The bug affects Windows 2000 Professional and Windows 2000 Server with the Nortel Networks VPN client installed and the IPSec Policy Agent is set to Manual or Automatic on startup. The bug causes Win2K to try repeatedly to load drivers that won’t load successfully, causing the machine to stop responding or experience 100 percent system resource usage. The bug could also leave users unable to log on to Windows.

Microsoft’s recommended workaround involves turning off the IPSec Policy Agent service. “Microsoft is researching this problem and will post more information in this article when the information becomes available,” it said.