[ Note that, at time of posting, the InfoWorld headline for
this story says “Oracle” instead of “Outlook” – LT ed. ]
“In a rare mea culpa, Microsoft this week admitted that
vulnerabilities in its Outlook e-mail program helped propagate the
damaging “I Love You” worm, prompting the software giant to release
a free security upgrade to protect users from opening and spreading
computer viruses. Yet some observers say that although
Microsoft’s intention is good, the patch leaves much to be
desired.”
“Specifically, some analysts and IT managers say the fix is too
file-attachment restrictive and impedes such functions as Palm
synchronization. Another major gripe of IT managers is the “all or
nothing” aspect of its installation, meaning the upgrade cannot be
uninstalled without wiping clean the entire Microsoft Office suite
and starting from scratch.”
“If we were to push something like that to our clients, it would
be a nightmare because we’d have to go fix [reinstall] the entire
system. It’s unwieldy and unreasonable to expect people to do
that,” said Alex Polomski, network systems manager at the
Massachusetts Department of Education, in Malden.”