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McAfee Kills SVCHost.exe, Sets Off Reboot Loops For Win XP, Win 2000

Posted by timothy on from the hope-you-were-using-antiantivirus-too dept.

Kohenkatz writes "A McAfee Update today (DAT 5958) incorrectly identifies svchost.exe, a critical Windows executable, as a virus and tries to remove it, causing endless reboot loops." Reader jswackh adds this terse description: "So far the fixes are sneakernet only. An IT person will have to touch all affected PCs. Reports say that it quarantines SVCHOST. [Affected computers] have no network access, and missing are taskbar/icons/etc. Basically non-functioning. Windows 7 seems to be unaffected." Updated 20100421 20:08 GMT by timothy: An anonymous reader points out this easy-to-follow fix for the McAfee flub.

3 of 472 comments (clear)

  1. its crap-ware by Macd275 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.
    McAfee is crap AV software same with Symantec.

  2. Re:Double ouch. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    My big question is why is Norton and McAfee still so popular in the corporate world?

    I understand that the OEM's preload McAfee or Norton because they are paid to, but the corporate world is paying big money for these out-dated anti-virus programs.

    There are much better anti-virus providers out there such as Avast, Kaspersky, Nod32 and others.

    AV-Comparatives' last testing round ranked Norton as the best product on the market. But hey, why not use "also-ran" software in your corporate infrastructure? You've already failed by using Windows, might as well go whole-hog.

  3. Re:For a program so hard to turn off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    This is pretty backwards. I can only assume you petitioned IT to use McAfee and now you're trying to blame them. I don't know if you work in Networking, Sales, or Software, but whatever you thought you knew just came back and bit you on the ass. This is called MICROMANAGEMENT my friend and you need to back the hell up before you press someone that has a very real reason to be pissed at you right now.

    I'd explain this in detail, but I can only assume you'd use that to backup some wildly fallacious argument in an effort to save your ass. May you learn this in the board room.