Software update shuts down thousands of University of Michigan Health System, Medical School computers

Posted on Wed, Apr 21, 2010 : 1:24 p.m.

University of Michigan officials are working to find a major computer fix after nearly a third of Health System and Medical School computers went down around 11 a.m. on Wednesday.

An update to a computer virus protection program from McAfee was being pushed out onto the system when it was discovered the update conflicted with the Windows operating system on the computers, a spokeswoman for the university said.

U-M was just one major institution among thousands of users impacted Wednesday when the McAfee antivirus software update was found to misidentify a harmless file. The problem affected users of the Window XP operating system.

â€¢ See the Twitter buzz about the problem at twitter.com/#search?q=mcafee.

U-M computer staff members were able to remotely stop the update before it affected additional users, U-M spokeswoman Kara Gavin said.

In all, about 8,000 of 25,000 computers in the system were taken offline by the problem, she said.

No patient care was was compromised Wednesday as the computers went down because enough computers remained up and running to perform necessary functions, she said. Some areas did have to use paper or share computers.

A call to McAfee was not immediately returned Wednesday afternoon.

Gavin said she was not sure when the problem would be fixed and computers would be restored to normal.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Tina Reed covers health and the environment for AnnArbor.com. You can reach her at tinareed@annarbor.com, call her at 734-623-2535 or find her on Twitter @TreedinAA.