Computer Hope

Tomorrow, April 8/14 MicroSoft will stop their support of Windows XP. While I also have Windows 8 on my computer, I'm determined to stick with XP. I'm starting this thread to inform what I have done so far as regards to protection. I replaced MicroSoft Security Essentials with Avira since updates for MSE will also stop for XP only. If you're using MSE for Vista or Windows 7 you will still receive the updates. I've installed a full scanning version of Emisoft Anti-malware, a gift from a fellow malware expert. I intend to run MBAM and AdwClearer at least once a week. I will keep this thread updated as to what transpires. I seriously doubt that anything malicious will happen because even with the MS updates computers were still being infected by malware and it's been like that for almost a year. Stay tuned.

An interesting thing last night (Wednesday) when I shut down my computer. I had four updates that were installed. I'm trying to find out what was installed with not much luck.

Same here...
I also checked the MSE logs...updates still coming in @ 4 AM each day.

Quote from: patio on April 10, 2014, 11:59:28 AM
Same here...
I also checked the MSE logs...updates still coming in @ 4 AM each day.

MSE will continue to update (This is what people keep talking about when they say that "XP will still get security updates") but that is only virus definitions.  You won't however get any patches for the underlying OS.

QuoteYou won't however get any patches for the underlying OS.

I was kinda aware of that already...

I had a message last week from MS that MSE would not receive anymore updates. That's why I switched to Avira. MSE will only update for Vista and Windows 7.

Quote from: SuperDave on April 07, 2014, 06:06:21 PM
I seriously doubt that anything malicious will happen because even with the MS updates computers were still being infected by malware and it's been like that for almost a year.

The common idea is that malware authors are keeping their exploits secret or whatever until XP's End of Support. While this may be true, there is a far more dangerous problem in terms of End of Support. And certainly the idea that there is going to be a instant wave of exploits and XP computers will be compromised the instant support is dropped is silly. The real danger is not as easy to express in a sensational headline, so it's usually glossed over.

Windows XP is based on the NT codebase; effectively, Windows 8.1, Windows 7, Windows Vista, XP, 2000, NT4, etc. are all very similar, since they are effectively the same codebase (a succeeding version is not completely rewritten from the previous version).

Once XP support ends, XP will, of course, no longer be getting security patches.

However, later versions will. Malicious actors will reverse-engineer the patches provided by Microsoft for those later versions and determine what they fix and primarily what the security problem being patched is; then they will verify that the security problem being fixed was also in XP. If so- and chances are that a good percentage of security patches for later versions will be backportable to XP- that's a free exploit that will never be patched. This is worse than the current situation where those exploits are found either through intensive labour or by reverse engineering the patches and attacking only unpatched machines. Basically each update, patch, or hotfix to later systems will be a free exploit.

eg. let's say somedll.dll has an exploit that get's patched in Vista/7/8. Malware authors will find that patch, see what it changes in somedll, and find out exactly how to attack the patch fixes is made; then they will try it on XP.

if it works- free exploit. If it doesn't, move on to the next patch.

Quote from: SuperDave on April 10, 2014, 01:16:59 PM
I had a message last week from MS that MSE would not receive anymore updates. That's why I switched to Avira. MSE will only update for Vista and Windows 7.

the MSE download is no longer available for XP, but it will receive updates.

Quote
Microsoft has also stopped providing Microsoft Security Essentials for download on Windows XP. (If you already have Microsoft Security Essentials installed, you will continue to receive antimalware signature updates for a limited time, but this does not mean that your PC is secure because Microsoft is no longer providing security updates to help protect your PC.)

from here. Since it doesn't define "limited time" it a not-unreasonable idea to switch to something else.

Quotethe MSE download is no longer available for XP, but it will receive updates.

When they mentioned "limited time" I decided to switch.

The limited time is 1 year i believe i read.

I just discovered that the time period for Avira's protection on XP is also one year.

Just an update. It's been two weeks and the malware repair business has dried up. On one site that I work at there hasn't been any new threads for over two weeks.

Quote from: SuperDave on April 22, 2014, 04:37:40 PM
Just an update. It's been two weeks and the malware repair business has dried up. On one site that I work at there hasn't been any new threads for over two weeks.

I'm thinking this is more good than bad?

One more thing.
I have an old XP SP3 machine that has not been updated in two months.
So how can I find any updates it should have gotten?

Quote from: Geek-9pm on April 22, 2014, 05:23:41 PM
One more thing.
I have an old XP SP3 machine that has not been updated in two months.
So how can I find any updates it should have gotten?

The updates for XP are still available through Windows update as normal, you just won't get any new ones - All the existing ones are still there.

Thanks.
I checked the MS Social forum just now and it said what your said.
Is it piratical to get all the updrafts after SP3 and keep them on a CD?

You tend to use the word piratical waaay too much here in the Forums...

Quote from: patio on April 22, 2014, 08:59:00 PM
You tend to use the word piratical waaay too much here in the Forums...

My bad. 

Well, it's been almost four weeks since support for XP has stopped and I'm not seeing anything disasterous happening. If anything, malware infections appears to have slowed to a crawl. Either people are not being infected or they're not reporting them. I did get one patch to repair the loophole in all versions of IE and everything is running smoothly.

According to W3C statistics for May 2014, XP is still number two OS, with almost 11% of computers running it. It's anything but dead.

IMHO, end of support doesn't mean that much. I've seen dozens of machines that were fully patched and still ended up full of malware. On the other hand, at the risk of sounding like a daft caveman I'm going to say that on my old computer I'm still running XP SP2 that only has about a dozen critical security patches applied. I kept Automatic Updates service disabled. I'm scanning my computers regularly with DDS, OTL, Malwarebytes and others and in last 10 years I've only had few minor and one serious infection.
My point is that regular updates can't stop users from getting all sorts of malware on their computers. That being said, I think update are still important.

