@mo832
1.) At least me, I haven't heard about that.
2.) Besides the Update to 4.5, which caused the task symbol to stay red and the warning for end of XP-support - No! I still had a functional MSE and it updated automatically, only the warnings and the red symbol were annoying. That's why...
3.) ... I downloaded the 4.4 setup file (and keep it safe on my flash drive, 'cause you never know). For each XP computer I supported since then I uninstalled the MSE 4.5 in the regular way, rebooted, installed the 4.4 instead and everything still works fine. * The warning never appeared again and the task symbol behaves as usual. (green, as long as everything is fine, orange each time you are supposed to do a scan and red in cases of virus warnings or if definitions are too old. (Happens, if machine is not online for some days.)
* What I am not sure about: I remember that after this procedure I used to check for updates and disallowed the "KB2949787" at this stage. Otherwise this made MSE 4.4 updating to 4.5 again. But I think that after some months this was not necessary anymore. Perhaps someone else can confirm this? If you really want to be sure, give it a try and find out if KB2949787 is offered in automatic updates. If yes -> disable.