Jody Thornton

Thanks greenhillmaniac ...lol. But really, the work you're doing is appreciated. I'm just debating whether or not to go back to Vista on this old PC until I get a new machine.

Oh no, I was half serious and half joking. I never was offended.

Oh come on. lol - at least let me retain credit for bringing initial attention to this. Even with Windows 8, greenhillmaniac allowed that courtesy to remain, and I appreciated that.

Wow! I'm impressed. The Vista Forum over at vistax64.com seems slow to embrace this, but it was the same with Windows 8 as well.

I have two questions that I posted at eightforums.com, but no answer there. . When I update manually or use the Task Scheduler, I receive an error in Task Scheduler, saying "The system cannot find the file specified (0x80070002)", Or I get an update message if I perform it manually, saying I wasn't able to connect. HOWEVER - Windows Defender DOES indeed updates. Can anyone explain this anomaly? Also, I have disabled Automatic Protection, and I have set up update and scan times for Windows Defender, through the Task Scheduler. However, when I login to my desktop, after about two minutes, Windows Defender updates and scans my system. I turn it off and it stops. When am I not doing so that this action will be disabled? I update at 2:45 am and scan at 3am, and this works, but why does it need to scan at boot time?

Here are the ones I skipped: KB3163589 Out of Date Notification KB2976978 Compatibility Update for Windows 8.0 and 8.1 Update KB2975331 August 2014 Update Rollup - Microsoft recommended uninstalling because of boot issues - no benefits to desktop use anyway

I know there was an IE 10 EOL update to nag you to upgrade. I have cleared out my Software Distribution folder (since I no longer use Automatic Updates) so all of my update history is gone. But I will do a search for updates, tomorrow, and report back on the updates I skipped. How's that sound?

Thanks guys, before I went home from work, I was able to use the Microsoft Update Catalog. So I updated the two PCs.

Was it anything like this?

I'm at work and we have two XP machines in use here. I tried using Windows Update and cannot. The Automatic Updates service is running. But the page won't render in Internet Explorer 8. Also getting to the Update Catalog in Firefox ESR appears to be problematic from these XP machines.

Sure they can. This has been practiced for years. Warranties expire. Terms and agreements expire. Where is this against the law? And so what that 15% uses it. What makes you specifically say it's FUD? That just baffles me. Even I agree that I'm on my own with Windows 8, but that's also a much newer, modern system.

And one other thing? Why is it not OK for Microsoft to say, "sorry we gave you 13 years of support, so now please let's move along". Why is that a bad thing? Microsoft needs to sell products to stay in business. So if they aren't going to patch on older OS, then it's vulnerable. It's not their responsibility to bail out companies that won't switch. And yet, we call that FUD here. No, it's just progress.

But how is this FUD though? This has now been demonstrated as a reality. I realize most here run POSReady 2019 updates, so that's good, but that's not most XP users (as you've mentioned)

I remember back when I was considering moving off of XP x64 to Vista, because I was worried about the lack of updates forthcoming. I took a lot of flack here because I wanted to continue speculating worst case scenarios if I stayed on XP x64 Edtion. Apparently, I was going on and on ad-nauseum and giving in to FUD. Well, this was the very type of situation I was worried about. I'm not sorry I was worried about it now, or that I was going on and on about. I feel a bit vindicated in my concerns today, and I think this really REALLY demonstrates why people shouldn't feel easy about running unsupported products. From what I'm reading, if there is no use of SMB or file sharing on a network, you're likely fine. If you have port 139 closed, then great. I have File and Printer Sharing removed. So, I think I'm overall pretty good. But it's at this moment I'm glad that XP is in my rear-view mirror.

Actually, I don't think (if you did updates) that 7, 8.1 or 10 are affected. I run Windows 8 RTM, and the update didn't install for me, only because it was previously patched on a Server 2012 update.

I'm surprised since it was said that the worm was targeting out of date systems. From what I understood, Windows 10 was not affected.

So what basically are the conditions to getting infected at home? I just have a DSL router/modem, and I'm wired directly.

You'll want to follow greenhillmaniac's instructions. Basically, I'll be installing Windows 8 updates until January 2016 (and remember there's an update you'll want to block because it nags you to update your version of Windows). After that, I'll go through all of my updates manually (which is nearly fourteen month's worth). Also yesterday's patch for the WannaCrypt issue, was not compatible with Windows 8, likely because the issue was previously patched from a Server 2012 update recently.

I was just thinking about that. Perhaps it can be adapted from XP's update.

Interestingly, even though there's a patch for Windows 8, there was already a patch installed from Server 2012 that adresses the same issue, so I guess I'm not affected.

Obviously a doozie. Patches provided by Microsoft for XP, Vista and Windows 8 https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/13/Microsoft-WindowsXP-WannaCrypt-NHS-patch/

Whew! Checked Help -> About in Windows Defender. It appears I'm good.

Thanks Dencorso. I'm not currently running Vista either, but I'm closely watching this

What is the final verdict on this? Can MSE be still used with Vista? I was sorta confused with all of the multiple threads going on ....lol

I think it uses the same current definitions as MSE or Defender, and does a system scan on your HDDs. It works fine on XP and above (at least it did last spring). Just a simple window with a progress bar.