Your opinion on the NAV hotfix politics

Tim_Struebel

For NAV 2009 SP1 more than 100 application hotfixes exist. Also in R2 these updates must be implemented :thumbsdown: .
The application hotfixes are partly described inaccurately, however, and contain faults ](*,). Do you implement updates only when the faults appear among your customers?

Also see my post under http://www.mibuso.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=45278.

Andwian

Tim Struebel wrote:

Do you implement updates only when the faults appear among your customers?

Yes. That is mentioned in the KB Article, that we should only implement the hotfix when we are facing this problem, and if it is not severely affected by this problem, just wait patiently until the official service pack.

einsTeIn.NET

Besides the fact that we should only implement a hotfix if we have trouble with the specific problem the hotfix is referring to, I don't like the way MS is providing it. Hotfixes and Service Packs (and the way they are provided) are pretty fine, that's not an issue. But they shouldn't separate technical updates from application updates. If they release a new technical update it should contain all (or nearly all) application updates until that date.

Andwian

einsTeIn.NET wrote:

Besides the fact that we should only implement a hotfix if we have trouble with the specific problem the hotfix is referring to, I don't like the way MS is providing it. Hotfixes and Service Packs (and the way they are provided) are pretty fine, that's not an issue. But they shouldn't separate technical updates from application updates. If they release a new technical update it should contain all (or nearly all) application updates until that date.

I agree with this.

Anyway, do you mean an Build update for Technical Update?
And an Objects update for Application update?

einsTeIn.NET

Andwian wrote:

Anyway, do you mean an Build update for Technical Update?
And an Objects update for Application update?

Yes and No. Yes, I mean updates to the applications core. No, I don't talk about any single Build No. update, but about major releases like R2.
Yes.

ara3n

In the past any new release had all the hotfixes included. I think R2 was a special case because of timing that they couldn't implement all the hotfixes and release it in 42 countries.

Jens_M-P

The R2 release was special in many ways. We wanted to provide new deployment options (RTC over WAN, App-V, CRM integration), so it was a platform release with only additive changes. We basically wanted R2 to be SP1 with extra technical capabilities without incurring an upgrade cost for our partners.

But we will of course take your feedback into consideration when planning future releases.

However, you do not have to reimplement all hotfixes on R2. The R2 platform can be applied as a hotfix on top of an SP1 installation - and one of the upcoming hotfixes on PartnerSource will contain exactly that. However, you will have to start C/SIDE and do the automatic database upgrade. If you want to have CRM integration you would then have to apply the small changes in the application as well (these are available as separate files). Adding these application objects may then require a license change.

We will be posting updates on this at PartnerSource shortly