Vistapocalypse

It looks like the photo has now been blurred - perhaps to protect the identity of Amazon employees:

That has not been my experience - and if you use a different ad blocker, then why are you arguing with me? Concentrate on your own issues please.

Sounds like VistaLover may have to post again. I earlier mentioned a different solution that works for me. And then I generally click the option to "continue with adblocker" or "continue without supporting us" - which has nothing to do with your washingtonpost.com issue.

I'm not passing judgement on you either, but it's no wonder this new thread is already 57 pages long.

I went back to Adblock Plus not because I think it's better (I don't), but because Mozilla still signs it. (Frankly, I trust Mozilla more than I trust plugin developers.) Edit: Of course I have whitelisted msfn.org because I want this site to survive - and btw that's why I'm trying to contribute to the Windows 7 forum these days.

Thanks for the investigation. I'm not using uBlock these days, and it's a safe bet that @caliber isn't either, but clearly there are add-ons that can defeat his issue.

Thanks for the link jaclaz, it will hopefully put an end to apprehensions about using Avast 18.8: Sounds like a version that officially supported Vista and XP (whereas 19.x reportedly works, but does not officially support). I have no doubt that Kaspersky's paid versions are among the most effective antivirus products in the world! Tests by independent labs have proven that time after time. My only concern was about what else the software might be capable of...

Maybe try this link I considered giving you in the antivirus thread yesterday until I encountered @caliber's issue there: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/israel-hacked-kaspersky-then-tipped-the-nsa-that-its-tools-had-been-breached/2017/10/10/d48ce774-aa95-11e7-850e-2bdd1236be5d_story.html. Granted, I did not visit WP's home page first or agree to anything. Blacklisting washingtonpost.com in JavaScript Toggle On and Off (an extension that is actually signed by Mozilla) solves the issue for me - no need to visit WP's home page before clicking a WP search result.

I can reproduce your issue with washingtonpost.com articles using FF 52.9.0, so not limited to roytam1 or MCP browsers. The only solution I have found is to block JavaScript with a suitable add-on.

If I may return to my original topic, "No data available" - and I don't think it will be coming back this time. Mathwiz, you might be the only MSFN member using WMC as DVR now. Edit: Regarding annoying pop-ups in Media Center advising users to "switch to an alternate TV program guide provider" (which neither Mathwiz nor I were affected by), it seems that a "Do not remind me again" checkbox has recently appeared (see screenshot at GreenButton), so there's no need to uninstall months of security updates just to stop the nagging.

I don't actually see any new revelations there. That concern was already brought up by Mathwiz on August 29, 2019, who stated in his next post, "Despite the cautionary note I posted above, I still use Avast Free on my XP VM myself." I will continue to use Avast Free 18.8 on Vista for reasons already explained on the same page of this thread. According to the first sentence of your first link: It's been about 6 months since I installed Avast, but I definitely did a custom install and probably did not opt in if there was such an option. In any case, if those companies studied my data very carefully, they would find that I never use this PC for banking or shopping, but spend a lot of time at MSFN and other forums. Of course if I was using Windows 10 and Chrome like most people, then companies like Google and Microsoft would no longer have to pay Avast for this valuable data, and it might become even harder to find a good free antivirus! @VistaLover are you still using a Kaspersky 19.x product? At least in the United States, Kaspersky's popularity declined after news reports in October 2017 (see New N.S.A. Breach Linked to Popular Russian Antivirus Software). I understand that Kaspersky has moved its headquarters to Switzerland, perhaps in an effort to repair its image as Russian spyware. If I was interested in paying for an antivirus for Vista, my current inclination would be Eset (see my January 19 post above) - in fact I have stored an installer just in case.

Thanks for posting. NextPVR has Canadian users, notably "Posting Freak" mvallevand of Ontario. I'm surprised to hear that analog is still being used up there. NextPVR does not have native support for analog, but is able to utilize components of WinTV for analog. Of course readers in DVB countries (i.e. most of the world) can disregard all this discussion of ATSC 3.0.

I was somewhat disappointed that this thread was exclusively American, with replies only concerned with OTA and the advent of ATSC 3.0 - until I saw user57's utterly OT post. Regarding ATSC 3.0, the developer of NextPVR stated in a recent post: Like pretty much all software that doesn't come from Microsoft, NextPVR supports Windows 7. I still think Windows Media Center diehards will eventually require something to convert ATSC 3.0 to 1.0. Meanwhile, my WMC is warning me that "Guide listings will be out of date in fewer than 3 days" and updating is futile, so I will use NextPVR exclusively from now on. Good luck to the rest of you!

