13 July 2007, 13:11

Problems with Microsoft’s .NET update

According to reports, the patch provided by Microsoft to fix holes in .NET might cause some trouble. For instance, three reboots may be necessary during installation to fix all holes, if .NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0 are installed on the system. In few cases, an alert is displayed when trying to install the update, saying that .NET is not installed on the system. Also, the update service for .NET 1.1 might prevent the system from going into the idle state once the update has been installed. As a workaround, users can simply shut down or disable this service.

Also, the Internet Storm Center has reported unspecified userproblems with the update without providing more detailed information onwhether these issues relate to system instabilities or dysfunctionalapplications.

Microsoft has also updated five of its July security bulletins. Bulletin MS-07-036 is now available in version 2.0, since version 1.0 did not mention Office 2004 for Mac as affected version. The other four bulletins have been revised slightly. For instance, in bulletin MS07-038, the command line in the workaround was not specified correctly. Bulletin MS07-039 now explains in a FAQ, why the update has been distributed to all Windows 2000 and Server 2003 systems. The original version of bulletin MS07-040 also caused some confusion: although .NET 3.0 was not listed among the affected products, an automatic update with a patch was offered to users of this version, since .NET 2.0 is part of .NET 3.0. The revised version of the respective bulletin now includes a FAQ to clarify this issue. Finally, Microsoft has provided some more details in bulletin MS07-041 to explain when and how this bug is triggered.