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Microsoft Extends Windows XP Anti-Malware Support For Another Year

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Microsoft will keep Windows XP users protected against malware for an extra year.

 

Here's good news for all those stubborn Windows XP users who refuse to give in to all the upgrade hype. Microsoft plans to keep supplying anti-malware protection via its various security solutions for another year. The catch is that the programs can't be downloaded once the company pulls the lifeline on Windows XP, so install them right now if they're not installed already.

 

"For enterprise customers, this applies to System Center Endpoint Protection, Forefront Client Security, Forefront Endpoint Protection and Windows Intune running on Windows XP," reads the company's malware protection center blog. "For consumers, this applies to Microsoft Security Essentials."

 

This does not affect the end-of-support date of Windows XP, or the supportability of Windows XP for other Microsoft products, which deliver and apply those signatures, Microsoft points out. Instead, the company seemingly acknowledges that consumers and businesses alike may not be totally ready for a complete switch over to a new platform when Microsoft kills support in April.

 

Still, the company is taking the opportunity to remind customers that the effectiveness of anti-malware solutions on out-of-support operating systems is limited. Running out-of-date software is just plain bad news and bad business.

 

Of course, for many companies, it's not as simple as moving from Windows XP to Windows 7. They may be using "extremely" old legacy software – running in DOS even – that may not perform well in a newer platform. That said, upgrading may continue to take longer than Microsoft had hoped while customers seek out new solutions (and budgets) to replace their legacy software.

 

"Our goal is to provide great anti-malware solutions for our consumer and business customers," the blog adds. "We will continue to work with our customers and partners in doing so, and help our customers complete their migrations as Windows XP end of life approaches."

 

Microsoft will continue to provide updates to its anti-malware signatures and engine for Windows XP users through July 14, 2015.

 

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/microsoft-security-essentials-anti-malware-windows-xp,news-46915.html

 

 

 

"For consumers, this applies to Microsoft Security Essentials."

Yes.

Edited by Plokite_Wolf

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I lol'd so hard. :D

 

Their fight with XP is so miserable that they can't even persuade customers to upgrade their Windows. China is even considering to push the Microsoft to open the code of XP.

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The fight with XP isn't miserable. XP just had an abnormally long life cycle as far as operating systems go so people clung to it longer since the life cycle went on so much longer than it should have. XP is a fluke and I'll be glad to see it finally go. It's not doing anything but slowing down software progress.

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You know, zocom, not everything has to be the newest thing ever.

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Guest Rabbit

Nor does it make sense to hold onto outdated technology out of spite.

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If it ain't broke, I see no point in fixing it.

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Guest Rabbit

Said everyone who had to face down any advancement in the human race, ever.

 

The wheel wasn't broke, yet we used it to build a cart.

 

The cart wasn't broke, yet we modernized it into a train.

 

The boat wasn't broke, yet we turned it into a ship.

 

Transportation in general wasn't broke but we went and turned it into flight.

 

Flight wasn't broke yet we turned it into mass transportation.

 

Skip a few steps and here we are. At one point people thought the personal computer was the greatest invention mankind had ever discovered. It was a fantastic device that functioned and performed perfectly for what it was intended at the time. Windows 3.1 had the same landmark. Windows 98, Windows XP. Sure, all of these things have their issues (security issues, programming errors, etc). But saying that it's "not broke, so don't fix it" is a completely asinine statement for the development of upgraded technology. It has nothing to do with whether it is broke or not. It has to do with whether it is up to par with modernization or not.

 

We still use the wheel, we still use the cart, we still use the boat, hell... we still use the most basic forms of writing even though we have the internet and instant communication. You still use XP. So sure, not everything has to be the "newest thing ever." But frankly, I'd rather be cruising in a yacht rather than dealing with a caravel just because it's in perfect working condition.

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It has to do with whether it is up to par with modernization or not.

Well, it was, until everyone gradually started to cut support for it just so newer operating systems could be pushed to the market, starting from Microsoft itself (DirectX 10 was one of the first such moves, IIRC?), not much else actually. That enabled Windows Vista, Windows 7 and 8/8.1 to be "up to par" just because you could, all of a sudden, find all OEM computers in tech stores built with them instead of WinXP (which I never understood fully, it's kinda forcible the way I see it), for instance. All of the features of the newer OS's could've been made for XP if MS didn't choose the path of making new stuff every few years just 'cause. Other developers were much more "merciful" in that respect, however.

