Windows update seems to have killed internet connection

john_s_2

In fairness to the Sky helpline staff (and other similar call centres) if they were able to ask everyone if they had ZA they'd then have to walk them through the options of what to do about it. From what I've read I don't think there's one correct solution.

I'm sure a lot of their callers would admit to having ZA (does this apply to other Firewalls?) but on being told this would still need advice on what to do next. ISPs aren't responsible for what software you have on your PC so I daresay they aren't interested in preparing scripts for their staff to walk customers through the options.

Out of interest, what did the techie guy advise you to do?

My guess (and advice to anyone not sure) would be to slide the security to medium, or uninstall the MS hotfix - this gets you online - then download the update ZA have issued, install it, then ensure the security is back to high or reinstall the hotfix again (whichever workaround you used to get online again).

Personally I'm going to uninstall ZA. I'm behind a router firewall and I was for years before I installed it. Never had any problems without it. I've been thinking of uninstalling it in any case. I'm not blaming ZA or anything but I just don't think I need it.

I'll be posting back next week when I need to get my PC out of a botnet ;-)

Belnahua

Dazi wrote: »

Am about to send letter to sky to ask why their call centre bods don't ask the question before going through the 'mend it' list.

I bet you had to ring a premium rate number? Then the longer they keep you on the phone..............

Froglet

Guys,i am SO glad i found this post.I was just about to ask if someone knew why zone alarm had suddenly become a problem.I knew i had installed an update yesterday and of course had the problem of no internet after that.

My question now,is, i have avg antivirus free,which seems to cover most things.So do i now still need zone alarm,or should i dispense with it? At the moment when i first switch on,i have to keep turning zone alarm off.I only found a way back in by chance when i cautiously turned it off!!

I am not that confident about uninstalling ,and then reinstalling new programmes,ie the new version of zone alarm,so if i still need to could any kind person guide me through it please.

I have turned the high level to medium on the firewall which seems to work ok.

Thanks!!

Belnahua

If you just grab the new version of Zone Alarm Free from the links above, and run it, it asks during the installation whether you want to upgrade the exsisting version.

I'd be inclined to keep the firewall, as more protection is better than less.

pennymakespounds

i'm on aol 9vr ... had tis problem on desktop this mrning ... reinstalled aol.. ten heard of the za/microsoft issue . have turned off firewall and deleted update .. but still not working.

"aol arror" box says "THE SNMASTER.IDX database file is missing, please restore the file " .. no idea what to do !!

had tried again earlier re-installing aol but get a "internet explorer script error" warning box that won't ket me go any further .. it says "error has occurred in the script on this page LINE 515 CHAR 4 error "could not complete the operation due to error 81000054"

HELP !!

seen the link for ZA remedy .. but can't do that until i can get online !!

pennymakespounds

sorry, should also add .. did a system restore to a couple of days ago .. then hit these error probs

bigsaverCol

Someone please tell TalkTalk guys in India.
67 minutes going through all the usual stuff of rebooting and reconecting cables.
In the end he gave up and is sending me a new installation CD!!!!!
I sat down and worked out when it went wrong (after rebooting from update) and deleted update.
Easy.

BenL

This happened to my pc as well and resolved it lastnight.

I didn't see the BBC article until this morning and missed this thread.

To make the diagnosis harder this week our street was hit by a lightening bolt knocking out most of the cable connections to the street, blowing up cable modems which also caused one of the routers in the house to give up the ghost as well.

I thought we had resolved all the issues then my main pc downloaded windows updates and conflicted with zone alarm.

Quite a bit of head scratching lastnight but then as part of the checks I diabled ZA and all started to work.

Go into work this morning and then the bbc article is staring me in the face.

Anthony2oo5

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1026197

GeorgeHowell

isofa wrote: »

You surely are joking?! You are suggesting it's up to someone creating a new operating system to accommodate older software?

No. It's up to the OS company to publish details / technical previews and so forth, and then up to the third party software manufacturers to get nto gear to update software ready for a new system - as is the case always. It's a natural part of the software development cycle.

Otherwise we'd still all be using software designed for Windows 3.1 under XP and Vista...

I think it's up to Microsoft, and other software manufacturers, to test their software, including updates and patches, with all widely used applications before issuing them. Zone Alarm could not have known that MS were going to issue this patch if MS didn't tell them in advance. If MS had done the testing, then chances are that the ZA update written to accommodate it could probably have been issued before the patch, or simultaneously with it. To say that MS are entitled to issue non fully tested updates as and when they please is indeed a joke, and if that's what happens, then large numbers of users are likely to suffer this sort of grief again and again. Is that customer-orientation ? I don't think so. And I'll bet that the vast majority of non-tecchie PC users will agree with me.