With the demise of Microsoft support for Windows XP, they seem to be indulging in scare tactics in order to sell new systems. Time will no doubt tell if the security risks are really as great as they say.
One of the tactics they have indulged in is to create a new version of Microsoft Security Essentials whose prime purpose seems to be to direct you to a web site counting down to end of support, and which also makes the tray icon never display protected any more, no matter what you do.
These two things can be very irritating, so I decided to see if it was possible to downdate Microsoft Security Essentials.
I first tried the obvious wheeze of uninstalling it and reloading the last version from an archive obtained from the file site, filehippo.com.
This fails as it seems key parts are not uninstalled.
However, I discovered that if you then run Eusing free registry cleaner, which is a free program, you can get rid of all the left overs, and the old version of msse can be installed. Also, if you have or get the excellent program, Revo un installer, and use that programs advanced mode to uninstall the new version and then restart the computer, you can load the last version of MSSE straight away with no hassles.
OK so we are back with the last version of the anti virus. It will still update itself with definitions, and according to information from the Microsoft web site, it should also mean that you are going to be pretty well protected until July 2015 now. Of course they say that without the hotfixes and other updates, XP will at least in theory, be left open to hackers. Time will tell.
If you do not want XP to load the crippled version of Msse at the next update, then you need to go to the windows update web site, search for updates, and stop the Microsoft Security Essentials update for xp being shown, downloaded or offered again. There are two checkboxes, one to be unchecked, and one to be checked.
Of course every time you update, Windows will remind you you hid a critical update, but I'm sure we can live with that.
It remains to be seen whether they send it again in April 8th update, which will be the last.
However if I read the Microsoft web site right, in addition to the MSSE definitions updates, you will get updates to the malicious software removal tool every month as well, until July 2015. They tend to hide this bit of info in their documentation rather as of course they want to get people to change their operating system.
March 2014
? ?Brian