Cuartango said he received hundreds of e-mails on Monday from people who could not install the patch and were also unable to reach Microsoft for technical support. Microsoft officials admitted Sunday that the message is an error and urged everyone who received it to return to the company website , download either Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 Service Pack 1 or Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 Service Pack 1, and then reinstall the patch. But installing this patch seems to require the help of an entire technical support team. Cuartango also said he has received many e-mails from people who say the patch will not work no matter on what version of IE they are trying to install it. Most users who are experiencing problems are trying to install the patch over an unsupported version of Internet Explorer, Culp said.
Some users disagree.
So, this critical patch does not work, the public is put at risk and all the publicity increases the number of possible abusers of this security hole. I guess everyone should just duck and cover. Some security consultants also say they have heard from users who said they are having problems with the patch despite following Microsoft's installation instructions. I advised them to download a new version of IE 5.5 Service Pack 1, uninstall their old version of IE, and then install IE again and apply the patch. Some people can not seem to install the patch, no matter how carefully they follow Microsoft's instructions.