The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[Ken]

I purchased sudoku on 7/2/2005, installed it, entered the key and name, and the program functioned as advertised.

This morning, 7/7/2005, it gave me an error message that "sudo.exe" was missing and gave an old-fashioned Windows 3 pathname. Despite that, I managed to find the directory it was referring to and verified that indeed, sudo.exe was not there. There was a sudo.exe.manifest file. Changing its name to sudo.exe did not solve the problem.

I uninstalled sudoku and deleted the appropriate references to it in the registry in case there was spurious information there about a trial period. I redownloaded the software and attempted to install it. The process aborted. It complained that the source file "sudo.exe" was missing from the same screwy path name.

I have Kaspersky Antivirus. My understanding is that it deleted sudo.exe this morning because it (sudo.exe) allegedly or inadvertently delivers a virus of some sort, or behaves as if it does.

Can you deliver a functioning, virus-free version of this product? If not, you must issue refunds. How do I get my money back?

[svinoly]

And I want my money back too.

[simes]

This is almost cetainly a false positive. Perhaps you should be asking Kaspersky what they will be doing about it?

Tell Kapersky where they can download Sudoku, and ask them to tell you what virus it is... or isn't.

[Ken]

That is a conversation that has to take place between Kaspersky and the developer.

It may be that the developer is using a deprecated programming trick has recently been adopted by virus writers, which makes Sudoku look like a virus, in which case the best solution is for the developer to clean up his code, because correcting it on Kaspersky's end leaves people open to viruses.

Or it may be that Kaspersky's algorithm is showing a false positive, in which case Kaspersky should correct it in the next hourly update.

Kaspersky updates its virus definitions hourly. The default setting in the software is to update once every three hours. Therefore, if the developer is using a deprecated programming technique that has been adopted by virus writers, Kaspersky would be the first to detect it, and the other anti-virus programs will detect it as they catch up.

If on the other hand Kaspersky made a mistake, they can correct it very quickly.

Either way, the developer needs to contact Kaspersky, not me, because I am just an innocent bystander here. I don't have access to Sudoku's source code (nor would I understand it if I did) and I don't have access to Kaspersky's inner workings (ditto).

[Ken]

Kaspersky cannot be the problem. I disabled realtime protection and Sudoku still refused to install on the grounds that sud.exe was not present.

[Pappocom]

For further correspondence on this topic, please see the Topic Sudo Vanished! Was it Kaspersky? Is it a Trojan?

- Wayne.

[Pappocom]

I emailed Kaspersky and here is their reply:

Hello.

This problem already fixed.
Wrong record removed from our av bases.

Sincerely yours,
Pavel Zelensky
Virus analyst

Kaspersky Lab Ltd
Moscow, Russia
Tel/Fax: +7 (095) 797-8700
E-mail: newvirus@kaspersky.com
Internet: http://www.kaspersky.com, http://www.viruslist.com

So the problem is over. There never was a problem - not at my end, anyway.

Note that Kaspersky's email makes no mention of the damage that they have done to my reputation. And certainly no mention of any compensation! Ah well, just one of those things that tests the resolve of the Independent program developer...

- Wayne