There's a possible fix for Windows update bug that breaks Dynamics CRM

There’s new hope if you installed the latest Windows patches and saw your Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011—or possibly CRM 2013 OnPremise—installing reports to go wonky.
An anonymous poster on the AskWoody Lounge, working with a Microsoft support tech, has come up with a one-line fix that appears to work, at least in some cases.
The problem can be traced to a change in the way Internet Explorer 11 version 11.0.40 handles certain CSS settings in Dynamics CRM. In this particular case, the poster confirms:
We logged a Premier Support ticket with Microsoft and they were very responsive.
During a remote session, they confirmed that data was being returned from CRM server side when clicking links, but it just wasn’t displaying.
The issue is caused by improper CSS. Modifying the height attribute of CSS allowed the data to be displayed successfully during the remote session. The suggestion was to change one line in CRM’s global.css which fixes the issue across all interfaces.
Since then, our CRM developer has figured out that the issue goes away if you (add) the following line to global.css.aspx:
table.ms-crm-Form-Layout span[type=”subgrid”] {position:static !important}
Poster NeilMcDonald 82 on the Dynamics Community forum says:
That’s fixed the main part of the problem for me. Any idea on how to correct the size of multi-line text boxes (emails etc)?
There’s been no response as yet.
At this point, I’ve seen reports of formatting problem from numerous CRM 2011 Update Rollup 18 (the latest version) sites and one report of the same problem from a CRM 2013 OnPremise site. There’s a report on the Dynamics Community forum that the problem does not occur with CRM 365. I also have a report about Telerik RadListBox controls on web pages not working with IE 11.0.40.
Reports from many sources confirm the problems occur after installing any of these patches:
- KB 4013429—this month’s Win10 1607 cumulative update that brings the build number up to 14393.953
- KB 4012215—this month’s monthly rollup (“Security Monthly Quality Rollup”) for Win7 and Server 2008 R2
- KB 4012216—this month’s monthly rollup for Win 8.1 and Server 2012 R2
- KB 4012204—MS17-006, this month’s cumulative Internet Explorer patch
Please also note that Windows 10, bless its fuzzy little face, will reinstall KB 4013429 automatically after you uninstall it. As I mentioned yesterday, you need to run wushowhide to hide the patch after it’s uninstalled.
Who’s to blame for this latest problem? Good question. Apparently the Dynamics CRM team is pointing the finger at IE. On the Dynamics Community forum, poster Jim Newell says:
Latest update from the Microsoft CRM support team is that its not their fault and our CRM partner needs to raise the issue with the Microsoft IE support team, ill let you know if i hear more.
But poster ch100 on the AskWoody Lounge may have identified the crux:
CRM is full of issues like this one where developers adapted their code to the IE tolerance to faulty code and guessing, and now when web standards are enforced by IE, everyone is panicking.
My overarching question remains: How is Microsoft going to fix this problem? The IE update is found in all sorts of bunched patches. Will Microsoft fix IE, fix CRM… or just let CRM customers figure it out for themselves, burning a Premier Support ticket in the process?
Follow the discussion on the AskWoody Lounge.