Maybe this will turn out to just be a unique situation — that I’m the only one encountering this phenomenon. But it’s a very frightening scenario: that a number of Windows Updates made to my Vista PC overnight last night (Tues, June 10) neutered the PC’s ability to connect to the Internet. I’ll be watching reports to see if this is happening to anybody else.

Perhaps foolishly, ever since I purchased a primary desktop equipped with Vista, I used the Microsoft recommended setting of automatically downloading and installing updates. I say “perhaps foolishly” because of what happened to my PC after this most recent round of updates had installed and my PC automatically rebooted. No matter how many times I rebooted it again and again — it would simply not connect to the Internet.

How here is the really strange part. It had basic LAN connectivity. It was getting a valid IP address from the router. It could, in fact, talk to other resources on the LAN. It simply behaved like the LAN had no Internet connection. Other machines on the same LAN were fine. I even went to far as to uninstall Kaspersky Internet Security, thinking that somehow it could be preventing the machine from seeing the fact that it really did have an Internet connection. That did nothing.

So — using System Restore, I rolled the machine back to the point just before the updates installed. And guess what? A couple reboots later, the machine was talking to the Internet just fine. So, on the face of things, the culprit would appear to have been one or more of these latest Windows Updates for Vista. What else could it be?

So, without further ado, here are the updates that installed automatically last night (that have since been uninstalled by virtue of a System Restore):

• Cumulative Security Update for ActiveX Killbits for Windows Vista (KB950760)
• Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer for Windows Vista (KB950759)
• Security Update for Windows Vista (KB951698)
• Security Update for Windows Vista (KB950762)
• Security Update for Windows Vista (KB951376)
• Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool (KB890830)
• Update for Windows Mail Junk E-mail Filter [June 2008] (KB905866)
• Update for Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 Junk Email Filter (KB951476)
• Update for Windows Vista (KB952714)

I have since changed my Windows Update settings to download only, letting me choose when (and whether) to install them.

So now I have a healthy dose of paranoia about future updates pushed by Microsoft. Do we place too much trust with Microsoft, thinking that their automatic updates feature is critical to running a secure PC? That these updates could never cause any harm? It’s an impossible situation, isn’t it? We’re told time and time again by Microsoft to keep machines patched and current. And yet, in my recent experience, this caused me major headaches.

I don’t know where to go from here. I suppose when I have ample spare time (spare time?), I could apply these updates one at a time to see if I can pinpoint the smoking gun. I smell an All Nighter.

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Originally posted here:
Dear Microsoft: Thanks For Killing My Vista PC’s Internet Connectivity