Me thinks a Windows 8 user accusing Moonchild of hypocrisy in the XP forum seems like an easy way to gain kudos, and indeed TechnoRelic seems to have liked your posts, but I don't. Microsoft's EoL date for Windows XP was April 8, 2014. According to Pale Moon - Release Notes for Archived Versions, that was soon after version 24.4.2 was released. Did Moonchild "steadfastly" rid Pale Moon of Windows XP support by the end of the month? Absolutely not! Pale Moon 25 and 26 continued to support XP, and version 27.0.0 wasn't released until 2016-11-22 - more than 31 months after XP's EoL. If Moonchild ends support for Windows 7 before August 2022, then Windows 7 diehards would actually have something to gripe about - and btw support for Windows 8 might also end at such time...

It appears that HEVC (which will be part of ATSC 3.0) was being used in Europe by 2015, by which time LAV made a suitable video decoder, and NextPVR began to support it (see HEVC (H.265) support). Edit: On the other hand, the Nov 23, 2017 column Does Next-Gen TV spell doom for over-the-air DVR? by Jared Newman pointed out that the ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard allows DRM...

Update: As of a few minutes ago, https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5201 is the only official download page that is still working. (The other link now redirects to What is Microsoft Security Essentials?) The larger file is of course the x64 version. If you think you might want to install MSE someday, either store an installer now or take your chances with third-party downloads in the future!

Well I have acquired another 24 hours of Rovi EPG data from Microsoft. My WMC guide now extends to January 30 at 6 PM. Perhaps also a decoder issue. I doubt that the old Microsoft DTV/DVD Video Decoder can handle HEVC, new audio decoders would likely be required for Dolby AC-4, and WMC's UI has no provision for selecting different decoders (but NextPVR's UI does). However. when ATSC 3.0 eventually becomes dominant in North America, I would imagine that converter boxes will be available. I have never used MediaPortal, but it is apparently still being developed. Unlike NextPVR, MediaPortal is open source. I believe it has considerable "media server" features in its own right, but could be used as a back end for Kodi (and probably other media servers) if desired. Personally, I have almost as much history with NextPVR as I have with WMC, so I'll stick with it unless I become dissatisfied. I believe you are referring to EPG Collector. There has recently been some discussion about it at the GreenButton WMC forum beginning here. It sounds like a viable option, and wouldn't even require an internet connection (much less any payment), although the data wouldn't extend as far into the future as WMC users are accustomed to - and of course would only be available for OTA channels. not for cable channels. (Again, NextPVR has native support for in-band EPG collection, as well as for Schedules Direct.) The lack of interest in this topic has more to do with the rise of Netflix and similar online services than with Microsoft abandoning WMC - in fact Microsoft was merely going with the flow IMO. Growing numbers of people rarely watch "linear" TV. so why should they bother with special hardware and software, recording schedules, etc? Just get TV shows and movies online whenever you like (for a fee).

After still further reflection, I notice that the ESET "file version" noted by VistaLover on 11/18/2019 is actually the same as my screenshot above, in which the ESET "product version" is correct. Although ESET 13 does not support Vista, ESET 12 is still entitled to some support according to ESET End of Life Policy, with expected EOL in Dec 2022 - i.e. further 12.x versions might be released [see Edit]. Since the download links above all contain /v12/latest/ they presumably would deliver a newer 12.x version in the event that one was released. Edit: ESET subsequently revised their EOL policy at the link given above. ESET 12 is now considered EOL, and 12.2.30 was indeed the final version to support Vista. According to another ESET support article, SHA-2 support will be required by April 15, 2021.

Bad News, Good News Microsoft updated its What is Microsoft Security Essentials? page on Jan 14, 2020: Official downloads were nevertheless still available at both https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5201 and https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14210/security-essentials-download as of a few minutes ago, but the installers might be taken down at any time. Devotees of MSE might want to store an installer for future use!

