James Governor's Monkchips

msdn blogs password reminder bug report. Please help, Microsoft

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OK So I am an idiot.
 
As a rule I don’t like blog comment registration systems so I just don’t bother.
 
On the other hand I do want to have a dialogue with MSDN bloggers.
 
I think/thought/assumed I must have registered at some point when I wanted to post something to John Montgomery recently. So I used the password update service. And “apparently” I am already registered. Well you would think so given a message that says
User Password Reset
The password has been changed and a temporary password has been emailed to your account. Please allow up to 15 minutes for it to take effect.”
The message seems unambiguous when I read it. So I waited. And waited. And… you know the rest. I wondered if it was a bug, I checked my spam filter, all that good stuff. Finally i forgot about it – the next day I tried again.
 
You would think the service would actually check that an email address existed in the system before sending that message, wouldn’t you. But evidently not.
 
It turns out you can put any old gubbins into the field and get the same message. Thanks developer.
 
So I am an idiot but I am fairly sure I am not the only one. A friendly word then to the msdn team- please fix the app, to save other idiots from waiting and waiting and waiting…
 

8 comments

  1. i think it is a great example of just that philipp… 🙂

  2. I would guess they are trying to avoid giving positive evidence for email addresses that exist. Otherwise spam houses will abuse those sites to figure out what email addresses are valid. It would be helpful, though, if the message was something like this: “If the email address you entered is valid the password will be changed and bla bla bla….”

    I only mention it because I’m a developer who worked on a password reset page for our site and we had to take that precaution. Please don’t hate the dev, he was probably handed that message by someone on the help/support/documents team 🙂

  3. i tried to edit the hate out of my post. you should have seen what i originally wrote.. 🙂

    seriously though this is just a bug report, not at attempt to say anyone sucks particularly much.

  4. James, I’ve forwarded to the team, so hope to get back to you.

    thanks for you patience.

    Alex.

  5. Hate it too: why should I have a .NET Passport password to post replies on MSN Blogs? There’s too much privacy issues to do it.

    For the same reason, I don’t have MSN Messenger and don’t reply to Hotmail addresses.

    But I may be sectarian?

  6. Please do not encourage microsoft to put any more effort into that blog software… better to let it die.

  7. I understand they are going to change the message… to say *if* you are registered you will get an email.

    thanks alex, scoble, and betsy!

    ouch catherine – the system is built by a firm called Telligent

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