Second Exchange patch runs into trouble

"This is the same exact problem as the first patch," said Chuck Myntti, a system administrator at the University of Utah, who had to rebuild the mail server to rid it of the pesky patch. "I'm really frustrated with Microsoft."

Last Thursday, Microsoft revealed that users who connect to an Exchange 2000 mail server via the Web could have their mailboxes deleted or modified, thanks to a recently discovered security hole. The flaw affected servers that offered Outlook Web Access, a way for employees to read their mail via the Web.

On Friday, the company pulled down the fix after several system administrators complained that newly patched exchange servers hung, leaving any inbound e-mail to pile up on external servers. The company also announced that the flaw not only affected Exchange 2000 but Exchange 5.5 as well.

Microsoft posted the latest patch Saturday, but some system administrators are claiming that the software is still not working.

"I worked with Microsoft (technical support) for three hours," said Trey Carr, manager of information systems for ZonaFinanciera.com, a trilingual financial news site. "Apparently, they are not done with this patch yet. They could not even get it to uninstall itself."

Microsoft said the patch was not to blame.

"We talked with our support people, and the only problems they have seen have been users who have not installed the correct patch," said a representative of the company.

Yet, the system administrators claim they have not made the error.

"We had the same problem with this new patch, it just took longer--a couple days--to use up all the CPU resources (and hang)," said a third administrator. "We have decided to disable OWA until they figure this out."