Microsoft support: Just wiggle the mouse until the problem goes away

The Web is buzzing with this genius workaround Microsoft devised for an Oracle problem while using Excel. I had no idea my great aunt works in Microsoft's technical support team, as this is just the sort of solution she'd likely devise:

Method 2: Move Your Mouse Pointer

If you move your mouse pointer continuously while the data is being returned to Microsoft Excel, the query may not fail. Do not stop moving the mouse until all the data has been returned to Microsoft Excel.

NOTE: Depending on your query, it may take several minutes to return the results of your query to the worksheet.

My question: when can I stop? I've been moving the mouse pointer around for a few days now, but the problem persists. ;-)

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

[tipoo_]

Thats some good support right there.

[alegr]

Jeez, this applies to an ancient product, and is actually caused by Oracle-written ODBC driver. There's been worse kludges in the history of computing.

What's next? ******** about Windows 95 lockups? Matt, you need to get a life outside of slashdot.

Here is an explanation for you. Some old programs written in DOS time were doing their background updates in keyboard and mouse handlers. Some of that legacy code got into Windows versions. I suspect that's what happened with ORACLE ODBC driver.

[Matt Asay]

...and yet you have to agree, it's really funny.

[alegr]

Matt, you should take your hat off to MS engineers who investigated this third party problem without access to the source, and suggested a viable workaround that allows to continue using the program while Oracle fixes the problem. You chose a wrong target for a ridicule.

[netboy]

So is Oracle ever going to update their driver and fix their problem?

[B.E2]

netboy: You work for Microsoft don't you? It's not an Oracle driver problem, it's an excel problem, and from the sounds of it it looks like a problem with the event handling of excel. The data gets returned but because excel doesn't fire off an event, it doesn't show anything. Or:

Method 1: Turn Off the Enable Background Refresh Setting [a.k.a prevent the query from running in the background].