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XP Forever?

Silly question.

Why would anyone want to do this? W2K on a 486 is slow enough.

It's like squealing your tires at the traffic light and then and then cramming it in 2nd and popping the clutch to get that extra little bit of rubber. You know, a good feeling. The answer is because you can, I suppose.
 
XP Pro SP1 running on a P166 MMX with 80 MB of RAM:


That was back in 2009, when most web sites still worked OK with IE6. Today, not so much...
 
If you are an avid XP'er and recently reinstalled XP only to find out the 'Microsoft Live Essentials for XP' won't install for you, there is a fix for that. Someone had the foresight to archive an older version of the installer and it worked on my big box as as well as my A7N8X-E Deluxe project.

The file is wlsetup-all.exe and can be found here: http://blog.dhampir.no/content/inst...n-windows-xp-error-oncatalogresult-0x80190194
 
If you have recently had call to reinstall XP, and are having a problem with Microsoft Security Essentials, you can download the installer for version 4.4.340.0, which is known to work, from the below link.

http://filehippo.com/download_security_essentials_xp/

Didn't Microsoft stop distributing new Security Essentials antivirus signatures to XP users in July 2015?

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/mmpc/2014/01/13/microsoft-antimalware-support-for-windows-xp/

Or does having the POSReady registry patch applied (or unofficial SP4 installed) allow XP users to continue to get new Security Essentials signatures?
 
MSE is still very much current--I routinely get updates on my system (POSReady 2009 Registry key). It's probably the same signature data distributed for Win7 and Vista users. The July 2015 "update" (4.5) essentially disables MSE for XP, so just re-install using a 4.4x or 4.3x version.
 
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While playing with my Asus A7N8X-E XP project this morning, MSE downloaded KB2310138 (Definition 1.213.2223.0) okay, but it failed to install. I spent a while Googling that particular KB and it looks like there is a multitude of problems with that one. It appears that folks with W7 and W8 have had problems with their systems hanging even after it installs. So, if there are any IT people looking at this, I'm wondering if you could shed some lite on what this KB actually does for the system. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, but my curiosity is up.

Update: At 10:41 this morning the KB was made available by the XP auto update and installed with no problems. I rebooted and the system came up with no glitches. Still in the dark as to what all the fuss is about with this particular KB.
 
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It's amazing how much time, effort and even money people are willing to spend on the comforting, but false, sense of security AV software provides.
 
It's amazing how much time, effort and even money people are willing to spend on the comforting, but false, sense of security AV software provides.

Sure, but the same could be said for MS "security updates" in many cases... I've had malware float right past an up-to-date MSE. The problem with all of this real-time AV stuff is that it's reactive, not proactive. In other words, enough people's computers have to get sick for someone to notice before the malware makes it into the AV database.

One of the reasons that my important stuff is on Linux and BSD.
 
Nothing in life is truly secure. I recently had to remove malware from a MacBook Pro, despite the popular myth that "Macs don't get viruses." It was a rogue utility program just like you get in Windows, claiming it found hundreds of "system errors" and "junk files" that could only be removed if you paid an exorbitant price for the registered version.

And yes, Linux gets viruses, too.
 
Sure, but the same could be said for MS "security updates" in many cases... I've had malware float right past an up-to-date MSE.
Security updates are bug fixes that plug security holes. They are important. MSE on the other hand is just another antivirus program. In other words, a complete waste of time. Your comment about malware floating right past an up-to-date MSE basically proves my point.

The problem with all of this real-time AV stuff is that it's reactive, not proactive. In other words, enough people's computers have to get sick for someone to notice before the malware makes it into the AV database.

It doesn't matter if the malware makes it into an AV database. The antivirus program won't be able to recognize it anymore if you modify it even the slightest. Now, consider how many iterations of the same code you can create just by doing simple things like changing the order of instructions or changing the encoding of instructions. Each little change is a new variation that has to go in the AV database. Now slap on some compression and/or encryption and we are up to how many combinations of that single virus?

The whole idea is ridiculous. I don't expect most people to understand just how futile it is to use AV software but programmers? Especially assembly programmers?
 
Security updates are bug fixes that plug security holes.

That's the theory--but I have a suspicion (can't prove it) that MS hotfixes are (a) often called "security", but have nothing to do with it and (b) sometimes create more problems than they fix. Very often, they're no better than MSE updates, as they're generally also reactive (i.e. a certain number of people report issues and MS gets around to assigning someone to the problem and a hotfix gets generated, tested and distributed, during which time damage has already been done.) Much of the time many problems can be avoided simply by taking the simple precaution as never running with administrative privileges--but people do, anyway.
 
Which is because, unfortunately, it's basically impossible to get anything done on Windows if you aren't running with administrative privileges. Moreso on Vista and up, where UAC locks things down tighter than a dirty simile if you're not running as admin, but even on XP it's more trouble than it's worth.
 
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