” came in the form of Microsoft’s announcement. “Microsoft is investigating a situation affecting a limited number of users updating their Windows RT devices to Windows RT 8.1. As a result, we have temporarily removed the Windows RT 8.1 update from the Windows Store.”

Yet for other people upgrading to Windows 8.1, the download would hang, and Microsoft did not offer the option of downloading an ISO. Ghacks came up with a tutorial for how to download the Windows 8.1 ISO image.

Lastly, even if you can’t count on Microsoft, you can count on Reddit for geek humor regarding “So excited for my Windows 8.1 upgrade!“

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