A few weeks ago I posted that users of Symantec’s security software had experienced problems after updating their computers to Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3), a bug emptied the Windows’ Device Driver, deleted network connections and created additional unneeded entries in the registry. Symantec released a free tool to clean up the Windows XP SP3 registry corruption, now Microsoft have issued a hot fix that should re-establish lost Internet and wireless connections.

Although Microsoft had previously declined to comment on the episode, the support document that accompanied the hot fix fingered Symantec’s software. “This problem occurs when the Fixccs.exe process is called during the Windows XP SP3 installation,” said Microsoft. “This process creates some intermediate registry subkeys, and it later deletes these subkeys. In some cases, some antivirus applications may not let the Fixccs.exe process delete these intermediate registry subkeys.”

The hot fix replaces the Fixccs.exe file with an updated version, but it can only be applied if the user has booted into Windows’ Safe Mode, according to the support document. To download the hot fix from the Microsoft site click here.
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