Microsoft extends updates for Windows XP security products until July 14, 2015

[Xander]

http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/201...es-windows-xp-security-products-july-14-2015/

Microsoft today announced it will continue to provide updates to its security products (antimalware engine and signatures) for Windows XP users through July 14, 2015. Previously, the company said it would halt all updates on the same day as the end of support date for Windows XP: April 8, 2014.

For consumers, this means Microsoft Security Essentials will continue to get updates after support ends for Windows XP. For enterprise customers, the same goes for System Center Endpoint Protection, Forefront Client Security, Forefront Endpoint Protection, and Windows Intune running on Windows XP.

 

[PBComputer]

I can't decide if this is good news of bad, I'm thinking bad at the moment.

Paul

 

[wardoursecure]

This is slightly annoying especially as one of the reasons customer should update is the lack of updates and potential security holes that could appear at eol. Apart from all the others.

I am sure this is due to the huge number of XP installs still out in the business community and the slowness in which people are moving to a newer system be it win 7 or 8

 

[cypress]

Does this fall even? MSE will continue to receive updates and support but EOL still stops in April.

 

[Markverhyden]

When they stop doing kernel support it's time to move on.

 

[NYJimbo]

Didn't MS just tell people that MSSE/Defender should not be their main A/V ? So they are going to stop all other updates but they are going to keep providing them for an A/V that they themselves admit is not so good.

 

[mraikes]

This is no more a factor than whether or not McAfee or Norton would continue to release updates for XP installs.

Existing A/V products already fail to keep viruses off XP machines. When Microsoft stops releasing basic OS updates it's only going to get worse no matter who continues to provide XP A/V support.

This doesn't change by one iota my approach with XP customers.

 

[Rosco]

this changes nothing for me. EOL is the end. MSE can update all they want.

 

[BillMoney]

Just let XP die already, it needs to be done with.

 

[HCHTech]

Dammit! I've been pushing this point hard to all of my customers. Obviously, this doesn't change the EOL issue, but I hate giving them a reason to ignore reason!

 

[Markverhyden]

Dammit! I've been pushing this point hard to all of my customers. Obviously, this doesn't change the EOL issue, but I hate giving them a reason to ignore reason!

It's been easy since for me since we are getting close. I just tell them that new devices may not work, their application vendors with stop supporting the apps in XP, etc, etc.

Just got a travel agency where I fixed up their network problems. Read the riot act to the owner. Waiting for the rep from their software vendor to send me the specs so she can replace the 3 XP boxes they have.

 

[stro]

I guess I am the oddball here in my opinions of this.

Until some big gaping hole is found, EOL doesn't really mean that much to me.

Lets face it, the majority of crap that ends up in a computer gets there from outdated plugins or the user clicks on it. Which doesn't have as much to do with the underlying OS. Shoot, 75% of the XP machines I see coming in from residential users haven seen updates in years, and AV is expired a long time ago.

XP is still estimated at 30% percent market share, while I will be honest with my customers about what EOL means I am also gonna be realistic about how it effects them and let them make the decision for themselves based on realistic possiblities and probabilities.

30% is still too big of a market to slam the door on. We have already been told by Google that they will support Chrome until 2015, and Mozilla has no immediate plans to drop XP either. AV will still be available for a while. It will be marketshare and money that are the determining factors of when a vendor dumps XP, not a date set by MS.

I think the real thing that will drive people off XP will be the age and speed of the computer, the economic sense of repairing a machine that is most likely worth less than $150, and new hardware incompatibilities (like printers). As much as people are ready to euthanize XP, most will die of natural causes.

I would like to see XP go away as much as the next tech. People probably should migrate off XP within the next year, But am I gonna slam the door in their face after April 8?......... heck no.

 

[NYJimbo]

But am I gonna slam the door in their face after April 8?......... heck no.

Repairs on an XP system that do not require XP updates, sure.

But what happens when you need to reinstall windows related stuff, will it all be out there ?

One of the biggest problems after a serious virus infection on a XP box is getting Windows update to work so you can reinstall some ".Net" stuff or having it check for anything it thinks should be updated after a SFC /scannow or something. Will that still be out there ? What about all the XP related fixes like MS FIXIT, does anyone know if they will pull the XP side of it at that date ? Everyone seems to have a different answer.

I am in the process of making a SBS2003 server act as a dedicated XP/XP PRO WSUS machine so I might be covered, but what about the average tech who goes to do a XP repair and suddenly realizes he cant get an update from MS and now he doesn't know what to do ?

I have begun explaining to my XP customers how this will affect them. As of the cut off date I will tell XP customers who walk in the door if I cant fix it they will have to either move to Win7 or just pay me my diag fee and go home.

Its a shame that MS has not put out a detailed explanation of every aspect of windows updates, service packs, MS FIXITS, etc for this shut down of XP support. This is the first really important MS Win purge since 3.1 and peoples reliance on computers is 100 times greater than it was back then.

 

[Markverhyden]

Of course there are going to be situations where migrating off of XP to W7+ is not practical or feasible in the customers eyes.

Many businesses, small or large, have software packages that meet certain needs and there may not be an alternative, or at least an economical alternative. I had dentist customer in his late '70's years ago. His '98 machine died. So I was able to get his DOS based app up and running on XP since he did not want to spend 15k migrating to the latest app.

The techs that will rule will be the ones that have everything needed to get one of those machine up and running.

There are still plenty of 286 and 386 machines out there running DOS and Win 3.1 apps. The techs getting the work have made a point to keep copies of everything they touch.

 

[HFultzjr]

Just let XP die already, it needs to be done with.

^^^^^^^ This........Pull the plug and be done with it.

Geeez, how many times is this going to go on.

 

[stro]

But what happens when you need to reinstall windows related stuff, will it all be out there ?

I would expect that most places will just leave existing wares where they are at without pulling them. Most likely time to kill access would be if an individual company were upgrading or updated systems, and it would require any significant work to migrate, then they might kill it. Shoot, windows 98 updates were available for many years after EOL. I have an old 98 machine somewhere, I should fire it up and see if it will still do updates.

Also I've read that MS will not be pulling activation anytime soon, I have also read quoting a source inside MS that if they did ever kill online activation, they would put out an update that would disable the need to activate on the machine. I could see them wanting to kill any manual phone activations though, but then they could just let the automated system hand off confirmation code regardless of whether it checks out to avoid having verbal activations.

 

[drjones]

I can't decide if this is good news of bad, I'm thinking bad at the moment.

Paul

Bad news. People should be ashamed to keep such old tech alive for so long. Very bad news.

 

[bertie40]

Just how many times has this date been changed. I've already told a number of customers that support is due to be dropped within the next few months. I told them, that as time went on, the number of security holes and exploits would increase making their systems more vulnerable to attack.

NOW, they will probably get back to me, saying I was scaremongering.

Just how bad is Microsoft management getting these days ?

No doubt, technet will get a reprieve and be extended. Ok, not necessity a bad thing. But ffs.

 

[JustInspired]

Isn't this only referring to MSE? I did not think OS patches were included or am I not understanding it properly?

 

[PBComputer]

Isn't this only referring to MSE? I did not think OS patches were included or am I not understanding it properly?

Yes it's only mse support which has being extended.