McAfee patches customers' hearts with subscription extension, reimbursement for PC repairs
By Donald Melanson 
posted April 27th 2010 11:51AM
posted April 27th 2010 11:51AM
McAfee's little issue with a security update that sent Windows XP computers far and wide to a screeching halt was fairly unprecedented as far as anti-virus software goes, and it looks like the company is now taking some considerable steps to make up for the mess it created. Not only is it handing out a free two-year subscription extension to all affected customers, but it will soon be starting a program to reimburse "reasonable expenses" that customers have incurred in repairing their PCs. Complete details on that program aren't available just yet, but it will apparently be starting "within a few days," and will involve submitting a reimbursement request to McAfee. Given the number of users involved, however, we've got to guess that McAfee won't be buying folks new PCs, and chances are it'll take quite a while to get your check in the mail, though we'll just have to wait to see exactly what McAfee has planned.
Kudos to them for making it up to customers.
@Evan
Kudos?
They had no choice, the customers most affected was corp...
the bread and butter of this crap software company.
they would all bail out...
if this was home PC computers all they would give is %25 off next renew..
F-U McFailee
@AppleDrank You are seriously overestimating the backlash that something like this would have. You think that big companies are going to spend hundreds of man hours and thousands of dollars to switch to and set up new security software on every company computer, causing more downtime, because of this? You sir, are delusional.
@Evan
Yes, because they would not pay for it... the law suit against McAfee would pay for it....
Mc.Afee is just doing what costs less... and will still be sued...
@Evan Companies that have to spend hundreds of man hours to deploy new software will do it automatically. This will happen with the push of a policy.
Nice to see a company stepping up and making things right.
Good move McAfee.
@helpitcrashedagaincom
I second that it's a good move by McAfee.
And I also wonder aloud why Engadget states that "chances are it'll take quite a while to get your check in the mail". Is there some precedent with McAfee being slow?
@NHAnimator All corps take a huge amount of time to reimburse money. Anticipate 2-3 months "processing" time. Trust me. NO ONE will be seeing a check in under a month.
wow its gonna take years to get checks. most computers on my campus run xp and have mcafee and i dont think there were any problems.
"Not only is it handing out a free two-year subscription extension to all current customers..."
I got excited but it seems from the source link that it only applied to affected customers. Which makes a bit more sense.
I don't think a lot of people will trust that free 2 year subscription though....
While its good that they're atleast trying, the last thing that anyone wants after having to deal with that trouble last week is more McAffee. My entire building was basically shut down last tuesday thanks to the issue
@216 Ditto. Thousands of computers at my company were hit with this "virus". I'm encouraging everyone I know to uninstall it and use something else. I don't expect my company to switch, as mindless as they are, but if they had any integrity at all they would. This isn't the first sign that McAfee's quality control was complete garbage.
i definitely want another two years of software that just destroyed my computer
@Uncontrol
"destroyed" is a little harsh, don't you think? I ran the fix from McAfee and was up and running inside of 3 minutes...sheesh...
@cmajewsk
You ran the fix on 1 machine. Some of us had to do it on 1,000 or more, so no that's not harsh at all. Needless to say, this is the final nail in the coffin for our McAfee contract.
@cmajewsk
Now multiply the time it took you by a couple of thousand. Couple that with the fact that you have to physically walk to each machine and connect an external drive with the fix to get the PC running again. Now imagine you're a national or possibly international company and your PCs are spread over America or the world. The potential impact could run into weeks and millions of dollars. Perhaps they didn't destroy the PC but they sure cost their big customers big money.
@cmajewsk I spent HOURS on one computer because I didn't have admin rights. Are you sure you actually got hit by this thing? It deleted a critical file causing continuous reboots. Disabled internet access. Disabled USB. Took away the start menu. Most of the suggested fixes assumed all of this wasn't true. For us it was a nightmare. And our company had THOUSANDS of computers hit by this. People lost days of productivity.
blah, what's worse, this or a virus?
@Schmid7y
A virus. Any more questions?
@Schmid7y
there's a difference between McCafee and a virus?
