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No more support for Windows XP

Does anyone have some good advice as to what to do for a home user who has to keep using Windows XP for awhile? E.g. any good free anti-virus programs to use? Adjust firewall settings? Etc.


OnlyTellsTruths said:
That is literally one of the updates from the last month. When you turn on the PC it gives a warning about support ending.
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Yup, I was getting those too. Indeed, they even seemed to have messed up my computer and I had to outright stop MSE from running at startup.
 
OnlyTellsTruths said:
Any details? Breaking how?





That is literally one of the updates from the last month. When you turn on the PC it gives a warning about support ending.
Click to expand...

I'll see what I can dig up today. My computer was the only one not affected yesterday (yay?). But yeah, I just saw that warning last morning. I think after that other people said their computers just kept rebooting. Word came down that it would be solved by getting W7... January 2015. Emergency meeting with the county IT director is scheduled next week to try to come up with an alternative solution, so I assume the complaints are accurate enough.

It is very lulzy. We were on IE 6 until last year. All computers had to get Chrome installed, because all sorts of websites wouldn't work, but State systems only work with IE.

Also, the certificate of the domain we have our public Wi-Fi policy acceptance is invalid, so the public can never figure out how to use it.

Basically, it probably has more to do with our IT than Microsoft, but it is quite fun.

Also, everyone uses stickies and mini-notebooks to record login information for State networks keeps them at their desks. We have 60 people following our FB, and those are mostly employees. Also, the Websense filter likes to block social media, which makes my job of managing our FB fun.

The good news is I have a job interview tomorrow :p .
 
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Well, we have had every one of our customers still using Windows XP Machines call in with all of them frozen at startup.

Microsoft Security Essentials has had some kind of bad update overnight and as soon as Windows starts to load the processor is maxing out and freezing the machine.

We are having to get them to boot in safe mode with networking to get us connected so we can stop the security process and remove MSE.

At the moment our support desk has 94 active jobs for this
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Well, we have had every one of our customers still using Windows XP Machines call in with all of them frozen at startup.

Microsoft Security Essentials has had some kind of bad update overnight and as soon as Windows starts to load the processor is maxing out and freezing the machine.

We are having to get them to boot in safe mode with networking to get us connected so we can stop the security process and remove MSE.

At the moment our support desk has 94 active jobs for this
Click to expand...

One way to get everyone to upgrade!
 
Looks like the crashing involves the updates that Microsoft is continuing with Forefront, MSE, etc. Oh, Microsoft,
 
Welll, my spouse had an XP box, it was a 64 bit capable Quad Core 2. We added 2 sticks of RAM and an SSD, and it positively whooooshes along in W7.

Just left the other discs there as d e f
 
Fixing the anti malware problem
Disable, run manual update for MSE and restart.
It's taking forever. has to be done on each machine
 
My roommate has an XP box, and due to a power outage and some misclicks, restored it to base XP. And I mean pre-SP1. A vast majority of programs wouldn't run because of missing files. Errors everywhere. It was already slow enough.

I then discovered I have no CDs or USB drives to put linux onto, so I took three hours forcibly updating to XP3 without Microsoft's help.

And now I really know I need to do something about my computer before something like that happens to it.
 
Tsukasa Buddha said:
We were on IE 6 until last year. All computers had to get Chrome installed, because all sorts of websites wouldn't work, but State systems only work with IE.
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I remember reading there was a solution to that. A way to install higher versions of IE on XP. I never had a need so I didn't look into it.

It was AFAIR reasonably easy, and didn't even involve emulation or virtualization. I believe it was just cracked installs, which for paid programs would be quite illegal... but for something free like IE being using on a Microsoft product? Still probably illegal... :D

rjh01 said:
One way to get everyone to upgrade!
Click to expand...


I'm not conspiracy minded... but then again, this is Microsoft we are talking about. :D
 
A lot of our XP customers are already in the queue to get upgrades. This incident has prompted a whole load more to spend some cash :)
 
JDC said:
Is there any way to turn off the annoying message from MSE that pops up every time I restart my computer without disabling MSE messages in general (i.e. Security--> change the way MSE warns me -->disable messages)?

