I read through the latest security reports from CERT and noticed in one of the linked blogs that somebody mentioned this, DC. Basically, it is all related to the overwhelming DNS issue that has risen. More information in that regard here ...
Serious flaw found in Domain Name System [webmasterworld.com]

Thanks coop.

dc

my internet connection was killed as well with the update

---

System: The following 5 messages were spliced on to this thread from: http://www.webmasterworld.com/microsoft_windows_os/3694403.htm [webmasterworld.com] by bill - 9:50 am on July 10, 2008 (jst +9)

---

I'm on XP Pro SP2, this morning the little yellow shield appeared, without thinking I installed the updates.

Bang, no internet connection!

Searching the net (with another machine!) there's lots of very unhappy ZoneAlarm users. Installing KB951748 on a machine with ZA stops the DNS service.

ZA and MS are 'looking into the problem' but for now either uninstall KB951748 or in ZA lower the internet security setting from 'high' to 'medium'

I wouldn't want to be on a help desk today !

You might want to take a look at this.

[news.bbc.co.uk...]

We'll have to wait several weeks to find out what the problem was (that has supposedly been fixed) but since the fix seems to apply to clients rather than servers, I'm thinking "hosts file".

Kaled.

In the case of this security update, I should mention, Microsoft didn't give me a choice. They went ahead and installed it, and the only choice I had was when to restart my computer.

I downloaded and got the choice (have it set up that way) - there was 2 x updates so I chose "custom install" whereby I got the option to select which of the updates I weanted to install, so I deselected the one that's causing the problems, after reading various threads here

I don't have ZA (since last week) but having just taken a week to get my latest Firewall installed didn't want to risk it

RC, you can configure the download but not install until you say so..

either

from desktop, right click "my computer" and choose "properties"
or
Click Start, click Run, type sysdm.cpl, and then press ENTER.

the choose the "Automatic Updates" Tab

then you are offered four choices I have mine set for choice 3 - "Notify me but don't automatically download or install"

choice #2 looks OK too but maybe that's what you have which didn't allow you the choice?

Updated versions of the ZoneAlarm products to fix the KB951748-related problems are now available on their Web site.

Jim

Info here:
[download.zonealarm.com...]

Thanks, Jim & DC. I too had the same loss-of-internet nightmare. I used System Restore to go back to the day before the update, and internet access was restored.
I have just downloaded the ZoneAlarm update, so we'll see if the KB951748 update can be installed afterwards.

Is this an XP only issue? I haven't had any problems with Vista.

Err, let me rephrase that. I have had a whole ton of problems with Vista, but this wasn't one of them.

g1, I think it's XP & 2000 only, not Vista.

I re-installed the update and updated ZA and its fine now. Yes, its just for XP & 2000.

Its working now. Thanks.

hmm, g1smd using XP, who would have thunk, i figured homie lived on the command line of some *nix flavor since he's l33t...
Yeah, bad new about DNS hole.. oops...

Ahem! I have never used XP here... I migrated from Win 98SE -- with an absolute ton of third-party add-ons and utilities -- directly to Vista when both of my old machines failed within weeks of each other. One year on, I am still not as productive with Vista as I was with Win 98 SE. I can do more stuff (I think), but I don't think I can do some of it as well as I could before.

shhh. my dad is still running windows 95, lol... I gave him a w2k box, but he still swears by 95, and curses MS for changing all the API's aftr everyone was convinced to change them to suite MS's need...

Of the several work-arounds ZoneLabs suggested, un-installing ZoneAlarm and installing a competitor's product wasn't on their list, but it worked for me :)

The update to a new version of ZoneAlarm (with 138 and 1332 in the filename?) worked fine on an XP machine I tried it on today.

Seems only a problem for XP users with ZA.
Also, the update is only for Win 2K and Server 2003*, so should not have appeared on the list for XP users. Uninstall and hide from updates in case you want to use it later.

*http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms08-037.mspx
"Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Windows XP Service Pack 3 Not applicable"

I got the numbers wrong for the version. Those numbers were for an AVG update.

The ZoneAlarm update was 7.0.483.000 or somesuch.