Security flaw: a working computer

Windows updates are great things. Where else can you get random "security patches" that fix things you have no idea were wrong and have no control over in any way shape or form.

Take KB951748 for example. Huh? Something about DNS problems... Can't say I ever noticed any problems, and everything's been working fine for me so far. (But I'm willing to cut them some slack, who knows how many times my computer's been hacked without my knowledge?)

So, fine, patch downloaded and installed...

Hang on... where'd my internet go? I can't connect to anything, not even my D-Link hub! (At least that test stopped me from thinking of hassling my ISP.) Both of my computers are down, and the last thing I did was install an update... perhaps there's a link?

Certainly, when I uninstalled it, I got the internet back (and thus, able to make this post). Fortunately, the power of the internet was able to come to my aid once more in finding out if it was just me. And nope, it wasn't.

The problem is around ZoneAlarm. I use ZoneAlarm. Good product. Free. But apparently when Microsoft decided to update some files, ZoneAlarm didn't realise and fell over.

There look to be some fixes, such as clean reinstall of ZA, setting ZA to medium security setting, or simply ignoring the latest patch... But have tried the clean install and not happening. Oh well, hopefully they'll get it all sorted out within some useful timeframe...

EDIT: A press release by ZoneAlarm contains links to working files.

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