Beware when you use Kaspersky antivirus software on Windows XP because the new update may render you offline after download.

The new upload was only released yesterday and it reportedly makes Windows XP computers lose their Internet connection after being downloaded.

Numerous IT administrators who rely upon Kaspersky Endpoint Security had a lot to complain about in the Kaspersky forum right from the time it was released. They complained about the connectivity problems with much anger. One person manages more than 12,000 computers using the KES and he noted that the calls to the help desk were slain because all the users were knocked off the Internet.

A few IT admins say that they were successfully able to gain Internet access by following a few steps such as ceasing the monitoring of a few ports. Some others even tried disabling the Web Anti-Virus part of the product. However, these are only temporary solutions.

Finally Kaspersky came out in the open and accepted the problem. They announced that that the bug would be fixed soon enough with a new resolution.

Some commenters followed the steps offered by Kaspersky but they noted that there were delays. Some others were too annoyed with the way Kaspersky shied away from the problem and did not address is better and they resorted to using harsh words.

"I just wanted to thank the good folks at Kaspersky for insuring that my hospital has either crippled or no AntiVirus," one commenter said. "The workaround of disabling A/V is outright stupid."

There were others who condemned Kaspersky’s failure to answer most of the complaints by users on the forum.

"I can't believe that Kaspersky is not responding to any of these forums," one commenter said. "That is horrible. One more reason why we will be switching to a different antivirus vendor after the contract is done."

Kaspersky send a statement to CNET in which it accepted the problem and made a note of the affected products. It also gave complex, long steps to fix the problem.