McAfee update bricks thousands of enterprise computers

Earlier today, McAfee unleashed one doozy of an update for its popular antivirus software that crippled an untold number of Windows computers (tens of thousands for sure, potentially hundreds of thousands). The update, virus definition 5958, was pushed out at 06:00 PDT and caused a false positive detection of the critical Windows system file svchost.exe.

The botched update led systems running Windows XP SP3 to detect svchost.exe as the virus W32/wecorl.a. Users say this caused systems to display a BSOD before being caught in an endless cycle of reboots. Windows 7 and Vista computers were unaffected, and the update was mostly limited to corporate machines, meaning that most consumers are in the clear.

The company responded by pulling the tainted update from its distribution network and a clean version, 5959, was released around 10:15 PDT. Complicating McAfee's day, because of the overwhelming impact of 5958, the company's forum was knocked offline, blocking affected customers from sharing information. McAfee has since posted several possible workarounds.

HP slips out new all-in-one Compaq PC

HP has pushed out a new Compaq-branded all-in-one desktop computer, the Presario CQ1-1020. Equipped with Intel's lightweight Atom D410, there's no denying that the 18.5-inch system is intended for very basic use (read: Web browsing).

The CQ1-120 also houses a gig of DDR2 RAM (4GB max), a 160GB 7200RPM hard drive, and a DVD burner. Connectivity includes Ethernet, 802.11b/g/n wireless, a six-in-one memory card reader, eight USB 2.0 ports, and audio jacks. Oddly, the machine comes with Windows XP Home Edition SP3 preinstalled, rather than Windows 7 or even Windows 7 Starter.


The CQ1-1020 is shipping to grandmas everywhere -- so many in fact, that the system is currently out of stock. HP backs the machine with a one-year warranty and it's priced at $429.99 with few if any configuration options available.

Gmail gets drag-and-drop attachments, better calendar tools

Google has added a couple of useful features to Gmail which are now available directly on the main client without them having to graduate from Labs. The first is based on HTML 5 and will allow users to drag-and-drop files as attachments to their emails, replacing the usual method of clicking the 'attach a file' option. Just grab a file or multiple files off your desktop, drag it into a Gmail compose window and it will automatically be uploaded and attached to your message.


It's not an earth-shattering new feature, but it makes sending files quick and easy. It currently works on Chrome 4 or Firefox 3.6 only, but according to Google Engineer Adam de Boor, the feature will be enabled for other browsers too as soon as they correctly support the HTML 5 drag-and-drop functionality.

The second new feature comes in the form of a little "insert invitation" link just at the bottom of the subject line of outgoing e-mails. When clicked, it opens a Google Calendar invitation-maker that includes a visual of when there are open times to meet based the invitees' schedules (provided you have access to view their Google Calendars).