EARLIER TODAY a reader told us that last week's Conficker attack in Leeds hospital was partly caused by negligent administrators who had not patched their Windows boxes. He added that they probably did not patch the operating system because very often those patches render the machines unbootable. On Tuesday came a large number of security patches for Windows [1, 2] and according to Brian Krebs from the Washington Post, those patches broke Windows XP, Microsoft's most widely deployed operating system.

If you use Windows XP and haven’t yet updated your system with the applicable security updates that Microsoft issued Tuesday, you might want to hold off for a bit. Turns out, a non-trivial number of XP users are reporting that their systems suffer from the dreaded Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) and fall into an interminable reboot loop after installing the latest batch of patches from Redmond.

If I cancel my paid subscription to Xbox Live this week (which, let's be honest, is a empty threat at best), it's in protest to what I'm about to have an almighty hissy fit about.

Here's the vexation: When I switch on my Xbox, I do not expect to have smutty advertisements for body spray thrust in my face. I don't really expect any ads -- I already pay for the service, after all. But if you must promote something, promote some DLC for a game you know I regularly play, perhaps.

According to Gamespot, the suit seeks a minimum of $10 million in damages, depending on how MS decides to defend itself.

Some consoles are being bricked by Thursday's dashboard update. Issues range from freezing, red ring of death and VGA adapterm alfunction. Microsoft isn't acknowledging the issue and billing $140 for repairs.

Since yesterday's update, there are numerous reports about 360s being bricked. Some people suspect that this is being done by Microsoft intentionally to stop modders and hackers. Xbox Scene thinks it has more to do with certain combinations of hardware and firmware.

I was fine yesterday gaming with the VGA cable but after getting the autoupdate today, I get a black screen. Does Microsoft test these things? My connection to the TV didn't change yet its screwed. Thanks for nothing Microsoft.

This autumn, Microsoft acknowledged that a glitch in the Xbox's online update system damaged a small number of customers' consoles before the problem was quickly fixed. At least one customer has sued over the incident.

While the patch was supposed to solve the problem of whammy bar responsiveness on GH2 controllers, it also seemed to have the unfortunate side-effect of bricking and freezing consoles, if the Xbox 360 forums are any indication.