Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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.

2 of 472 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Black Wednesday by ircmaxell · · Score: 4, Interesting

    True, but business needs dictate software requirements. So that decision is out of my hands (but believe me, I'd LOVE to run an office full of Linux computers)...

    --
    If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
  2. Re:Double ouch. by Jeng · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --
    Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.