@Duckman
The only thing worse than McAfee is Norton.
I wonder what happened to the programming \ testing team (maybe they don't test?) that created this nasty little thang...
I think they should meet up with Gray Powell :P
Eh, I still use AVG Free and Spybot. Free programs, and I've had no issue.
Their mistake cost me 2 days of work, why would I want an extension of my subscription?!
Personal computer: Maybe you should just know wtf you are doing online and then you don't need an antivirus.
Office computer: It isn't like you didn't get paid for those two days, what company would do that?
@Evan "Maybe you should just know wtf you are doing online and then you don't need an antivirus."
wrong.
That's going to cost them a few quid I guess.
Note that the reimbursement is only for home/home office users. Corp users that were hosed for a couple of days are still dangling in the breeze for whatever costs they incurred.
I'm surprised anyone trusted McAfee period with securing their PCs, and for 2 more years after this mess?
I'm just glad ESET is out there watching my back.
What people seem to miss is that it was like 0.3% of subscribers that had this problem.
@greg787 You're assuming that McAfee isn't LYING if you believe that number. They also said people had "minor performance problems". And that number was thrown around by McAfee before there was any possibility that the could know the actual number. Read Ed Bott's coverage of the subject before you repeat their lies.
Again: My company has maybe 40,000 employees and I know that halfway through the day the tech support guy we talked to said they'd already dealt with over 3,000 and the on hold queue was still a couple of hours long. I don't know what the final number was, but it was a lot higher than 0.3%. Our IT department should thank god some people use Linux or Macs or don't run the IT software load...
You couldn't pay me enough to put that * on my comp- $5 million you say?
Seriously though, I don't care how many discounts McAfee hands out, they'll never touch my PC.
so we get the mcafee virus for free now? yippee
I hate to break it to everyone but Microsoft Security Essentials is all you need on a PC. I hate the way McAfee and Norton take advantage of the common person's lack of know how.
@darthgault
...same goes for useless defrag program vendors.
@darthgault
the same goes for Apple computers...
all shite!
@AppleDrank
@emag
@darthgault
Yep - I'm happy with Microsoft Security Essentials.
Cost = $0
I don't know what purpose McAfee and Norton have anymore.
@darthgault
Good luck with that one. I've installed it on 3 friends PCs (all cheapskates), all came back with viruses and malware. The latest was the Security Tool, which was a b***** to remove. I couldn't believe MSE didn't block it.
For kicks I tried installing Security Tool on my machine with ESET (only program I would ever trust)...hahahahaha, yeah right, blocked it immediately.
Moral of the story: Don't kid yourself trusting anything from MS (McAfee sucks too).
It's good, and a bit amazing, to see the company trying to make good. The company gets points for that.
In contrast, I had a competitor company's rep. hang up on me, after a software issue "solution" offered by the company's tech. trashed my Windows system files, making my computer unworkable, and my asking the rep. what we could do to fix matters.
I hope people know there is absolutely no reason to use McAfee products.
Free virus protection is available from Microsoft that works very well.
If you want to pay for it...then choose ESET!
Good to see big business looking out for the little people....If more companies addressed their customer service problems like this rather than just ignore it ... world would be a better place
they really didn't have a choice in this matter. Because their software was effectively a virus in itself I would not be surprised if some companies filed suit against mcafee for damages. This move seems nice and all, but the cost of losing a days work or more would be enough for me to cancel a subscription with them and get antivirus from another provider. Like a few people have mentioned, when thousands of computers get turfed like this, it really affects the productivity of the business.
Loving the photoshop.
"Total protection... from a usable computer"
I hope lunk head executives take note....When there is a recession, QA is one of the first departments to get downsized. Executives have a hard time seeing the value add... until something like this happens.
I had a better idea.. got Zone Alarm instead
@obobo Sorry, but my experience with Zone Alarm has not been encouraging. I wouldn't go near it again.
Could someone tell me the difference between McAfee and Malwarebytes? Can I uninstall McAfee if I have a full version of Malwarebytes? Thanks in advance.