McAfee Epic Fail XP SP3 wipeout

McAfee released an update with a false positive ID on at least one core windows file !

I have a PC trying to fix for a guy who came back from Italy on a coach 3 days after he should have flown in, starts up his PC, clicks "update" on McAfee and *bang* XP won't work. DHCP service not running - file not found, etc etc

http://siblog.mcafee.com/support/mcafee-response-on-...
http://siblog.mcafee.com/support/a-long-day-at-mcafee/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8636985.stm

I don't really have much sympathy for them - they are an incompetant company with rubbish software just like symantec. With the amount of employees they have they could have easily made a good product a long time ago. Many smaller AV companies have managed this just fine.

Eset (NOD32) did this not so long ago where some system files were quarantined. It was ok if you didn't reboot, but they were able to push out a fix within a couple of hours which restored the files from quarantine automatically.

In reply to a post by Banger:

Eset (NOD32) did this not so long ago where some system files were quarantined. It was ok if you didn't reboot, but they were able to push out a fix within a couple of hours which restored the files from quarantine automatically.

The problem in itsself is understandably a mistake that *could* happen no matter how good the testing in the labs is. In this instance I would presume it may well be sheer bad luck rather than bad practice on McAfee's part, as they have been in the game long enough for this not to happen so far.

But because their product is naff and they are more intrested in ripping customers off with FUD marketing - I just have no sympathy, and I imagine that is a lot of people's thoughts

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

...... The problem in itsself is understandably a mistake that *could* happen no matter how good the testing in the labs is. In this instance I would presume it may well be sheer bad luck rather than bad practice on McAfee's part, as they have been in the game long enough for this not to happen so far.....

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/04/mcafee_false...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/03/mcafee_false...

McAfee have now offered compensation to those who were affected....... Two years free subscription!
Is that taking the whatsit or what!

Edited by Deadbeat (Mon 26-Apr-10 20:12:00)

2 years more than Bit defender has offered it's customers for the problems that a similar update caused win7 x64bit users, you could always sell it,assuming you can find a buyer