Posted on 03/25/2008 8:43:40 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Symantec, Windows users beset by Vista SP1 flaws
By Tom Espiner, ZDNet UK
Monday, March 24, 2008 10:56 AM
Security vendor Symantec has said that updated drivers to replace those adversely affected by Windows Vista Service Pack 1 are not yet available.
The company said users will have to wait for the updated drivers, which will be available "in the coming weeks". The drivers in question are for Endpoint Protection and Network Access Control, two of Symantec's flagship enterprise security products.
Microsoft released Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) to Windows Update on Tuesday. However, in the Vista team blog, Vista product manager Nick White wrote that some vendors' drivers "may be problematic after an update from Windows Vista to Windows Vista SP1". Symantec Endpoint Protection and Network Access Control clients were among the list of drivers affected by SP1.
On Thursday, Symantec said that, while it was aware of the problems SP1 had caused for its drivers and customers, updated drivers for Endpoint Protection were not yet available. Symantec made no explicit mention of Network Access Control drivers in an e-mail response to ZDNet Asia's sister site ZDNet UK.
"Symantec [is] aware of this issue and has updated the affected driver to resolve the issue," Symantec said in its e-mail statement. "The currently available version of Symantec Endpoint Protection (Maintenance Release 1) is not certified for use with Vista SP1 and could potentially be impacted by this issue. The next upcoming maintenance release of Symantec Endpoint Protection, which is currently with beta customers and due to be available for general release in the coming weeks, will be fully certified for Vista SP1 and will include an updated driver which is not impacted by this issue."
As well as vendors, some Microsoft customers were also affected by downloading SP1. In comments on Nick White's blog post, a user called "iggy23" said downloading Vista SP1 had caused a "blue screen", which can be displayed by Windows in the event of a critical system error.
"I downloaded [SP1] via Windows Update and got a blue screen on the third part of the update," wrote iggy23. "[It] took five hours to 'revert to previous'. So I downloaded the package version and tried that. Same blue screen. Same hours."
Another user experienced problems with their graphics drivers after downloading Vista SP1.
"Well, I installed Vista SP1 after seeing it on Windows Update last night," wrote the user. "In retrospect, not my finest decision. What a disaster! It exiled all of my Nvidia drivers to the Bermuda Triangle... they're simply all gone. Okay, no big deal, go to the Nvidia site, download the latest drivers, install and nada. Zip, zilch, nothing changes. The install fails... every time, without fail."
One irate Windows user claiming to be Howard Terry, a researcher at Berkeley and Stanford universities, said that university professors and students were considering a class action lawsuit if Microsoft did not resolve this problem.
"This is a very serious matter--tell someone in charge that Stanford and... Berkeley professors and students will begin a class action lawsuit very soon if this SP1 update problem is not fixed for Vista [business] users asap," wrote "drqc terry". "What have you people done to this new OS...?"
The majority of comments responding to White's blog post were positive, however.
Microsoft had not explained why it had released SP1 in the knowledge that it could break third-party drivers at the time of writing. However, a spokesperson for the company said that Microsoft would ultimately automatically push out updated drivers ahead of SP1 downloads.
"We've spent the last couple of months or so investigating the driver issues we shared back in February," said Microsoft in an e-mail. "Since then, we [have] identified a small set of device drivers that, if installed on a Windows Vista PC that is subsequently updated to SP1, may be problematic. We were pleased to find that many of the reports that caused our original concern were on pre-release builds of the service pack and were addressed by improvements made between the release candidate and final builds. Although many driver issues were addressed, there are a small number of issues around specific device drivers remaining."
"We want our customers to have the best possible experience with Windows Vista SP1, so we have configured Windows Update to initially delay offering the service pack to PCs with these identified drivers until the issues are resolved," said Microsoft.
"In order to deliver SP1 to these PCs, we worked with our partners to produce driver updates for the drivers that were reported to be problematic when updating to SP1. Updated drivers for the many of the issues found are available on Windows Update as 'optional' updates today. Ultimately, we will be using Windows Update to automatically deliver these updated drivers to PCs in advance of offering them SP1," added the software giant.
