Can't download MSE now BUT there will be UPDATES (RE:WinXP)

[ShyWriter]

.

Will my PC be at risk after support ends for Windows XP?

 

PCs running Windows XP after April 8, 2014 should not be considered to be truly protected.

 

After support ends for Windows XP on April 8, 2014, Microsoft will no longer provide security updates for Windows XP to help protect your PC against malware. On this same date, Microsoft will also stop providing Microsoft Security Essentials for download on Windows XP.

 

If you already have Microsoft Security Essentials installed when support ends for Windows XP, you will continue to receive Microsoft Security Essentials updates for a limited time to help identify malware on your PC. You can also still get the Malicious Software Removal Tool for Windows XP for a limited time through Windows Update and the Download Center.

 

These updates to our antimalware products for Windows XP can help detect and block certain malware on your Windows XP PC while you complete your transition to a fully supported operating system. It’s important to note, however, that because antimalware products have limited effectiveness on PCs that do not have the latest security updates, your PC will still be at risk for infection.

 

We strongly recommend that you complete your migration to a supported operating system as soon as possible so that you can receive regular security updates to help protect your computer from malicious attacks.

 

SOURCE: Quoted from portion of http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security-essentials-download?os=winxp&arch=other

 

/Steve

 

[daledoc1]

Yeah, that dude at SF claimed that MSE was SHUT DOWN by one of today's patches...

Didn't make any sense.

 

These two look helpful.

Of course, there are a ton of such posts/articles all over the net, with more to come, I'm sure.

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2014/04/06/patch-tuesday-for-april-2014-its-goodbye-farewell-and-amen-for-windows-xp/

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2014/04/01/42-days-to-go-for-xp-8-tips-if-you-arent-going-to-make-it/

 

Thanks

[CWB]

ohhhh yeeeahhh ... the show is about to begin .

/me starts making popcorn and chilling the sodas .

[John L. Galt]

Here is what is happening as soon as the patch was installed for MSE:

 

1. MSE goes into 'unprotected' mode, with a red icon in the system tray.
2. On every boot, MSE pops up a warning that the system is no longer protected.

Screenshots to follow - from my Windows XP Mode box.

 

When you see the screenshots, then it may be a bit more understandable why folks, particularly novice computer users, may think it was Shut down.

[John L. Galt]

Screenshots:

 

Popup warning:

 

 

Main MSE Window:

 

 

Tray Icon:

 

[CWB]

i looked at the site you linked to ...

on the opening page , near the top of the list was an topic about installing an XP theme on lubuntu ... i'll be giving this a try a bit later on .

i wonder if it will load/work with mint 13LTS ?

if not , i have plenty of boxes to load lubuntu on .

[Mark]

I thought I had one XP VM with MSE, but I don't (replaced MSE for Avira a while back).

 

The tray icon should not be hijacked this way. I look at AV tray icons to verify whether there is a situation with the antivirus, or not. With this stupid red with white X on it now, you can't know if there's a real problem with MSE. Red icon with checkmark would have been much smarter. Bad judgment call, M$.

[John L. Galt]

Well, technically, in their mind, you're unprotected - you're using a low end OS with a low end AV solution.

[Mark]

Technically, the AV is still working and updated. The icon is for the AV, not for fearmongering.

 

They can try to justify this any way they want. It's still bad judgement in my view. But I do see your point (*in their mind*), though I don't agree they are right at all in doing it this way.

 

[CWB]

ehhh ...

maybe they're trying to instill/start a/the "chicken little" syndrome ?

[John L. Galt]

There are people who don't know that XP is at its official EOL as of right now.  While I agree that it is a scare tactic, there are plenty of people who would not know otherwise unless it was for such scare tactics.

[Mark]

A nagging balloon tip would be better than this. Don't mess with an AV icon just to "remind people" they need to spend money on a new MS system and new hardware while they're at it. And what about folks who don't have MSE on XP ? How is M$ reminding them ?

 

Don't get me wrong : I'm not against moving away from XP, for those users who are going to be at risk (those who surf and can't take care of an outdated system properly, etc...).

I am against hijacking a tray icon which serves a purpose. They've kept MSE alive for XP, then let users benefit from basic features like tray notifications. If not, then just pull the plug on MSE (for XP) and stop playing games.

 

On a side note : I've installed a little program named Windows Defender Status Manager (from ITknowledge24) on W8 installs I have ; this creates a tray icon for Windows Defender (aka MSE) in W8/8.1. That's how much I care about having an AV tray icon, because MS just doesn't get it... and have proven that point again with this silly stunt for XP. Plain silly.

