From: Andrew Aronoff (aaronoffAYA.YALE.EDU)
Date: Tue Dec 09 2003 - 04:04:54 CST

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Hello Vesselin,

>>> Apparently Microsoft is forcing its MSN Messenger 6.1.01xx users to
>>> upgrade to MSN Messenger 6.1.0203.

> C'mon, folks, this issue is several months old.

IMHO, this isn't the same issue. Users of MSN Messenger (MSNM)
versions *prior to 6.0* (I was content with version 4.7 -- see below
for why) were forced to upgrade by mid-October.

> Apparently, the deadline has been reached and they have stopped
> supporting the old version.

The "old" version that's being discussed here is the version that was
imposed as an upgrade. I'm currently using MSNM 6.0 and I have
received no upgrade notices.

> They are simply forcing a security patch because they can.

No one's sure that this is a security patch -- hence the initial post
in this thread.

IAC, I'll exploit this thread to discuss an Event Viewer alarm flood
bug in MSNM 6.0/6.1. I'm running MSNM on W2K SP4, but this problem was
also noticed under SP3. Whenever I log off or shut down (as a Power
User or Admin), an event is added to the AppLog:

Source: EventSystem
Category: Event Service
Type: Warning
Event ID: 4106
Description: The COM+ Event System detected a corrupt
 IEventSubscription object. The COM+ Event System has removed object
 ID {UNIQUE_GUID_HERE}. The subscriber will no longer be notified when
 the event occurs.

The problem also occurred with MSNM 5.0 and Windows Messenger 5.0. It
disappeared completely if I downgraded to MSNM 4.7, but as of
mid-October, this version is no longer functional.

Event Viewer alarm floods are undesirable because they hide
significant events. I especially do not appreciate such floods in MS
apps, since MS should be ensuring that such problems are absent in
beta testing (if not before).

I've posted to MS newsgroups about this problem, but have had no
response:
 http://tinyurl.com/rt1b
 http://tinyurl.com/p65v

... and I'm not the only one to have noticed it:
 http://tinyurl.com/ydx4
 http://tinyurl.com/ydxg
 http://tinyurl.com/ydxo
 http://tinyurl.com/ydxu
 http://tinyurl.com/ydy3

I followed Eaton's registry edit directions at EventID.net:
http://www.eventid.net/display.asp?eventid=4106
... but that had no effect.

I obtained the COM+ hotfix detailed in MSKB 819995, but it had no
effect, either.

I'm dismayed by the following:

1. Few users seem to monitor the Event Viewer, fewer know how to
   interpret errors, fewer detect alarm floods, and fewer still
   determine the responsible app. When someone finally notices,
   they're ignored because the problem hasn't been reported.

2. Apparently, MS doesn't vet its apps for event log floods before
   it releases them. It also doesn't ensure that such floods are
   eliminated in upgrades (such as MSNM 5.0 -> 6.0 -> 6.1).

regards, Andy

-----
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is available from http://www.amazon.com/ranum In this hard-hitting
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-----

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