"We continue to work with partners to produce resolutions for several other issues," Microsoft said.
Ah, yes, old enough to remember. I believe it was in a comment in the code..
Old enough to even remember being wowed by VisiCalc.
:)
Vista was a piece of shit the day it started to be coded. Gates and Company wouldn’t know a good OS if it hit them in the ass with a bass fiddle. I agree with the poster, the day that Microshit goes the way of Bear Sterns, the better off the computing world will be. There is a litte know secret out there. Mac OSX can be run on the current Dells, HPs and others. Just delete Vista and installed the Mac OS
That is why I use a Mac. I don t have to put up with the BS of getting viruses and having to reformat every time I turn around. Mac Os is not a resource hog. I know, because I have about a dozen windows open right now. The new intel Macs will run Xp in a separate partition along with the Mac Os. That way there will be a stable machine when it is needed. All that is required is a program called bootcamp and that is a default program in the new Os Leopard
Yes it is. I tried to load MCaffee and it wouldn't let me. I'd be banned if I were to use the expletives that describe Norton/Symantec.
Most folks use PCs for work. The alternative for the kids is a Playstation.
Your link didn’t involve any explosives or corrosive chemicals. That’s much better than the current methods for removing Norton.
That's why I don't use Windows any more. My time is worth too much. Software updates on OS X require one password, one mouse click, sometimes a reboot, and you're done thinking about it.
Windows is for basement dwellers looking for the fastest video game machine. Everyone else who needs a general purpose computer should stick to Mac.
Apple’s are great, but FYI a Windows “service pack” is about as frequent as a whole .x release of OSX, which could take an hour or longer as well.
Dell is still selling brand new machines with XP. We recently bought two at great prices from Dell Outlet, both with XP.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/229909
Looks like MS screwed the pooch on this one. That account isn’t supposed to be logging onto anything.
Before, we had what I liked to call "the guy who sits by the door and bashes bad guys on the head with a club." Our little antivirus guy did just that. Didn't bother us in our programs, wasn't a resource hog. Norton, otoh, is like a 300 lb. guy who sits at the table next to you and wants to know what you're doing ALL THE SMEGGING TIME! Updates, sneaking out onto the web to get new virus lists, all that stuff, is very annoying. Norton is a resource hotg, and I hope someone from Norton is reading this, because your product is junk.
Plus ça change.
“If some foreign company wants to build a reliable OS, the market is open the way it was for the Japanese car companies competing against Ford and GM.”
We already had a great OS that was built right here - by IBM. It was called OS/2. But the Press lied about it and took Microsoft Windows side in the OS/2 wars and IBM cowards surrendered the fight.
But, a small band of dedicated techies bought the OEM rights to OS/2 and improved it. They developed and released eComStation.
I have been using eComStation for 8 years. It is highly reliable and extremely well-supported. Version 2.0 is due out soon.
Symantec will never get another penny of my money. It’s on my computer, and I’m afraid of what might happen if I try to remove it.
I took it off my wife's new laptop with no trouble,because I had trouble with Norton on my computer and switched to Kapersky.They let you install it on 3 different computers too,which is something Norton would never let you do.I have it on mine,my wife's and my stepdaughter's and it's so much better.Norton ,out of the blue,canceled my subscription when I had three months to go until renewal.When I called to bitch,some foreigner didn't want to hear it,so I said screw you.Kapersky actually does not outsource and imagine the shock when an American answered the phone when I called for assistance.I thought I was in some bizzaro parallel universe or something.
ping
In less than 20 minutes you could have scrubbed Windows Vista and installed Ubuntu and saved yourself an hour of your life.
Unfortunately, it cost the same too ($3k -- for that I'll buy reconditioned Thinkpad T40s for the whole family)
If I wanted Unix at home I would use a real UNIX like Sun Solaris or Apple OSX and not some free foreign knockoff like Ubuntu. There’s some radical US leftists like Richard Stallman that own the copyrights to a lot of that codebase too.
These three also update as soon as it becomes available.
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