Microsoft Updates did something weird to my pc

purplepatch

When I shut down last night, I noticed that there were microsoft updates to be done. Clicked on OK and thought nothing more about it. This morning when I switched on, something strange had happened as my desktop looked like it had gone back to the factory settings, loads of icons on the desktop missing and when I tried logging into Windows Live Mail, my email accounts had gone, and it was asking me to set them up.

I didn't have a lot of time to investigate, but quickly tried a system restore to a restore point yesterday morning and luckily everything has gone back to normal - but don't really understand what happened here. I've checked to see what automatic updates are due, but there are none and it is still showing that I did 4 automatic updates yesterday, despite my today doing a system restore to a point before the updates were run. The updates are as follows:-

Windows Malicious Software removal tool KB890830
Security Update for Microsoft Office XP KB953405
Security Update for Windows XP KB938464
Security Update for Windows XP KB954154

Can anyone shed any light on what happened?

Edit to say that I've got Zonealarm firewall, could it be causing a conflict again? - think that happened a while back.

purplepatch

Not many replies to this!

I've just had a message to say updates are ready and it wants to update with SP3. I'm wondering if this was what was updated the other night and caused the problem.

Can anyone advise?

niceguyrichy

purplepatch wrote: »

Not many replies to this!

I've just had a message to say updates are ready and it wants to update with SP3. I'm wondering if this was what was updated the other night and caused the problem.

Can anyone advise?

SP3 is just all the updates since SP2 bundled together, it's not anything to be worried about, and if you've run auto updates then it isn't even needed. don't know what caused your initial prob , but I do know that Malicious Software removal tool thing has a hidden thingy in it that secretly checks if your copy of windows is valid, so if you're runing off a copy that might have been it.

purplepatch

niceguyrichy wrote: »

SP3 is just all the updates since SP2 bundled together, it's not anything to be worried about, and if you've run auto updates then it isn't even needed. don't know what caused your initial prob , but I do know that Malicious Software removal tool thing has a hidden thingy in it that secretly checks if your copy of windows is valid, so if you're runing off a copy that might have been it.

Ooooh, not sure, my neighbour built my pc from scratch, so maybe I should check with him....