Symantec to compensate users of flawed update

You may have heard about the update Symantec issued to its antivirus products that crippled Chinese language versions of Windows XP but only the Chinese language versions. The update was issued during the early morning hours Bejing time and the software happily went about updating.

The problem is the new definition signatures mistook two critical system files for a virus and quarantined them. If the computer was left running, Symantec was quick to post a solution to download new definition files and replace the two missing system files.

This did not help users who had rebooted their computers in the several hours between the flawed update and the correct update; those people experienced nothing but BSODs (Blue Screens of Death).

Symantec then posted a fix whereby users had to download and replace the two missing files manually for which they were derided because the average user isn’t going to know how to follow those instructions.

I’m not privy to the details but it seems there is now an automatic tool available from Symantec China that when downloaded from a working computer and burned to a CD will boot and replace the damaged files automatically to restore the system to working order. Since I can’t read Chinese, I have no idea. ComputerWorld seems to have some of it sorted out, though.

The solutions provided still aren’t good enough for some people and demands for compensation are anywhere between $13,000 and $140,000.

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