One issue you haven't considered in this topic is hardware. In third world countries such as Serbia a lot of people are still using machines with 512 MB of RAM or less. One of the government agencies here has a print server with 256 MB of RAM and it has XP with no antivirus. We tried installing a few supposedly lightweight ones, and we disabled everything non-essential, but it was just too slow with any AV. This government agency struggles to obtain monthly supply of paper, so new hardware and new software licences are definitely out of the question. They are going to keep on using XP machines for a long as the hardware lasts. According to their accountants cleaning up malware is cheaper than new computers.

Quote from: miloske on July 01, 2014, 03:09:53 AM
One issue you haven't considered in this topic is hardware. In third world countries such as Serbia a lot of people are still using machines with 512 MB of RAM or less. One of the government agencies here has a print server with 256 MB of RAM and it has XP with no antivirus. We tried installing a few supposedly lightweight ones, and we disabled everything non-essential, but it was just too slow with any AV. This government agency struggles to obtain monthly supply of paper, so new hardware and new software licences are definitely out of the question. They are going to keep on using XP machines for a long as the hardware lasts. According to their accountants cleaning up malware is cheaper than new computers.

I'm far from a Linux advocate but in those types of situations the best alternative is very likely a Linux distribution, even if it means using an older version, and especially for servers. The only downside there is that most government agencies or corporations have some of the most ridiculously fragile software suites being used (in house software written in the 90's for MS-DOS being run via XP is not uncommon in some cases) so that is really the barrier in those cases. And- of course- that barrier is the same for Linux as it would be for new versions of Windows (assuming that were even viable in their case).

But at the same time, it is foolish to expect a company to support a product for eternity. It just doesn't make economic sense for a company to sink costs into support for customers who's last purchase with the company was over a decade ago.

Quote from: BC_Programmer on July 01, 2014, 10:12:35 AM
...  at the same time, it is foolish to expect a company to support a product for eternity. It just doesn't make economic sense for a company to sink costs into support for customers who's last purchase with the company was over a decade ago.

Would putty like a job as a new car salesman?    

Quote from: BC_Programmer on July 01, 2014, 10:12:35 AM
best alternative is very likely a Linux distribution, even if it means using an older version, and especially for servers

You don't really need older distributions, Debian, Vector, Lubuntu/Xubuntu and other distros with LXDE or XFCE run nicely on 256 MB of RAM ( and even on 128) and any machine with less than that is not very useful.

I agree with you about using Linux and had they been paying me enough I would have set up Linux print server.

One of the hurdles when it comes to adopting Linux here in Serbia is that at least 80% of the users call you up if you haven't placed their desktop icons on the exact same spot after re-installation. When you give Linux to such people you have to go to their office at least several times to show them how to open up "Excel". An ideal OS for those kind of people is Win 8. It freaks them out so much that they don't date touch the computer (many of the employees in government agencies don't actually have to do their jobs).

Microsoft and other companies certainly can't be expected to support products forever, but IMO Microsoft should have continued at least limited support for a while longer. XP could have continued to bring profit for long time. Perhaps they could have even managed to make and sell some sort of upgrades for it.

According to this article Windows updates can be extended by 5 years. What do you think about this?

Is this Déjà vu all over again?
It seems  MS can not finish up on Win 8.1 so logically they should continue helping those of use wait are waiting for 8.1 to be fixed before we drop XP.

This is drawing parallels where there are none. Many updates on Windows Operating Systems have requisites; one update may require another update be installed first. This is the same deal. The only difference is that some people are considering "updates" a different version of the OS. The reasoning provided is flawed:

Quote
or many it is no big deal. Just update and be quick about it. But for anyone who chooses not to install every Microsoft update the moment it appears, like mainstream users or – let me think – most businesses around the world who have lengthy validation processes... it is another matter entirely.
So come 13 May Microsoft will issue security patches that detail flaws they are fixing and those flaws will be left unpatched for all Windows 8.1 users until they apply Update 1. A nightmare scenario.

This is somewhat "FUDdy" in a way. Why would a company with "lengthy validation processes" be installing newer updates before they have the older ones validated? Why wouldn't those new ones be subject to the same auditing? The answer is- They would be and thus this isn't/wasn't really a problem. And it's all moot because the security window was extended anyway. (30 to 120 days)

I don't see anywhere in that post about XP's updates being extended by 5 years (or any updates, for that matter).

Just now, today Sept 28, fond this on om's Hardware:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2986228/windows-2016.html
Who still using windows xp in 2016?

QuoteMy question would be, why does it matter to you?
There are plenty of reasons to still be running Windows XP. The most obvious being I still have viable hardware that won't run on anything newer.

Huh?
Better answer:
http://www.technobuffalo.com/2016/04/08/windows-xp-the-third-most-popular-os-after-15-years/

QuoteDespite all this, Windows XP's 10.9 percent share of the market means it has a larger install base than Apple's latest OS X El Capitan software (4.05 percent), and Windows 8.1 (9.56 percent). Windows 10 just about beats it with 14.15 percent

I have XP on a Pentium M laptop as well as a Pentium -based desktop. Trying to use anything newer would be like trying to make Turducken backwards.

I just had some updates the other day which really surprised me.

Me too. No idea of what it did.

They are security uodates...which will continue for the next 2 years...

Ignore the naysayers,

Thanks for sharing this info. keep it up.