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Microsoft Extends Windows XP Anti-Malware Updates 1 Year

By - Source: Microsoft | B 26 comments

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 Running out-of-date software is just plain bad news and bad business.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.

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  • 9 Hide
    vmem , January 16, 2014 10:51 AM
    nooooo... they're feeding the XP Dino-trolls
  • -6 Hide
    hannibal , January 16, 2014 11:00 AM
    Yep.... I don't have to upgrade for a year more...
  • 3 Hide
    theclash150 , January 16, 2014 11:25 AM
    XP needs to be added to the "do not resuscitate" list! It's inhumane to keep it alive.
  • Display all 26 comments.
  • -4 Hide
    ta152h , January 16, 2014 12:03 PM
    I have Windows XP, Windows 7, and Windows 8.1. I had to finally retire Windows 2000. Windows XP is still, by far, the fastest, and does everything I need.Windows 7 is the worst, but it's still fine. It's bloated, slow, but not too difficult to work with. Windows 8.1 is missing a real start button, but at least is faster than Windows 7. It's a close call between Windows 7 and 8.1, but 8.1 has the extra speed.A lot of people just prefer XP, like I do, because it's so much faster, and it does what they need to do. It's hard to see the extra value in 7 or 8.1 in most situations.
  • -2 Hide
    Swift67 , January 16, 2014 12:18 PM
    Yes upgrade to NSA Inside Win 8
  • -4 Hide
    Swift67 , January 16, 2014 12:18 PM
    Yes upgrade to NSA Inside Win 8
  • -4 Hide
    FrankInKY , January 16, 2014 12:33 PM
    @ ta152h I must agree, XP just works for me, other OSs need workarounds to get the job done. And XP is faster. What's not to like? I can do without the bling of Win7 and 8.
  • 3 Hide
    Morbus , January 16, 2014 12:59 PM
    Quote:
    Yes upgrade to NSA Inside Win 8
    You do realize Windows 8 is way easier to hack than Windows 7, right? If you're running XP, chances are your machine is part of several botnets and you don't even know it.A lol.
  • 0 Hide
    NightLight , January 16, 2014 1:40 PM
    people, let go of ALL older operatings systems, it's OVER! thumb me down all you want!
  • 2 Hide
    theclash150 , January 16, 2014 1:41 PM
    @ta152hBootup time != speed. In most other metrics Windows 7 wipes the floor with XP.
  • 2 Hide
    velocityg4 , January 16, 2014 2:49 PM
    Since so many people love XP so much. Why doesn't MS just make Windows 9 look and feel exactly like XP? Just modernize the OS and hide it behind an XP GUI.
  • 1 Hide
    wysir , January 16, 2014 3:03 PM
    Quote:
    Since so many people love XP so much. Why doesn't MS just make Windows 9 look and feel exactly like XP? Just modernize the OS and hide it behind an XP GUI.
    Because it wont look and feel 'new'. At least that's how most consumers would see it. I'd love it if they only changed the back-end of their OSes and keep the familiarity and maybe add a thing or 2, not revamp the whole GUI every single time. Look @ windows 95/98/200/NT/(ME?)
  • 0 Hide
    K2N hater , January 16, 2014 3:16 PM
    NSA has been inside Windows since NT 4.0 SP5 but it was much easier to block it back then... The OS would still work fine no matter how strict your firewall rules were.I too support Windows XP (especially the 64-bit version) but the lack of hardware support left me no choice but to move on. Can't deny Win7 is great on the looks though.
  • -2 Hide
    pjmelect , January 16, 2014 5:46 PM
    I don't understand this, Microsoft security essentials is on other windows platforms such as Vista Windows 7 and built into Windows 8. Surely the definition updates are the same across all of the platforms, so it is no extra cost to Microsoft to provide the updates.
  • 3 Hide
    JOSHSKORN , January 16, 2014 6:19 PM
    Just in time for Windows 9. If Microsoft keeps its current trend, then Windows 9 will be much like Windows 8, except it'll actually work. Windows 7 and Windows Vista were alike in that manner. So were Windows 95 and Windows 98. Maybe Windows ME and Windows XP.
  • -1 Hide
    Patrick Tobin , January 16, 2014 6:56 PM
    Quote:
    NSA has been inside Windows since NT 4.0 SP5 but it was much easier to block it back then... The OS would still work fine no matter how strict your firewall rules were.I too support Windows XP (especially the 64-bit version) but the lack of hardware support left me no choice but to move on. Can't deny Win7 is great on the looks though.
    Especially if you reduce the border padding!
  • 2 Hide
    Martell1977 , January 16, 2014 9:20 PM