 

Other than support for Blu-ray, 64-bit applications (sorta, but remember WinXP x64?) and better DirectX support, I do not in any way understand all this fuss about Win7 and beyond. The interface got so ****ed up starting from Vista that it's visible that the devs were looking up to the increasing number of not-so-tech-savvy users and their needs for something more simple, without all the weird buttons in every window that would scare and confuse them. You have to, basically, ask your computer which program to use and which not to, which is downright absurd. At least in XP, you can turn everything upside-down and inside-out whenever you like and with whatever you like. And don't get me started on the smartphone-inspired Win8. That's the best way to see where they're going with Windows :P

Edited by Plokite_Wolf

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The fight with XP isn't miserable. XP just had an abnormally long life cycle as far as operating systems go so people clung to it longer since the life cycle went on so much longer than it should have. XP is a fluke and I'll be glad to seeis usefull it finally go. It's not doing anything but slowing down software progress.

 

If something isn't broken why to fix this? Especially if you run a company, and you don't want to worry for files which may be corrupted if something would go wrong during upgrade.

 

Software progress have nothing to do with usage of specific OS. If it is good and functional, why bother to change it? Because a 40 year old company says so? Because some "white-collar" has said, that i may use his program only for ten years? The world has changed. The most popular Internet browsers are open source. The most popular game distributor is Steam (not open source but free with free games). The most popular OS for mobile phones is Android, which is also open source. 20 years ago i was forced to usage of Micro$oft systems, because there was no real alternative for it. Linux distributions were mostly an command lines, and OSX was costly.

Nowadays, i can install a open source OS to surf the web, write, watch and do everything i could do on proprietary Windows or OS X. The only problem is with still concreted "white-collars", who are cognitively limited to realize, that we are no longer live in 90's.

 

The XP is run mostly in companies, which follows old rule "if something is stupid, but it's working, it's not stupid".

 

EDIT:

This one is even more proper: If you constantly improve something - certainly you break it.

Edited by Traymen
  • Upvote 1

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Said everyone who had to face down any advancement in the human race, ever.

 

The wheel wasn't broke, yet we used it to build a cart.

 

The cart wasn't broke, yet we modernized it into a train.

 

The boat wasn't broke, yet we turned it into a ship.

 

Transportation in general wasn't broke but we went and turned it into flight.

 

Flight wasn't broke yet we turned it into mass transportation.

The 16 bit application wasn't broken, yet we made 32 bit and 64 bit applications. And then they broke 16 bit applications on 64 bit OSes :eyebrow:
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indows XP's life was extended due the failure of Windows Vista, combined with the beginning of NT kernel in home users OS.

Windows Vista is bloated, and so does Windows 7 and 8. They come with a lot of 'tools' that you will never use, and the requirement of 3D acceleration to render the desktop (Aero, metro) requires processing that could be used in somewhere else. Also, Windows XP gdi rendering IS FASTER than Windows vista, 7 and 8 in all tests. So disabling Aero in order to use gdi to render the desktop results in a slower system as if you were running XP.

 

XP also uses much less memory and resources than 7 and 8, keeping old hardwares running smoothly.

Windows XP still do the job for the most of users. There is Office 2010 that is pretty mutch the same thing as Office 2013. Flash player still available and there still Av products, nice browsers and stuffs like that. Windows 7 brings no advantages for those ones.

For gamming, what killed Windows XP is the lack of DX10 and higher. If most games were using OpenGL, I doubt people were going to upgrade.

 

About Security holes: that is a problem, nothing to add about that.

Basicly, Users will still use XP because companies still support it, and companies will still support XP because users use it. When the users stops using it, then XP will be dead.


I still run XP, and won't upgrade that machine because I get nothing usefull from there new OS. That would simple bloat my system.

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People won't stop using it until it quits getting anything, which is slowly beginning to happen. Its life cycle has long since faded away and it's time to move on instead of trying to cling to archaic operating systems. The same thing was said about Windows 2000, 98SE, 95 and all the way back to 3.11. The arguments never change but the fact of the matter is that old operating systems need to stop being used. It's a serious security risk and it actually limits what we can do to move forward. When we're stuck developing software for crappy operating systems like XP, we have to design for poor optimization and hardware limits. There's a reason DX10 doesn't run on Windows XP; it plain can't ****ing handle it.

