InsideTech

Here's a strange one I hit a couple weekends ago:

Windows update automatically downloads and installs at shutdown. I turn the machine on the next day, and it looks like I don't have net connectivity. Walk over to the router and do the power-cycle thing. No effect. Still looks like everything's down. So maybe this is an ISP outage? Fire up another machine... nope, the Mac still has connectivity.

At this point, I'm starting to wonder about malware... But there's nothing strange in Process Explorer, and everything else is running fine. Let's check the firewall... Hmm. Every outgoing connection is being blocked. Well, that's less than ideal. So I turn off the firewall for a second. hey, connectivity is back! One quick download later, I'm up and running again with the latest version of ZoneAlarm.

Thought I'd pass that one along.