    I figured they would do something like this. Talking to a system admin for a large company, he told me that the company was at about 40% upgraded from XP to 7 and that's after about 8 months of upgrading. With so many companies in the same situation, MS had to do something to give them a more time. With how much they ticked off private consumers, they can't afford to tick off corporations.
  • 2 Hide
    razor512 , January 17, 2014 1:05 AM
    While modern systems have gotten more powerful, and a CPU bottleneck with the OS is unlikely, if you are on a lower cost system that is still using an HDD, then windows XP will perform faster.Windows XP is far less IO intensive. the assets for basic functioning, including the kernel, only takes up around 40MB of RAM. Because there is so little to load for the majority of the OS functions, things are very snappy.Upgrading to a newer OS such as windows 7 is more than just dealing with legacy software. It is also heavily dependent on the hardware. Unless you have workers who upgrade their systems every few months, the business will consider the cost of the computers to be something to avoid as much as possible,and thus, will only purchase systems which meet the requirements for the job, and not much more.This also means that when upgrading, the hardware may not handle a new OS without becoming excessively sluggish, and thus reducing productivity.and regaining productivity with faster computers is not worth the cost, if the same thing can be achieved more cheaply, by simply not upgrading the OS to begin with.On a modern PC, and a good HDD, windows XP can offer SSD like snappiness that people come to experience from windows 7 running an SSD. and when you run windows XP on an SSD, things become pretty much instant for all OS functions. If you disable all animations, you will be hard pressed to find something that did not finish loading before the audible click from the release of your mouse button is finished.For many, the goal of the OS is to not get in the way. you simply need something that will start quickly, and allow you to run the applications you want, and provide an efficient UI to manage it all.The OS in its self, is not the goal. (would you run windows 7 or 8 if you can install no additional applications other than what the vanilla OS comes with?)Would you run any of the OS if it came with no applications other than the base OS, and did not alloy you to install anything?Windows Xp is still popular, because it is a good OS.Most people who argue against that, only seem to come up with the argument that the Os is old. they can never give a valid argument explaining why they feel the OS is bad.For the past few years, windows XP had a better security track record than windows vista, 7, and 8. Virtually every new exploit discovered, worked on windows XP, vista, 7, and 8, with the exception of a few exploits that exploited a new feature that only vista, 7, and 8 had.Newer versions of windows, have not made people any safer. it has not reduce the computer repair business cash flow. Users are getting infected the same or more than with windows XP.Think about this suppose you own a business, and everything is working file with 500 workers using windows XP, then someone comes along and tells you to upgrade to windows 7, but doing so will require new hardware, it will not improve security (windows 7 has new security features, but no evidence to show it having and positive impact), all just so the workers can do the same thing they are doing now, at the same pace that they are doing it now.You would likely say no. it is like someone telling you to take apart your laptop completely, in order to replace a CPU heatsink screw, with a new, more shiny one. it will not improve performance in any way, but it will take a lot of work, and time, and money (if you ascribe to the saying, time is money).
  • 0 Hide
    Akizu , January 17, 2014 1:59 AM
    I think Microsoft extending anti-malware updates for XP made a really bad decision. It will give people a false sense of security. It will become another excuse to not to upgrade to newer OS. I understand there are many people who want to stay with XP as it gets things done and works fast on old computers but XP is 12 years old already. Microsoft is a company. They exist to make profit. They make profit by selling Windows. Its as simple as that. No one pays them to update XP any more as its an obsolete OS. Without updates it will become easy to hack it or infect it with malware. A single exploit that will get publicly known but will never get fixed is enough to make OS easily hackable. Some people may say that it doesn't matter that XP is old as the programs there using work fine on it... What they are forgetting is the fact that hardware manufacturers wont bother making drivers for XP any more and the old hardware that had XP drivers is not being manufactured any more so once their motherboard or any other important component dies finding a compatible replacement will be hard and some day will become impossible.
