Software updates gone bad
Wednesday, July 9, 2008 by Philly0381 | Discussion: Personal Computing
Everyone does them, usually without any problems, right.
Well not yesterday. Seems that there were a couple of updates available for my XP system from Microsofte that were identified as priotity. Updates being what they are I try to do them early in the day in case there are problems, Yesterday I failled to follow that rule.
After doing the updates I did the required reboot. Hmmmm, reboot will get you everytime. 
Once the computer was booted I noticed something right away, no internet connection. Interesting, lost the internet at the same time doing updates. Hmmm. So naturally I go through all the checks to see what could be the problem. Unplug the modem, restart it, nothing. Check connections, nothing. Run diagnostics, no connection to the internet. Hmmmm.
So I call my DSL provider, lots of fun. We check setting and do reboots, nothing. They then want me to turn on the other computers in the house so it can be determined if the modem is bad. Problem is they are wifi and they want me to hook to to the ethernet, which means moving them to where the modem is. WHAT!
Needless to say I wasn't having any of that and politely said good bye. Now being really upset and confused I turned on the other computers. They had internet access. Now that doesn't help me at all. Go back and try looking at more settings, nothing. I disabled AV, and Firewall, nothing. Grasping at straws I said to myself, could the updates have done this, no.
With nothing else left to do, I uninstall the updates. Guess what, internet access is restored. I was really glad that there were only two updates which was easy to determine which one was causing the problem.
Get everything back to normal, AV and Firewall turned back on and have internet access. Great. I then do what I feel is a smart thing, I reboot one more time just to be sure everything is working. Poof, no internet access. I was just about ready to throw the computer out the window when I decided to check those update again. Wouldn't you know automatic update reinstalled the update that I uninstalled. Nice.
Unistalled it again found the little box that I didn't see before that says don't show this update again. All is now calm and peaceful. It's now early morning and I have missed my bedtime.
So what's the message here, If you think updates can't cause problems you best have some aspirn available. 
 |
|
Page 2 of 2 | |
|
|---|
Reply #22 Thursday, July 10, 2008 11:41 AM
I have to think, and by the way want to, that it was an honest oops my Microsoft.
Reply #23 Thursday, July 10, 2008 1:15 PM
Reply #24 Thursday, July 10, 2008 2:28 PM
The update in question patches a vulnerability in the design of the domain name system. It's a vulnerability that affects all vendors and the patch is not exclusive to Microsoft (all of the major software vendors affected by this issue released the patch this week).
The update is critical. Telling people to uninstall it not only bad advice, it's dangerous. The vulnerability in question is not one that Zonealarm can protect you from. This vulnerability would allow attackers to hijack DNS Servers and change the IP addresses that domain names to point to. You could be typing in palpal.com and still end up on a phishing site.
Reply #25 Thursday, July 10, 2008 3:10 PM
A question though, why wouldn't Microsoft put the word out to the vendors like ZoneAlarm so they could issue an update to go along with it?
Damn, reading what you typed, I wonder when ZoneAlarm will issue an update?
Reply #26 Thursday, July 10, 2008 3:14 PM
I'm pretty sure ZoneAlarm was notified. Microsoft, however, wasn't the one coordinating the effort between vendors.
Reply #27 Thursday, July 10, 2008 3:23 PM
Reply #28 Thursday, July 10, 2008 6:32 PM
[from ZA]
It really looks like a case of whether your machine got the MS update installed...before or after the ZA update.
That makes it an ID ten T error on the part of the user....having MS do unattended updates...hence me getting caught.
Reply #29 Thursday, July 10, 2008 7:49 PM
Reply #30 Thursday, July 10, 2008 10:02 PM
OK...New Zealanders then....
Oi ! we heard that, blame the tasmanians instead
Please login to comment and/or vote for this skin.
Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
- Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting on the forums and downloading skins.
- Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
- Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
- It's simple, and FREE!
|
|
Page 2 of 2 | |
|
|---|
Reply #21 Thursday, July 10, 2008 10:52 AM
Only because it seems that people with Zone Alarm were affected by the update.... who knows... maybe Micro$oft wants to "buy them out" ala Simpsons style. lol So they make sure thier latest update screws up ZA and a bunch of casual computer users like me just uninstall and get a different Firewall. Who knows... I'm just another sheep.