Microsoft may now have a worse public relations problem than Toyota has:
I don’t automatically take Windows updates. I set XP to notify me and then I click “Advanced” to review them. That way I can ignore Office-related changes that don’t apply to my home computers. But yesterday all of the updates looked like necessary security fixes, so I took them on my desktop and netbook computers. If I have to deal with this BSOD problem I will be very, very unhappy.
Follow-up: It seems that if the first restart of Windows is OK after the update for KB977165, you won’t go BSOD. I updated my Dell Inspiron 530 desktop and Acer Aspire One netbook, and both were OK after restarting. I have not yet updated Carol’s laptop and Eric’s tower PC, and for now I think I’ll leave them that way.
I don’t know how widespread these crashes are. The update was released two days ago, and news of the XP failures doesn’t seem to be in the non-technical media.
Follow-up: Microsoft has pulled the patch.
Follow-up: Appears as though the affected machines might have already been infected.
You have, of course, heard the “theory” that the next big terrorist attack will be via computer, a simultaneous cyber-attack, virtually wiping out every mainframe on Wall Street and every major American corporation. Makes sense, doesn’t it? It wouldn’t kill anybody immediately, unless it involved … medical technology … operating rooms .. ., dare I say, flight controllers? It would certainly have a major crippling effect.