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Insecurity outfit says sorry to Microsoft
THE BRITISH INSECURITY FIRM that claimed Microsoft's last security patch created a 'black screen of death' has said sorry for stuffing it up.
Prevx charged last week that the security patch made changes to Microsoft operating systems' registry and were the most likely cause of the error that caused a small number of people's machines to crash.
The Vole and Prevx apparently sat down and tried to work out what was happening and came to the conclusion that there was no way that the security patches could have caused the problem.
While it worked that out, Microsoft urged users to install patches carefully, testing them before rolling them out across a company. Not helpful advice for home users, of course.
Prevx has concluded that the problem must have been caused by some malware that stuffed up the configurations before the patches went in.
This tallies with the fact that very few people suffered from the problem, which if it were a result of the security patches would have affected more than just a few dozen users.
The company has apologised to Microsoft for the "inconvenience" caused by its original blog posting and is urging Windows 7 users to continue updating the operating system as normal.
A Microsoft spokesman said that there was nothing to see here move on please. µ
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Microsoft's PR department is in fine form here. "It's just some malware that has turned your computer into a useless chunk of metal...move along, nothing to see here".
But, haven't some "customers" lost the user of their machines? Because Microsoft's OS's have more holes in them than Swiss Cheese? Somehow these people are supposed to wipe their brows and say, "Phew! and I thought that there was something wrong with Microsoft! Now I can go back to watching my 'black horse on a cloudy night' screensaver."
But, in a way, they are right. It is ultimately always the user's fault when their Microsoft-fuelled computer seizes up...for buying and trying to depend upon Windows or other Microsoft bugware. There are other choices out there.
I've see the Black Screen of Death a few times too. W7 stalling is common if there are problems. I've tried a few beta's and seen it on the initial install on a couple of machines. I just installed the release a few weeks ago and have seen black screens a couple of times again. Apparently, there are still a few driver issues is what I figured-out. I've caught a couple of major bugs, too, which have yet to be corrected.
So is it perfect? Not on your life. There are quite a few incompatibilities for what I do, which is annoying, so we have to find alternatives. If you're using Internet and graphics programs, etc, then you should be fine. Any advanced technical tools or utilities, ODBC configs, etc, often I've been out of luck. It's not stable yet.
Like I said, I have had this problem with Windows XP several times on wildly different hardware configurations.
I'm not convinced of the malware story. 3 weeks ago I installed Win 7, clean. Then Avira Premium, then Prevx 3.0. Then Firefox, with Noscript. A week into a very speedy & satisfactory experience the Black Screen of Inconvenience arrived. The task manager still fired up, but killing and restarting Explorer didn't work. All other programs worked fine. So it was just the desktop and start bar missing. I ran a system restore. Then a startup repair, and re-installed Win7 in place over Win7.
Finally, I did a clean re-installation, installing every single program - in approximately the same order. However I'd learned my lesson and once it was in a satisfatory state I imaged the entire system. It's now been running without problem for around two weeks. No sign of Win7's Black Dog yet...
...but malware - getting through Avira, Prevx, NoScripted Firefox? Not convinced...
@Caga Regras. Dumbass, it was not caused by the patches, You're as bad as Prevx.
It seems someone got gagged either by force of money or incompetence.