ZoneAlarm and KB951748 Windows Update

Like many others, applying this update has killed my internet connection. Apparently something in KB951748 upsets ZoneAlarm at which point it blocks all internet traffic. The stupid thing on my part is that I actually read about this in passing somewhere and then went an did an update this morning on my desktop anyway. This is the only machine running ZoneAlarm, so all the other computers in house still could connect which let me research the problem further.

I've never been a huge ZA fan, but like I'm always more comfortable with a program that alerts for both inbound and outbound connection attempts. I've reverted to ZA because they killed off the free version of Tiny Personal Firewall (aka Kiero), at which point I switched to Comodo. But that one wreaked havoc on my internal network traffic (connecting to laptops and the Xbox 360 became painful). So I eventually moved to ZA. Each time you install a new firewall, it goes through several days of training where it questions you about all activity. This is very annoying, so I don't really want to switch from ZA right now. But I need internet on this machine and don't want to be firewall-less.

One option of course is to uninstall KB951748. Do this by opening Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs -> check "Show Updates". Pick it off the list. The problem is that it warned me all these other updates would stop working too. I don't really want to mess with this system's stability (it's already agining and I don't want to upset it!), so partially uninstalling various updates is one of those things that will surely break other things that are working OK.

Disabling ZA of course lets me back on line, but I feel like a naked teenager stuck in the mall.

So for now I've shut down ZA and turned on the Windows Firewall. I have actually never used this on any of my machines. I know it's better than nothing, but it doesn't warn (or trap?) outbound connections. I'm not sure I feel much better, but it's like throwing a towel to the naked teen in the mall. For now, I'm on line. And really this machine gets abused a lot less than it used too and I haven't noticed any fishy calling home actions via ZA recently anyway, so things should be OK for now.

I'll need to watch for ZA updates or possibly move to something else. Maybe since I don't connect to the Xbox anymore for streaming audio (due to using the HTPC), Comodo is a viable option again. But, ugh, those training days suck.