Can you upgrade from or use Vista CD keys for Win7 or Win8?
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No one? :shy:
 
JDC said:
No one? :shy:
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You can't use old Vista keys on win7 or win8.

However:
If you want to update to win7, it can be done from within Vista itself.
You will, off cause, need a win7 media with a valid win7 key.

You cannot upgrade from Vista to win8.
There you will need to do a socalled "Clean Install". This means migrating your documents etc. via a usb stick or external harddrive.

This can be done fairly painlessly with Windows Easy Transfer which you can find on the Microsoft downloads site. Just make sure you get the version which fits your current OS and bit-system (32 or 64 bit). Once you've installed win8, you simply use the Easy Transfer for that system to tranfer your backup files back. You will need to re-install all of your apps, though.

If you run windows 7 and want to upgrade to windows 8, it can be done by using the compability tool for win8, also found on Microsoft. Be aware that this can be a lengthy process.
You can choose to save your docs etc. during this process, but will have to reinstall your apps. You will, in one of the last steps, be able to buy your version of 8.1 directly online. The tool will then download win8.1 for you (warning: This will strain your internet connection) and you will be suplied with the right keys through an email.

If you upgrade to the normal 8 on DVD, there's also an option to save your apps.


NOTE;WARNING:HEED MY ADVICE: IF YOU UPGRADE TO ANY OTHER VERSION OF WINDOWS, MAKE SURE YOU BACKUP AS WELL AS TRANSFER YOUR DATA TO MAKE SURE NOTHING BAD HAPPENS.

I haven't seen a problem yet, but this is a belt and suspenders situation: Wear both just in case.

XP users will need to run a clean install on both win7 and win8.

For those interested, here's some hardware demands for 7 and 8:

Windows 7:
1 ghz processor (32 or 64 bit)
1 Gb ram (officially anyway, but I recommend 2 GB, particulary if you plan on running XP mode)
40 gb hd with at least 15 gb free
GFX with directx 9 support, has Windows Display Driver Model driver, Pixel shader 2, 32 bits color and minimum 128 mb ram.


Windows 8:
Basicly the same as 7, but with 20 gb free on harddrive.

A note on XP mode: Officially you'll need a win7 professionel as minimum to run this. You can run it on Home Premium, but be aware that it might crash on you at the oddest times.

XP mode was discontinued in win8, but if you search the net, there are several fairly easy Howtos on setting up something that works just as well on this platform. It will take time to setup and, unlike xp-mode in win7, requires a valid xp key since you'll be setting up a virtual machine.
 
The_Fire said:
snip

A note on XP mode: Officially you'll need a win7 professionel as minimum to run this. You can run it on Home Premium, but be aware that it might crash on you at the oddest times.

snip
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Another issue with using the downloadable XP mode on non-Pro versions of Win7, the XP license will time out and stop working (every 30 days I think). AFAIK you can do some workarounds to re-activate the 30 days but given the hassle factor if you need XP mode I recommend just upgrading to Pro. Alternatively you can do your own XP install in Windows Virtual PC using your own XP license/install disk to avoid the issue.
 
Corsair 115 said:
Does anyone have some good advice as to what to do for a home user who has to keep using Windows XP for awhile? E.g. any good free anti-virus programs to use? Adjust firewall settings? Etc.


Yup, I was getting those too. Indeed, they even seemed to have messed up my computer and I had to outright stop MSE from running at startup.
Click to expand...

Not using MSE is a good start. It's inadequate protection, especially if you're using an OS that's no longer getting security updates. AVG is still the best free AV, Avast is okay but not as good in my experience. If you're a careful surfer, AVG is probably enough to keep you clean. AVG and Avast have both said that they're supporting XP for the next two years.
 
yodaluver28 said:
AVG is still the best free AV, Avast is okay but not as good in my experience.
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I'm curious what you've found worse with Avast. I used AVG for a while but it became bloated. And since they've added the bloatware of AVG secure search toolbar I would not recommend them without a big caveat to be bloody careful when you install it as the search bar is a nuisance to remove.
 
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