In the past I have heard lots of complaints that it is required to open a support case just to receive a hotfix from Microsoft.
A colleague just pointed me to a new webform which allows customers to request a hotfix without calling Microsoft support:
https://support.microsoft.com/contactus2/emailcontact.aspx?scid=sw;en;1410&WS=hotfix
Permalink
Nice post from Stefan on how to request hotifixes. You can now fill in a web form without the need to