Microsoft's latest set of updates for Office XP is
causing headaches for users of two junk mail filtering
products.
After installing Office XP Service Pack 3 (SP3), users of
Sunbelt Software's iHateSpam and Cloudmark's SpamNet are
complaining about security warnings popping up with each e-mail
message they receive, according to reports on the Windows NTBugtraq
mailing list.
Both Sunbelt and Cloudmark acknowledge the problem and have
posted support bulletins on their websites. Sunbelt has released an
update to its software to fix the problem while Cloudmark said it
is working with Microsoft to solve the issue.
Office XP SP3 contains security enhancements for the Office
suite in addition to stability and performance improvements.
After installing SP3, each e-mail received triggers a dialogue
box alerting the user that a program is trying to access e-mail
addresses stored in Outlook and warning that this could be related
to a computer virus. There is no indication of what program is
accessing Outlook, according to the NTBugtraq posting.
Microsoft is investigating the issue.
Cloudmark received complaints from a handful of its customers
and hopes to fix the problem soon.
"The people we have heard from have been consumers who use the
desktop product. We are working internally and with Microsoft to
resolve the problem before SP3 is widely deployed," said
spokeswoman Tricia Fahey.
Cloudmark's SpamNet is used by consumers and enterprise
users.
It is possible that enterprise customers have not discovered the
problem because they have yet to install the Office update, she
said.
Typically large organisations perform regression tests on any
software update to make sure it does not cause any problems on
their systems.
Joris Evers writes for IDG News Service