 

Unless you run arcane hardware, like an internal floppy drive, you're wasting your time still running XP. My machines would be slow if I kept running XP and I wouldn't be able to play some of the games that I enjoy most. Since I upgraded to Windows 7, I will never want to go back to XP. I'd rather run Vista over XP. That should tell you something.... XP sucks. Pretty badly.

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You don't need DOS apps anymore.

I'm not talking about DOS apps.

 

The CD installers of C&C95 and RA95 are 16 bit Windows applications.

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The same thing was said about Windows 2000, 98SE, 95 and all the way back to 3.11.

Not a single one of the mentioned OS-es had anything near to XP's support span, so you can't quite compare them with XP. If anything, XP had more useful changes compared to its predecessors than Vista/7/8 compared to XP.

 

There's a reason DX10 doesn't run on Windows XP; it plain can't ****ing handle it.

And that's just because Microsoft said so.

 

You don't need DOS apps anymore.

And what if one wants to run DOS apps?

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And what if one wants to run DOS apps?

 

People run DOS Box to run DOS programs, but it doesn't work very well on Vista, 7 and 8 due to the graphic nature of the configuration. Same goes to ROMs on emulators. Both DOS programs and ROMs on emulators both have issues on crashes (for unknown reasons) on all recent versions of Windows. (Not sure if sound was the issue.)

 

Also I like to point out the sound options for Vista, 7 and 8 are absolutely terrible than what XP offered back then, except to rely on a third-party program to configure sound options (including MIDI). It's no wonder why sound is somewhat choppy on older programs under Windows 7 when I last run some of them despite using my Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium card.

Edited by zocom7

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People won't stop using it until it quits getting anything, which is slowly beginning to happen. Its life cycle has long since faded away and it's time to move on instead of trying to cling to archaic operating systems. The same thing was said about Windows 2000, 98SE, 95 and all the way back to 3.11. The arguments never change but the fact of the matter is that old operating systems need to stop being used. It's a serious security risk and it actually limits what we can do to move forward. When we're stuck developing software for crappy operating systems like XP, we have to design for poor optimization and hardware limits. There's a reason DX10 doesn't run on Windows XP; it plain can't ****ing handle it.

That's what Microsoft wants you to belive, because THERE ARE unofficial implementations of DirectX 10 for XP.

 

http://www.nongnu.org/wined3d/

 

About the sound: Was implemented in Vista a new kind of sound manager that I don't know mutch. The architecture about how sounds are played are different from XP

 

 

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Not a single one of the mentioned OS-es had anything near to XP's support span, so you can't quite compare them with XP. If anything, XP had more useful changes compared to its predecessors than Vista/7/8 compared to XP.

 

End of support for Win2k was July 2010, Win2k was supported for 10 years, XP is now loosing it's support after 13 years of service. "No where near" is a bit of a stretch.

 

XP was "not a very big upgrade" over Win2k, it made boot times faster and added better DOS emulation and 9x support. While demanding almost twice the resources.

 

People run DOS Box to run DOS programs, but it doesn't work very well on Vista, 7 and 8 due to the graphic nature of the configuration.

 

It's no wonder why sound is somewhat choppy on older programs under Windows 7 when I last run some of them despite using my Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium card.

 

I run DOSBox with zero issues on Windows 8.1 and I have zero sound issues on any program. Your issues might be because of Creative's terrible drivers, their drivers have always been terrible.

 

That's what Microsoft wants you to belive, because THERE ARE unofficial implementations of DirectX 10 for XP.

 

Sure there are, there are also DirectX 10 implementations for Linux, but that doesn't mean they work well. You can even run some NT programs on Windows 9x with kernel extensions.

 

I don't really understand what the fuzz is about. Microsoft is discontinuing support for XP just like it did for Win2k, ME, Win98, Win95, NT 4.0, NT 3.0, Win 3.11, Win 3.0, Win2, Win1 and DOS. I see nothing wrong with this. When XP came Win2k users said they would never upgrade because "it was bloated" and "added nothing useful" and yet they did upgrade.

 

If people don't want to upgrade their software so be it I wont be one to tell you to, there are also alternatives out there that are getting darn good such as Arch Linux, Manjaro, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, DSL, FreeBSD.........

 

I like Arch Linux it's like OS Lego. You choose the parts you want and you set it up yourself.

