Windows Update KB951748 today breaks Zonealarm

This might be specific to my computer, but today's (July 8th, 2008) super tuesday update KB951748 broke my internet connection. At least it did with ZoneAlarm version 7.0.473.000 running. When I shut down ZoneAlarm the internet worked again.

Just a warning to those with ZoneAlarm (free version). If you find after you reboot from your windows update & you have no internet connection, you'll have to manually remove it.

To do that:

reboot with the Win CD Repair console

go to the directory C:/windows/$NtUninstallKB951748/spuninst/
then type
batch spuninst.txt

---------------------

This restores copies of the pre-update files and bam my internet was back up & working with ZoneAlarm on.

I tried updating ZoneAlarm to see if that had anything to do with it, but it seems as though I already had the most recent version.

Other network information:
Marvell Yukon 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller NIC
Linksys WRT54G router

I don't think either of those would affect anything, but who knows maybe the NIC driver + update is what wasn't playing well with ZoneAlarm. Or the router needed some type of confirmation that wasn't being passed with ZoneAlarm + the update. I don't think so as I've only had that type of issue with wireless connections where the router couldn't "see" the computer properly to allow it.

Just looking around the net, we aren't the only ones with this problem. The suggested band-aid right now is to set ZA's Internet Zone Security setting to Medium.

Same issue here. Resetting ZA to "medium" works as a bandaid.

Oh well, I already uninstalled the patch for now and I have my other computers set to manual updates (and not installing that patch) until ZoneAlarm or MS have an actual fix

This needs frontpage coverage. It has screwed up my pc and one of my customer's pc's. Glad my laptop has not updated yet.

Zonealarm speaks!

http://download.zonealarm.com/bin/fr...cessIssue.html

Well, at first they said the best solution is to uninstall the MS patch (KB951748), b/c sliding the Internet security setting to Medium opens you up to a lot more vunerabilities than this one patch fixed.

Originally Posted by How to uninstall KB951748

Go to Control panel, click on the 'add/remove programs' icon.
In the Window that opens, at the top towards the right check 'show updates'.
Scroll down to the entry that reads 'Windows XP Software Updates'. That will have several entries indented below it. Look for the one that reads 'Security update for Windows XP (KB951748)' (it's the number of the update causing the problem).

Click on it to highlight it, then click on the Remove button that shows up. Let Windows uninstall it.

When done restart your PC.

You should now be able to access the internet.

Then they say, but you can slide to medium as an option to fix it.

Now they have released an update that is supposed to be a true fix.
Version 7.0.483 is supposed to fix the issue. Though I did see a report of higher CPU usage with this version.

So now you have another option.

1. Update ZoneAlarm to 7.0.483
2. Uninstall or don't install MS Patch KB951748 for now
3. Set Zone Alarm to medium - seems risky

I'll be trying out 7.0.483 today & report back if there are any issues.

Nice. a 44MB+ patch.

Well, thats the full install of their firewall. Not just a patch.

You can install it as an upgrade or clean install.