Symantec cripples thousands of Chinese PCs

A signature update to Symantec's anti-virus software crippled thousands of Chinese PCs Friday when the security software took two critical Windows .dll files for malware. "With these files removed, Windows XP will no longer start up, and even the system Safe Mode no longer functions," said one user writing to the alt.comp.anti-virus newsgroup this morning.

Symantec said. XP's recovery console is a command line-driven tool that gives limited access to the PC and its hard drive. Users writing on online forums recommended users copy the two .dll files from their Windows restore CD to the hard drive. A likely snafu in that scenario, however, is that many Chinese users don't have a restore CD because they're running pirated copies of Windows.

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