Wednesday, July 9th, 2008...7:23 am...by:
Windows Update Breaks ZoneAlarm
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If you use the combination of Microsoft Windows and ZoneAlarm, the Microsoft Windows update released yesterday (KB951748) will cause a conflict with ZoneAlarm which will prevent users from connecting to the Internet.
The Microsoft update makes changes to the way that your computer handles DNS requests and ZoneAlarm does not recognize those changes and therefore blocks traffic. Here is a thread on ZoneAlarm’s forum that goes into detail.
Do not completely disable your firewall! That is never a good idea, especially these days. Here are some other options:
- Lower your Internet Zone Security setting from “High” to “Medium”. This will allow you to access the Internet after applying the Microsoft patch. This is a temporary fix until ZoneAlarm releases an update.
- If you want to turn off ZoneAlarm, make sure you at least enable your Windows Firewall.
- Uninstall ZoneAlarm and install another Firewall from a different software vendor (ie. Norton or McAffee).
- Alternatively, as the Macintosh Camp will gleefully shout, “Get a Mac and stop worrying with updates to Windows every month.”
I shy away from the last option because I like running commonly used software on my computer and playing some pretty cool games 
.
15 Comments
July 9th, 2008 at 9:40 am
omg so that’s why my other computer can’t go online all of a sudden after restarting today. thank you for this info.
July 9th, 2008 at 10:12 am
You’re welcome, Gem. Nice photography on your site too
July 9th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
It breaks much more than just ZoneAlarm.
Stay away from it!
July 9th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Thanks for the info was going nuts and even called my isp. again thanks
July 9th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Thank you very much, finally an answer!
July 9th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
@ST/op - yes, I have heard some horror stories. If one chooses to update, it is probably a good idea to create a restore point first. Then the update can easily be rolled back.
@reckless - you’re welcome - our ISP actually even sent out an email
@alexandro - you’re welcome - hopefully ZA will spit out an update pretty quickly.
July 9th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Took me about 25 minutes to figure it out and run system rollback. Thought the Modem was hanging at first so after 2 reboots of the modem and router, checking ipconfig ect I checked on the Mac. Figured when the Mac was running perfectly in the living room that the Microsoft update was the culprit. Bastards!
July 9th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Thanks for the verification. I had pretty much drawn that conclusion after shutting down ZA on one stricken machine and finding that Internet access was restored. So then a Google for Windows Update and ZoneAlarm led me to your discussion.
July 9th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
We Mac Users may not get all the shovelware you PC people can get, but I was able to surf all day and didn’t have to disable anything.
July 10th, 2008 at 4:25 am
Yes. ZoneAlarm has released a new version to fix this problem. New version: 7.0.483.000
July 10th, 2008 at 4:33 am
thanks heaps for the info. It was driving me nuts.
July 10th, 2008 at 6:51 am
@Grrr - You probably have the perfect setup - a PC and a Mac.
@Jim - You’re welcome. Thanks for checking us out.
@Steve - Point made…
@Donau - Thanks for letting us know about the ZA update!
@JOHN - I feel your pain!
July 10th, 2008 at 9:55 am
I work in IT support and getting lots of calls over this. Headache for me the last few days
July 10th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
I had the same problem this morning(laptop IE and Firefox would not connect to the internet) until I changed the ZoneAlarm Internet Zone security level down to medium. Odd thing is, I haven’t updated to SP3 yet!
July 10th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
@Quemlar - Job security - haha
@Prem - The MS patch fixed an issue in the core of the Windows OS, so SP3 will not have any impact in the equation.
Here is a link to the updated download link from ZA:
http://download.zonealarm.com/bin/free/pressReleases/2008/LossOfInternetAccessIssue.html
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