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Some third-party applications are encountering problems introduced by the cumulative Windows 2000 Update Rollup that Microsoft introduced in late June.
There have been reports of problems with Sophos, Panda, RealSecure and BlackICE security products among some Windows 2000 users. And there also have been reports of compatibility problems between the rollup and Citrix Systems MetaFrame product, for which Citrix recently introduced hot fixes.
Windows 2000 is still the operating system of choice for a number of businesses, especially those in the SMB (small and midsized business) space, according to industry watchers. Microsoft ended mainstream support for Windows 2000 client and server on June 30.
Right before cutting the nonpaid-support cord, Microsoft issued the Windows 2000 rollup of more than 50 patches and fixes, in lieu of a Service Pack 5 update.
The compatibility issues are affecting not only Windows 2000 users who applied the rollup. They also are affecting some users who applied a June patch (MS05-019) issued by Microsoft that was designed to address a potential TCP/IP remote-code execution hole in a number of versions of Windows.
According to a Knowledge Base article on the Microsoft Web site, some security problems “cannot detect the changes that are made to the TCP/IP protocol by the revised MS05-019 security update or by the Update Rollup 1 for Windows 2000 SP4.”
The result? Some products, such as certain RealSecure and BlackICE products, “stop running, and the increased protection provided by these products is disabled,” the article says.
Sophos senior security analyst Gregg Mastoras confirmed to Microsoft Watch that the companys anti-virus software has encountered a problem with the Microsoft rollup.
He said Sophos is working on an updated version of its software, which should be available in the next week or two, that will eliminate any conflicts for Windows 2000 users.
“In regards to Sophos, we have only received one support request and we cannot reproduce the issue in our labs. If we can, we will produce a hotfix as soon as possible,” said Peter Houston, senior director of servicing strategy at Microsoft.