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	The BugBlog uses monthly archives. All the December bugs will be on this page. Use the links on the left or below to jump back to past months. The BugBlog is free- but if you want to help support its existence, please make a donation via PayPal using the button at left. Better yet, subscribe to the BugBlog Plus. A three month subscription is only $5.
12/10	Windows XP Wizard Says to Insert Floppy into Drive C: Windows XP has a somewhat-useful Forgotten Password Wizard. Why only somewhat useful? If you are running Windows XP on a computer that doesn't have a floppy disk drive, when you run the wizard it will prompt you to insert a floppy disk into drive C. Since that's normally a hard drive, it might prove to be a little difficult. Microsoft has a hotfix for this, which will be in a future Windows XP service pack. If you think you need this feature (you don't have a floppy drive and you refuse to write down your passwords somewhere) you may want to contact Microsoft Technical Support and ask for the hotfix described in Knowledge Base article 830680. Note that you may be charged for this call.
12/9	iTunes for Windows Falls Prey to a Removable Drive Bug If you are using an iPod and iTunes for Windows, watch out if the drive letter after your iPod has been mapped to a network drive. If so, both iTunes and Windows Explorer will show the wrong amount of open drive space on the iPod. Apple points the finger at Microsoft, showing that it is a more general problem with removable disks on both Windows 2000 and XP, as shown by http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=297694.
12/8	Firewall False Alarm with Adobe Creative Suite Adobe says that if you start any of the applications in the Adobe Creative Suite (ACS), such as Adobe Photoshop CS, Adobe Illustrator CS, Adobe InDesign CS, Adobe GoLive CS, or Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Professional, and you have a firewall running, there may be a report that the Adobe application is trying to access the Internet. According to Adobe, what happens is the file management system within ACS identifies the name and IP address of the computer when starting up. However, Adobe says that no data gets transferred from the computer unless you configure it as a networked computer.
12/6	In OneNote 2003, a Thousand Words May be Worth a Picture Microsoft says that if you paste text from an outline in OneNote 2003 into an Outlook 2003 contact, it gets pasted as a picture and not as text. Since you probably want it as text, since it is easier to manipulate, you have to do this: copy the text out of the OneNote outline; open the contact in Outlook 2003 where you want to paste; click where you want to paste, and then click Edit, Paste Special, HTML. Read the special report on bugs, incompatibilities and other problems in entertainment software and hardware.
12/5	Service Pack Makes IE Draw a Blank After you install Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 to a Windows 2000 computer, IE may have problems loading a page that has frames and where the URL has a long query string. You may end up with a blank page and it will appear IE has locked up. This has been fixed in the November 2003 Cumulative Security Update for Microsoft Internet Explorer. You can get this at http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=824145.
12/4	IPSec and Tunneling Updates for Windows 2000/XP Microsoft has updated Layer Two Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) and Internet Protocol security (IPSec) for both Windows XP Service Pack 1 computers and Windows 2000 Service Pack 3. It takes care of compatibility problems for IPSec connections from behind a NAT server, as well as some other functionality and security improvements. You can see the full list, and get the links to each download, at http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=818043
12/3	Arrgh! AntiPiracy Run Amok in Norton AntiVirus Symantec has a fix for a bug in Norton AntiVirus 2004. This bug was causing NAV to prompt for product activation anytime the computer was restarted. Even if you entered the activation code every time, eventually you will get rejected with this message " The trial period has expired. This product has been disabled because you have not activated it." Symantec now has a fix so that their product will no longer treat users like pirates. It is in the file SymKBFix.exe and you can get it at http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nav.nsf/pfdocs/2003093015493306?Open
12/2	Adobe Acrobat Update Adobe has upgraded Acrobat 6.0 to the new version 6.01. The main improvements, according to Adobe, include improved compatibility with Microsoft Office 2003 and with AutoCAD 2004. There are separate upgrades for Acrobat Professional and Standard, as well as different versions for Windows and Mac. Get the one you need at http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/.
12/1	ZoneAlarm Upgrade Tightens Security ZoneAlarm Pro 4.5.530.0 tightens security by implementing new measures to block host file tampering. This helps prevent someone from spoofing a web site. This update also has what Zone Labs terms "routine maintenance" plus eBay online fraud protection.
11/30	Internet Explorer Vulnerability Announced New security flaws in Microsoft Internet Explorer were announced to the public by researchers, before they were reported to Microsoft. Therefore, vulnerability information is out there without a fix yet. This story on CNet has some of the background.
11/26	Microsoft Works Suite Vulnerable To Bugs Found Earlier Three security bulletins dating from September 2003 have been updated by Microsoft to recognize that the security bugs also affect Microsoft Works Suite 2004. (Probably since Microsoft Word is part of the suite. It only took two months to figure this out?) So if you are are Works Suite 2004 user, you are vulnerable to a flaw via Visual Basic for Applications that may allow an attacker to run code on your computer. You also face a buffer overrun in the WordPerfect converter, plus a bug in Word macros may also let an attacker run code on your machine. The BugBlog Plus has info on a number of hotfixes for problems with Windows Server 2003. The BugBlog won't be updated 11/27 and 11/28, although there will be updates over the weekend.

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