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Even WIndows 98 had support until 2006, which is a good eight years and only two short of 2000. XP was just an anomaly. If not for Vista taking longer than it did, XP would have had the same eight to ten year span that 98 and 2K did. XP isn't special; it just got lucky in the grand scheme of Microsoft OS releases. I run DOSBox on Windows 7 Pro x64 with no issues and my SO runs it on 8.1 without any problems either. zocom must be full of **** again.

 

And don't get me started on unofficial implementations. There's a reason it's unofficial. Microsoft is tired of dealing with XP like the rest of us. If the US government and a huge portion of major corporations are migrating away from XP, it's time for the general public to do the same.

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If the US government and a huge portion of major corporations are migrating away from XP, it's time for the general public to do the same.

Now there's a good role model :haha:

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End of support for Win2k was July 2010, Win2k was supported for 10 years, XP is now loosing it's support after 13 years of service. "No where near" is a bit of a stretch.

 

XP was "not a very big upgrade" over Win2k, it made boot times faster and added better DOS emulation and 9x support. While demanding almost twice the resources.

 

 

I run DOSBox with zero issues on Windows 8.1 and I have zero sound issues on any program. Your issues might be because of Creative's terrible drivers, their drivers have always been terrible.

 

 

Sure there are, there are also DirectX 10 implementations for Linux, but that doesn't mean they work well. You can even run some NT programs on Windows 9x with kernel extensions.

 

I don't really understand what the fuzz is about. Microsoft is discontinuing support for XP just like it did for Win2k, ME, Win98, Win95, NT 4.0, NT 3.0, Win 3.11, Win 3.0, Win2, Win1 and DOS. I see nothing wrong with this. When XP came Win2k users said they would never upgrade because "it was bloated" and "added nothing useful" and yet they did upgrade.

 

If people don't want to upgrade their software so be it I wont be one to tell you to, there are also alternatives out there that are getting darn good such as Arch Linux, Manjaro, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, DSL, FreeBSD.........

 

I like Arch Linux it's like OS Lego. You choose the parts you want and you set it up yourself.

Yes. Windows XP is a bloated 2000, no doubt about it. But it does not support some technologies that XP supports and my machine uses, so i'm not downgrading. 7 gives me no new stuff, that's why i'm not upgrading my computer. If 2000 supports nicely my computer, I would use it.

 

Even WIndows 98 had support until 2006, which is a good eight years and only two short of 2000. XP was just an anomaly. If not for Vista taking longer than it did, XP would have had the same eight to ten year span that 98 and 2K did. XP isn't special; it just got lucky in the grand scheme of Microsoft OS releases. I run DOSBox on Windows 7 Pro x64 with no issues and my SO runs it on 8.1 without any problems either. zocom must be full of **** again.

 

And don't get me started on unofficial implementations. There's a reason it's unofficial. Microsoft is tired of dealing with XP like the rest of us. If the US government and a huge portion of major corporations are migrating away from XP, it's time for the general public to do the same.

I don't care about what US gorvenment do. They have their reasons for that. I Have my own reasons for not doing that.

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If you want to paint a bullseye on your OS install after April, that's your decision. I maintain, quite vehemently, that this is a really stupid decision and it's time to put XP down. It had a good run, but it's time to move on. It'll only be another year or so before everything stops being written for XP like Windows 98.

 

And Plokite, you're a ****ing idiot. You missed the point I was making. Then again, I expect this out of you so I won't bother trying to explain why your snarky response is the least productive thing you've done in the last six months.

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And Plokite, you're a ****ing idiot. You missed the point I was making. Then again, I expect this out of you so I won't bother trying to explain why your snarky response is the least productive thing you've done in the last six months.

I could also call you the same for constantly countering others just for the sake of countering and your self-sufficient quasi-omniscient attitude.

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Guest Rabbit

And on that note... Locked.

 

While you both went at each other a bit, Plokite, you've been hostile towards DD since the beginning of the thread. Your "self-sufficient quasi-omniscient" retort doesn't even make any sense. Especially considering this entire thread, you have been doing the exact same thing that I assume you're trying to accuse DD of. You don't see anything wrong with your point of view, ever. And come on, calling him Zocom? That's an unnecessary low blow, right out of the starting gates, for no goddamn reason.

 

I'm issuing you a warning because of this post and the earlier one in this thread. Like I say in any debate thread, you can argue all you want, but throwing unnecessary (and stupid) personal insults is where I draw the line.

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