Hotfixes are patches that Microsoft makes available before they’ve been fully tested and integrated into a service pack or official patch. But if you’re one of those people who’s been affected by a bug, you might not hesitate to give the hotfix a try. However, getting a hotfix can be tricky: in some cases, you’ll see an option to request it online, in other cases, you’ll have to contact support directly.
Aaron Tiensivu has posted information about a technique that generates the online request even when it doesn’t appear by default:
I don’t know if this is considered a ‘backdoor’ or not, but it has worked with every KB article I have tried it on so far.
Most of the time, if a KB article is available to the public, there will be a “Hotfix Download Available – View and request hotfix downloads” message on the top of the screen like this:
If you have a particular KB article that you want to download, and the image above seems to be missing, try this link in your web browser:
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=[KBnumber]&kbln=[KB language]
Requesting MS hotfixes online has changed slightly – new way of generating a request
Also, the How-To Geek has an article up about Hotfixr, which will generate URLs of this format for you.
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