Microsoft releases out-of-band Outlook 2013 update

Microsoft has released a fixed version of an earlier update to Outlook 2013 that had been pulled from distribution.

The update was released originally as part of September's Patch Tuesday updates. But within a few days Microsoft acknowledged problems caused by the update and pulled it from their distribution systems . Users reported that, after applying the update, the Outlook folder pane disappeared. Removing the update reversed the problem.

The update affects only Outlook 2013 and is not a security update. According to Microsoft, it contains "stability and performance improvements."

This was not the only problem with this month's Patch Tuesday updates, and it was in fact part of a longer pattern of code quality problems in Microsoft updates .