Well for those like you and I who are watching and recording over-the-air TV broadcasts, the fact that Microsoft paid licensing fees to Cable Labs of America in connection with DRM is irrelevant - and that is actually the only feature of WMC that is irreplaceable. (SiliconDust had a "Kickstarter" project to develop an alternative DVR with DRM for American cable, but nothing became of it.) I'm not rushing to find an alternative because I've actually had NextPVR installed since 2012. You like Schedules Direct's guide data? NextPVR has native support for it - no need for something like EPG123 to convert the data to Microsoft's MXF format. OTA broadcasts actually contain guide data. In the UK, DVB-T (terrestrial) channels contain a week of completely free in-band guide data. Alas, our North American ATSC broadcasts contain only several hours of data, but NextPVR can utilize that data if desired (whereas WMC cannot), which might be sufficient for time-shifting purposes but obviously not for elaborate recording schedules. NextPVR is certainly not the only alternative to WMC: just the only alternative I'm well-acquainted with. I hesitate to mention this in the Windows 7 forum, but NextPVR can readily be installed on Windows 10 (WMC only with difficulty, if at all), and NextPVR is about to go cross-platform when version 5 is released from public beta (I'd like to see someone get WMC to work on Linux or Mac). Granted, WMC has a more deluxe UI and greater ease of use (although setting up EPG123 might be considered difficult by PC users who are, shall we say, not MSFN material - but let them buy Tivos). Notably, NextPVR does not include decoders. On Windows 7, it can be set to use Microsoft's DTV/DVD Video Decoder; but users in North America would need to install an AC3 audio decoder such as LAV or AC3Filter unless they choose to use Kodi as a front end, which has its own AC3 decoder. Of course support issues should generally be directed to NextPVR Forums.

Hello again @Stevo, and thanks for answering my question. (I'm not running build 6003 and have no SHA-2 support with which to test.) Does this mean you're not using Avast anymore? I'm using Avast Free 18.8 on Vista these days, and I know it creates Group Policy keys that prevent users from turning Defender on in order to avoid conflicts. Did you install the last-ever Server 2008 updates on Windows Vista last week? Any issues?

Don't get me wrong Mathwiz: I will be SHOCKED if the Rovi data continues a day after January 31 (and January 29 is still as far as it goes at the moment). Using EPG123 with WMC (and NOT upgrading to Win10) is no doubt the best solution for North American cable junkies who are fond of their HTPCs, but there are a variety of options for others. I wish someone in the UK would post about the situation there, but you and I may be the only DVR enthusiasts at MSFN. (I hope that MSFN will become a stronghold for Windows 7 diehards to the same extent it has long been for XP diehards - and FWIW it is also the best Vista forum IMO.) Mathwiz, have you been getting annoying pop-ups in Media Center advising you to "switch to an alternate TV program guide provider"? There is a GreenButton thread about this issue, and setting up EPG123 evidently doesn't stop it. My vintage Vista with TV Pack appears to be immune. If you haven't seen such a pop-up either, that might mean that you haven't installed any Windows updates for quite some time - or that you know exactly which updates not to install for Win7?

Vista guru WinClient5270 stated December 27

A recent post in MSFN's Windows XP forum caused me to revisit https://support.eset.com/en/download-and-install-eset-offline-or-install-older-versions-of-eset-products. It appears that the page was updated Dec 11, 2019, and now lists 12.1.34.0. But just as VistaLover found 2 months ago, the downloaded installers are another product version: 12.2.30.0. DIRECT DOWNLOAD LINKS (in case ESET updates the page again): ESET Smart Security Premium 12.2.30.0: x86: https://download.eset.com/com/eset/apps/home/essp/windows/v12/latest/essp_nt32.exe x64: https://download.eset.com/com/eset/apps/home/essp/windows/v12/latest/essp_nt64.exe ESET Internet Security 12.2.30.0: x86: https://download.eset.com/com/eset/apps/home/eis/windows/v12/latest/eis_nt32.exe x64: https://download.eset.com/com/eset/apps/home/eis/windows/v12/latest/eis_nt64.exe ESET NOD32 Antivirus 12.2.30.0: x86: https://download.eset.com/com/eset/apps/home/eav/windows/v12/latest/eav_nt32.exe x64: https://download.eset.com/com/eset/apps/home/eav/windows/v12/latest/eav_nt64.exe

I may have found the reason why the certificate date is different and it isn't compatible with XP anymore: The download link on that page labeled as ESET NOD32 Antivirus 12.1.34.0 32-bit actually delivers product version 12.2.30.0 (signed September 24, 2019): As I mentioned earlier, installation on XP was reportedly not possible with version 12.2.23.0. (But I "like" your post because you may have found an ideal download link for Vista x86. ) Meanwhile, the download link labeled as ESET NOD32 Antivirus 11.0.159.9 32-bit actually delivers 11.0.162.0 (signed February 08, 2018). I wonder if @Dibya uses that exact version?