[John L. Galt]

No, because users like my mother completely ignore balloon tips.

 

You have to realize that the common denominator in all this is not experienced users like ourselves but ignorant, novice and unobservant users - of which there are too many to shake a stick at.

 

And for all intents and purposes they did not hack the icon, they used the same icon that it normally puts there when the MSE is having issues, such as the service not running, or realtime protection disabled.

 

And they do not want to pull the plug abruptly because of several reason:

 

1. Users as I mentioned above who still don't know XP is no longer being maintained.
2. Users who cannot afford to upgrade their computer
3. Users who have no choice but to use XP (like in a corporate environment - read the posts in general chat about Dutch, British gov'ts).

This is the warning period - an If they had opted to just abruptly pull the plug you can bet there would be a much bigger outcry about M$ using Draconian methods to force users to upgrade, or else Draconian methods that left millions of users virtually unprotected overnight.

 

Think about it carefully and tell me that this is not the best option under all these circumstances.

[Mark]

Ok, let's go over what my beef is, because I do get your point but I don't think you're getting mine :

 

- People who ignore balloon tips may also have no clue as to why the MSE icon is red with a white X. These same people may not even know how to launch the MSE interface so how are they going to see the big warning inside MSE ?

- Your observations concern only those who have Security Essentials as antivirus. Those who use a third party AV (or no AV at all) will not have this issue - this warning. Which is why I brought up balloon tips. Other ideas of notification are welcome.

- The AV tray icon, as you've stated above, should serve as a monitor for the AV Service and general state of the program ; when a problem arises, the MSE icon turns to orange or red. Orange with an exclamation point when a scan hasn't been performed in a long time, or red with a white X for seriously outdated defs or other important problems.

 

Tray icons have been around a long time. Speaking for myself, they catch my eye when something is wrong or when their status changes. My peripheral vision catches them when something is different, flashing or whatnot. I can't help it, and that's good in my book.

Imagine when one icon, especially the AV (we're security minded folks after all), turns to red. And stays that way, day in / day out. My brain is wired to react. Re-wiring takes only a short amount of time though, and sooner than later I won't notice the icon anymore. Is that good ? Nope, because I'd have no idea if anything was wrong with the AV.

 

That's my beef. AV icons should allow us to monitor the AV. Period. Unexperienced users with XP + MSE have just lost an important notification tool.

 

There  must be a better way to notify them. Balloon tips is just one idea. Some people don't see them, I know, but the same goes with the hijacked MSE tray icon, which shouldn't have been hijacked in the first place.

[CWB]

"the wheel that squeaks gets the most grease"

perhaps (more like you bet yer arse) MS is quite aware that there are those users that :

cannot afford to upgrade

cannot afford another comp

cannot afford a third party AV/AM

and other items along a similar tack .

 

MS is also quite aware that there are users that do not fall into the above categories ; those that are not hip technically .

i see this as the big issue ... ignorance may be bliss but blithely ignoring the situation at hand does no one any good .

 

as far as "hijacking" the icon ... as far as why it is turned on is a rather moot point .

think about it ... if the primary purpose it to make individuals aware of what is coming down the pike and that light at the end of the tunnel is a freight train , then the ends justify the means .

i am reminded of my old DI that would come up behind one of us that was "not paying attention" or ignoring the situation at hand , and kick them in the arse or knock them into the dirt and then say "now that i have gotten your attention ... lemme tell you something that might just save your life" .

 

if someone chooses to ignore the situation after they have been fairly and duly warned or attempts to educate/get their attention have been executed ...

then the problem/responsibility rests squarely on the shoulders of the individual .

the party that started the "warning" can then pull a pontius pilate ... "we told ya what was going to happen" .

[Mark]

I am probably reacting a little strongly to this icon nonesense, but... (heheh) :

 

Got my hands on an older (2004-ish) Acer Travelmate yesterday, from my brother's friend. My bro wanted to install Linux on the thing. MSE was installed, so I got the full experience. There were 2 scheduled tasks : one to warn about end of life on every boot, and the other was for a monthly reminder. That's a lot of reminding. I got to see the at-boot warning, same as posted by John (with screen cap) in post #5 above. You can't miss this one.

And on top of this, you get the ... tray icon hijack (lol).

I didn't mention it before, but why not use the big popup warning (see post #5) even on machines that don't have MSE onboard ; this would be a balloon tip alternative.

