[There's a reason that Yoda is the unofficial mascot of SBS. Size indeed matters not.] So how was your Friday night? - THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS "DIVA"
Fri, Apr 22 2005 23:29 bradley

So how was your Friday night?

Windows XP Service Pack 2 machines with critical patches and PC-cillin Internet Security 2005 starts to experience high CPU utilization after updating to Pattern 594

Yeah...slight understatement of the year in this KB from Trend. However the KB only talks about PC-cillin when mine was an issue with OfficeScan, and it not only affected the workstations, the server ground to a halt. 

Any workstation that was turned on at 3:35 p.m. when the 594 dat file was applied was totally pegged at 100% CPU utilization and unresponsive.  I had to sneakernet to each workstation, boot into safe mode, get the 594 off the machine and reboot to get any kind of control over the machine.  I even had to do this on my member server as it too was totally unresponsive.  Chad said that his servers and workstations fixed themselves... but mine were totally not fixing themselves as the workstations were too flatlined to get an updates.

Here at home, by the time I got home, the server had gotten up to 596 and had settled down, but the two workstations were still totally flatlined.

Krissy [that's my Dog] loved the experience though, he and my sister came to the office to keep me company since I was the only one there and he loves to run throughout the hallways at a fast clip as the carpeting allows him to have almost an interior dog run.  [BTW Krissy is a spoiled white toy poodle..yeah... I know.. girly dog all the way... even going to the poodle parlor for haircuts]

So while my Friday night wasn't exactly how I planned it to be, his turned out to be very fun for him.  As I left the office, my sister pointed out it was meant to be... it was a full moon.

...oh well... so how was your Friday night?  That's how I spent mine.

P.S.  This is why I make sure I have a way to the Internet that goes around the server.  I literally had a laptop on the wireless connection and it was nice to know [well not really THAT nice but kind nice if you know what I mean] to know that around the globe others were seeing the issue too.  To all of you out in the community that shared the 'Friday Flatline Experience” thanks for all of your help!

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# re: So how was your Friday night?

Saturday, April 23, 2005 1:20 AM by bradley

There's a new KB article for Officescan

http://kb.trendmicro.com/solutions/search/main/search/solutionDetail.asp?solutionId=24263

# re: So how was your Friday night?

Saturday, April 23, 2005 3:30 PM by bradley

FU Trend,

I work for a consulting firm that has exclusively out out Officescan and recommend XP SP2. Everyone of our clients that does what we tell them were snacked by this. Including a hospital with 200 nodes. It took down 30 XP SP2 stations at the hospital and the 3 citrix servers that are 2003 member servers for the remaining users. Oh yeah, both domain controllers and the file servers too. Ouch. We just talked these guys out of Norton a few weeks ago. That's going to be a fun conversation Monday.

# re: So how was your Friday night?

Saturday, April 23, 2005 3:33 PM by bradley

I might also point out that Trend support is closed for the weekend. Nice job realizing how bad they screwed up and opening for special hours. Sarcasm...

# re: So how was your Friday night?

Saturday, April 23, 2005 11:02 PM by bradley

We are an IT Consulting firm in Tennessee... We've fought the good fight on Trend's behalf to saturate our local market with their product...

Then Friday night came about! Luckily just two of our client's were on and still there with 594 came out and sent every PC into a tailspin. Worked on 35 machines at one location and was on the phone to a quasi-IT manager at a local government agency helping him with another 35 or so PCs.

It seems that most of our clients were turned off thanks to it coming out after 5pm Central time. Who knows what Monday morning will bring.

My Fiance' brought me dinner at the client's site and we had our exciting Friday night date while I was reparing this disaster...

Thanks Trend.

# re: So how was your Friday night?

Saturday, April 23, 2005 11:07 PM by bradley

Monday morning it will pick up the new dat file [we're now on 598 since the 594] and they won't even see that dat file.

www.incidents.org even reported it.

# re: So how was your Friday night?

Sunday, April 24, 2005 10:54 PM by bradley

I have worked for a long time in consulting and now am in corporate IT. I've recommended Trend for a long time and haven't had any issues until the past few months. First was machines Blue Screening on a trend file (still working on a few of them a month later). Now this issue. I think I'm going to start looking for a new solution. Anybody else? Are there products out there people are using that they like? Interested in opinions.

# re: So how was your Friday night?

Monday, April 25, 2005 3:51 PM by bradley

I really like Avast! The server versions seem to be well integrated into Windows, Exchange and terminal server and since I've been using it with clients, it's been much more reliable than my previous recommendations (Sophos etc). It is easy to evaluate and the home version is free which encourages people to use AV at home and "feels good".

In my opinion, the "established" players in the internet security world are rapidly loosing their friendly image and becoming complacent. Thankfully, this is one situation in which there are choices.