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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.

4 of 472 comments (clear)

  1. Guess what I've been doing all morning? by uvsc_wolverine · · Score: 5, Funny

    I work at a university where we use McAfee anti-virus as our corporate AV. Guess what I've been doing all morning?

    --
    This space for rent...
    1. Re:Guess what I've been doing all morning? by 2names · · Score: 5, Funny

      Um, hiding in the bathroom like I have been doing?

      Seriously, though, we got hit hard with this. I don't mind fixing the problem, what pisses me off is that we didn't want McAfee in here in the first place but Corporate HQ forced it on us.

      --
      "I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
    2. Re:Guess what I've been doing all morning? by oldspewey · · Score: 5, Funny

      Reading Slashdot?

      --
      If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
  2. Re:Why Worry about Malware-Viruses... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    My boss, who knows just enough about computers to get himself in trouble, is an idiot.

    A few days ago, he called me in to come look at his laptop. He said that his computer was infected and that the virus killed his email. After further inspection, I found out that he pressed "ctrl+alt+del" and brought up the Task Manager. He went through and ended all of the svchost.exe's that he could. When I asked him about it, here was his response:

    "I was closing all of those system virus hosts on my machine!"

    I hate my job sometimes.