 

I truely feel as though they've messed this up. With the icon I mean. The big popup is plenty. On-boot + monthly = enough warnings for that eventual Pontius Pilate slap behind the head

 

Oh and when I said some have third party AVs, I meant all versions including the free ones (Avira, AVG, Avast...). I don't have numbers but there a lot of free AV users out there (non MSE).

 

They've bent to pressure by allowing MSE to continue on XP, for a while. My view is : let the AV do its job properly, even though XP is end-of-life. Or don't allow its use and let folks get another (free) AV instead,  as was the original plan. To be honest, I'll tell anyone with XP and MSE to just dump MSE.

 

[/rant]

 

Now I gotta find me a distro that sees the wireless card on this old Acer and plays nice with the rest of the hardware...

[John L. Galt]

Ok, let's go over what my beef is, because I do get your point but I don't think you're getting mine :

 

- People who ignore balloon tips may also have no clue as to why the MSE icon is red with a white X. These same people may not even know how to launch the MSE interface so how are they going to see the big warning inside MSE ?

- Your observations concern only those who have Security Essentials as antivirus. Those who use a third party AV (or no AV at all) will not have this issue - this warning. Which is why I brought up balloon tips. Other ideas of notification are welcome.

- The AV tray icon, as you've stated above, should serve as a monitor for the AV Service and general state of the program ; when a problem arises, the MSE icon turns to orange or red. Orange with an exclamation point when a scan hasn't been performed in a long time, or red with a white X for seriously outdated defs or other important problems.

 

Tray icons have been around a long time. Speaking for myself, they catch my eye when something is wrong or when their status changes. My peripheral vision catches them when something is different, flashing or whatnot. I can't help it, and that's good in my book.

Imagine when one icon, especially the AV (we're security minded folks after all), turns to red. And stays that way, day in / day out. My brain is wired to react. Re-wiring takes only a short amount of time though, and sooner than later I won't notice the icon anymore. Is that good ? Nope, because I'd have no idea if anything was wrong with the AV.

 

That's my beef. AV icons should allow us to monitor the AV. Period. Unexperienced users with XP + MSE have just lost an important notification tool.

 

There  must be a better way to notify them. Balloon tips is just one idea. Some people don't see them, I know, but the same goes with the hijacked MSE tray icon, which shouldn't have been hijacked in the first place.

 

Because of the replies below, I'll respond below as well.

 

"the wheel that squeaks gets the most grease"

perhaps (more like you bet yer arse) MS is quite aware that there are those users that :

cannot afford to upgrade

cannot afford another comp

cannot afford a third party AV/AM

and other items along a similar tack .

 

MS is also quite aware that there are users that do not fall into the above categories ; those that are not hip technically .

i see this as the big issue ... ignorance may be bliss but blithely ignoring the situation at hand does no one any good .

 

as far as "hijacking" the icon ... as far as why it is turned on is a rather moot point .

think about it ... if the primary purpose it to make individuals aware of what is coming down the pike and that light at the end of the tunnel is a freight train , then the ends justify the means .

i am reminded of my old DI that would come up behind one of us that was "not paying attention" or ignoring the situation at hand , and kick them in the arse or knock them into the dirt and then say "now that i have gotten your attention ... lemme tell you something that might just save your life" .

 

if someone chooses to ignore the situation after they have been fairly and duly warned or attempts to educate/get their attention have been executed ...

then the problem/responsibility rests squarely on the shoulders of the individual .

the party that started the "warning" can then pull a pontius pilate ... "we told ya what was going to happen" .

 

This is aligned with my reasoning as to why M$ is using such a seemingly Draconian method to scare the users.

 

I am probably reacting a little strongly to this icon nonesense, but... (heheh) :

 

Got my hands on an older (2004-ish) Acer Travelmate yesterday, from my brother's friend. My bro wanted to install Linux on the thing. MSE was installed, so I got the full experience. There were 2 scheduled tasks : one to warn about end of life on every boot, and the other was for a monthly reminder. That's a lot of reminding. I got to see the at-boot warning, same as posted by John (with screen cap) in post #5 above. You can't miss this one.

And on top of this, you get the ... tray icon hijack (lol).

I didn't mention it before, but why not use the big popup warning (see post #5) even on machines that don't have MSE onboard ; this would be a balloon tip alternative.

 

I truely feel as though they've messed this up. With the icon I mean. The big popup is plenty. On-boot + monthly = enough warnings for that eventual Pontius Pilate slap behind the head

 

Oh and when I said some have third party AVs, I meant all versions including the free ones (Avira, AVG, Avast...). I don't have numbers but there a lot of free AV users out there (non MSE).