  • -1 Hide
    Morbus , January 17, 2014 2:22 AM
    Quote:
    While modern systems have gotten more powerful, and a CPU bottleneck with the OS is unlikely, if you are on a lower cost system that is still using an HDD, then windows XP will perform faster.Windows XP is far less IO intensive. the assets for basic functioning, including the kernel, only takes up around 40MB of RAM. Because there is so little to load for the majority of the OS functions, things are very snappy.Upgrading to a newer OS such as windows 7 is more than just dealing with legacy software. It is also heavily dependent on the hardware. Unless you have workers who upgrade their systems every few months, the business will consider the cost of the computers to be something to avoid as much as possible,and thus, will only purchase systems which meet the requirements for the job, and not much more.This also means that when upgrading, the hardware may not handle a new OS without becoming excessively sluggish, and thus reducing productivity.and regaining productivity with faster computers is not worth the cost, if the same thing can be achieved more cheaply, by simply not upgrading the OS to begin with.On a modern PC, and a good HDD, windows XP can offer SSD like snappiness that people come to experience from windows 7 running an SSD. and when you run windows XP on an SSD, things become pretty much instant for all OS functions. If you disable all animations, you will be hard pressed to find something that did not finish loading before the audible click from the release of your mouse button is finished.For many, the goal of the OS is to not get in the way. you simply need something that will start quickly, and allow you to run the applications you want, and provide an efficient UI to manage it all.The OS in its self, is not the goal. (would you run windows 7 or 8 if you can install no additional applications other than what the vanilla OS comes with?)Would you run any of the OS if it came with no applications other than the base OS, and did not alloy you to install anything?Windows Xp is still popular, because it is a good OS.Most people who argue against that, only seem to come up with the argument that the Os is old. they can never give a valid argument explaining why they feel the OS is bad.For the past few years, windows XP had a better security track record than windows vista, 7, and 8. Virtually every new exploit discovered, worked on windows XP, vista, 7, and 8, with the exception of a few exploits that exploited a new feature that only vista, 7, and 8 had.Newer versions of windows, have not made people any safer. it has not reduce the computer repair business cash flow. Users are getting infected the same or more than with windows XP.Think about this suppose you own a business, and everything is working file with 500 workers using windows XP, then someone comes along and tells you to upgrade to windows 7, but doing so will require new hardware, it will not improve security (windows 7 has new security features, but no evidence to show it having and positive impact), all just so the workers can do the same thing they are doing now, at the same pace that they are doing it now.You would likely say no. it is like someone telling you to take apart your laptop completely, in order to replace a CPU heatsink screw, with a new, more shiny one. it will not improve performance in any way, but it will take a lot of work, and time, and money (if you ascribe to the saying, time is money).

    You're so full of sheet.

    http://www.microsoft.com/security/sir/story/default.aspx#!why_upgrade

    I liked Windows XP. I did, and I kept with it well into 2007. And then I bought a new upgrade for my PC (new CPU, RAM, the lot)... And then I could feel that XP was holding my PC back. It was. I upgraded to Windows 7, not only did I see my productivity increase (because Windows 7 is way easier to use and less prone to errors), but it was faster, snappier (even on a HDD) and much more secure. I knew XP was an old system (and this was 6-7 years ago, mind you) but that didn't bother me. What did bother me was it was so crappy and slow and unoptimized and hackish. Yeah, I know that's what people say about Windows 7, and it's true! Old systems with new operating systems will feel crappy and sluggish, that's the way of things. But just as much, new systems will feel crappy and bottlenecked with XP.

    XP users will stick to whatever they want to stick to. I'll just make sure I take another look at my security measures on MY systems because of all the spam and spyware those XP will start to serve, worldwide.

    Also, have fun having your info stolen.
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