AVG bug leaves Windows unbootable
The popular AVG anti-virus has caused heartache for users of certain language editions of Windows by marking a system file as a Trojan.
CNet has announced that Grisoft's AVG 8 anti-virus product received an update on Tuesday which caused it to detect an important Windows system file as a virus, giving users an option to delete the file – and hose their systems.
Affecting users of AVG 8 on Dutch, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish editions of Windows XP – both Home and Professional – the bug causes AVG to detect user32.dll as a Trojan horse, leaving users open to the possibility of deleting or quarantining a file which Windows requires for continued operation.
The company has issued a statement saying that it is “actively working to remedy the problem some users are experiencing related to the most recent update to commercial and free versions of AVG 7.5 and AVG 8.0 in some languages.” As of last night, a bootable CD image was released which is designed to repair a system that has been rendered unbootable by the bug – although you'll need a second computer to burn the CD on, obviously – along with a new virus definition update which removes the false positive. For users that don't have a second machine on which to download the fix, Grisoft recommends that they “contact their AVG reseller or ask a friend to download the information and fix tool for them.”
Is this evidence that the entire concept of a signature-based anti-virus package is flawed, or does Grisoft just need to improve their QA testing procedures? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
Previous Article
22 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyThis news just gives me another reason not to use AVG ever again.
Your sentence makes no sense?
I heartily concur
ya v funny, serusoly tho had/have this/last?!
And what about people who only have one computer and hence cannot access the Internet at all? They would not have a clue what would be happening and could potentially fork out a fortune to pay someone to fix it, would they be reimbursed?
My point is, should a software company pay for damages on any computer they break and hence cost the user money? Saying that, if that was the case MS would be broke!
It's probably in the agreement you agree too when installing that if the software breaks your computer, it isn't the software companies fault.
"...that Grisoft's AVG 8 anti-virus product received an update on *Tuesday*..."
If *that* tuesday was yesterday :)
Looks like I made the switch at the right time too...
http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/index.html
if the virus is on your pc in the first place its Very unlikey its going to be able to remove it if the real time scnner did not pick it up
no, it's a user-specific kind of software. i find it just as irrelevant on windows as on linux.
A while back Kaspersky had an update and after it you needed to restart, but on 64bit versions of Vista there was a problem and you couldn't start windows. It would BSOD as soon as you logged in. Had to start in safe mode and disable/uninstall Kaspersky. Luckily just a few hours later they released a fix for it though. :) That was very scary though.
In case you're as confused as I am how a "free one-year license" is supposed to compensate users who are already on the free edition: the licence is for the commercial version, basically giving free users a no-cost upgrade to the paid-for version for a year.
Three days after this bug, Avg has published on its site a method of repair. How know this, if your system is down ?? WHY consult its site ignoring that Anti virus AVG was the cause of the non rebooting ? with which PC if it is down ? !
Consequently, I ask AVG to offer me an exterior hard disk to put data backups nowadays...