 

They've bent to pressure by allowing MSE to continue on XP, for a while. My view is : let the AV do its job properly, even though XP is end-of-life. Or don't allow its use and let folks get another (free) AV instead,  as was the original plan. To be honest, I'll tell anyone with XP and MSE to just dump MSE.

 

[/rant]

 

Now I gotta find me a distro that sees the wireless card on this old Acer and plays nice with the rest of the hardware...

 

Yup - I was going to mention the other methods of 'reminders' such as the on-boot reminder as well.

 

But here is the key in all of this:

 

1. The big popup warning is MSE specific.  The information is actually MSE specific.  For Windows XP there is a separate popup that mentions XP EOL, along with a link explaining more details.  It's not a traditional balloon tip, but neither is it glaringly red with colors and such - just a standard dialog box popup.
2. Popup on boot works great - unless you don't reboot a lot.  The phrase (cliche?) "Out of sight, out of mind" is very apropos here.
3. This is the real key:  "They've bent to pressure by allowing MSE to continue on XP, for a while."  Correct - but if they don't continue to harass people with said warnings, users, specifically those that fall into the categories that I mentioned earlier, will continue to ignore the problem until all of a sudden M$ stops supporting XP / making definitions / whatever they have planned for the eventual demise of MSE on XP, and then, further down the line, those same users will be in a massive panic because they did not have advanced warning.

Unless you've never met a user like that, you cannot fully understand (and empathize) the breadth of the problem.  Without a constant reminder of something about to break, these types of users will continue to ignore the problem, until the problem escalates and all of a sudden they are face with a SNAFU.

 

For someone like me it is entirely annoying.  For someone like my mother, who, incidentally, called me late last night asking me in a panic if she needed to "upgrade her Windows because she read that Microsoft was going to stop making Windows."  I had a 20 minute discussion (heated, at times, from her, because she would not understand that she does not have Windows XP she has Windows 7, which I personally had installed for her), and continued to argue with me about how it was everywhere in the news and I should pay more attention and make plans this weekend to come fix her computer ASAP.

 

I suppose, in the end, that the best way to describe their approach with MSE on XP is that it is a much needed evil Draconian approach, but it is the least of all evils.

[Braedog3]

Really? I need to tell everyone!

[Mark]

John,

 

Thanks for the post. I do agree. I've met a few of *them*, including my mother-in-law. She emailed me on April 8 asking if her laptop had XP, and if it was going to suddenly stop working like she had read about in the news. Oh lordy. Good thing she has W7, and I insisted she had support until 2020 on that one. Then she asked me about one of my sisters-in-law (her daughter) who does still run XP. Good thing we visited a few weeks ago and I offered to shop for her next box, soon. I'm off the hook :-P

 

That icon thing (yeah, I have a hard time letting go, haha..) : I agree with almost whatever reminders they feel necessary, though too many would quickly become irritating and may push some away - for good. I say do it, but don't hijack the tray icon for the purpose of scaring people. The tray icon needs to be a monitor, not a nagging reminder about the end of the world..

 

I'll get off my soapbox if/when they give XP MSE users their icon back. Because it's hijacked. Love that word

[CWB]

"Now I gotta find me a distro that sees the wireless card on this old Acer and plays nice with the rest of the hardware..."

 

if you are looking at a 'nix flavor ...

i loaded mint 9 with the MATE desktop (or gnome) on a 2005 TM (basically a 2004 model) .

it worked ok .

i believe i had to "pre-wipe" a HDD (the first 5% written with zeros) before the laptop/mint would play nice .

i did a live install and then a full instal from the mint live desktop .

i know that mint 13LTS did not install correctly .

 

somewhere i have instructions for easily loading libreoffice on mint 9 (it has OO stock)

[Mark]

Thanks...

 

I'm the big Linux noob. My bro wanted a supported version as much as possible (for the noob friend). So I went testing a few flavors. The old Acer has a Broadcom BCM4318 wireless card, which is not included in 'nix systems because the drivers aren't open source. You gotta go get 'em, but you need firmware first. Big fun for the noob, heh.

Big surprise, I got Mint 16 Cinnamon to work decently (I think). I installed on the Windows partition, no funny business required. They'll run it dual boot for a while (with XP), to see if they like it. I really like this flavor, I must say. Lubunto is kinda nice and light as well, but refused to load on the Acer for some reason. Linux Lite I tested and liked as well (another friendly lightweight).

 

Gonna play around in VMWare, to get some skills (finally).

[AdvancedSetup]

Not to be a party pooper but this is starting to get a bit off-topic everyone.  Please try to stay on topic of XP

 

Thanks