Windows XP End of Life Approaching

[Kiriakos GR]

Re: Windows XP End of Life Approaching

What could be released is a rollup package, like what was released for Windows 2000 (Instead of service pack 5)

This XP SP3 made an XP SP2 system 30% slower.
By adding the latest updates for all the versions of framework, my system become totally sluggish.

Thankfully I have Norton Ghost 14, and I can revert back in to a healthy status.
Since the beginning of 2013 I have stop accepting any updates so to keep my box responsive and stable.

In summary just one fresh installation with XP SP3 plus a copy of the very first framework versions 1 up to 4, is all the must have software so to keep using your OS.

Unfortunately I need this framework layers for the ATI VGA ( AMD software) and some data-logging software made by Agilent & Fluke.

Made a test before a week to accept all the updates so to see if there was any improvements, my system become a mess and I did revert back again.
If you do not have installed applications which actually use the framework, you may not see those symptoms.

[Heihachi_73]

Re: Windows XP End of Life Approaching

Windows' auto-update decided it wanted to update my nicely working video drivers again the other day. The last time it did this, anything which used Direct3D would cause a BSOD. Guess what? The latest Nvidia drivers did just that, just like the ones in February this year and back in 2012. Back to the known-good 2009 drivers for the third time and MAME works like a charm once again.

Additionally, after doing a system restore to revert Windows to before the drivers were installed (which was probably unnecessary on my part though, as it didn't even revert the drivers at all - I had to manually roll them back in the device manager properties!), Windows now shoves the same error message on screen each and every time it boots, "The system has recovered from a serious error". Well done Microsoft and Nvidia, you are both leading the market in planned obsolescence, helping steer everyone across to closed-system throwaway tablets made in China.

[lti]

Re: Windows XP End of Life Approaching

Windows Update in XP always wanted to update drivers. I've seen it most often with Nvidia graphics card drivers, but I also saw a dial-up modem driver listed as a critical update and an S3 graphics driver (VIA chipset integrated video) shown as a recommended update. The S3 driver was actually older than the driver that was installed. Other versions of Windows list drivers as optional updates.

It seems like Nvidia intentionally breaks the drivers for older cards so people will upgrade. Then they claim that the card is failing or never supported the feature they disabled (like the ability to choose a widescreen resolution), even though everything works with the older driver or the driver that Windows installs automatically.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Windows XP End of Life Approaching

It seems like Nvidia intentionally breaks the drivers for older cards so people will upgrade.

Sounds like what the old ATI seemed to do. With the Radeon 9000 Pro, Catalyst later than 3.2 (or much later than that) caused FPS loss.
3D Mark 2001 SE took a loss with later Catalyst drivers.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Windows XP End of Life Approaching

Windows' auto-update decided it wanted to update my nicely working video drivers again the other day. The last time it did this, anything which used Direct3D would cause a BSOD. Guess what? The latest Nvidia drivers did just that, just like the ones in February this year and back in 2012. Back to the known-good 2009 drivers for the third time and MAME works like a charm once again.

Additionally, after doing a system restore to revert Windows to before the drivers were installed (which was probably unnecessary on my part though, as it didn't even revert the drivers at all - I had to manually roll them back in the device manager properties!), Windows now shoves the same error message on screen each and every time it boots, "The system has recovered from a serious error". Well done Microsoft and Nvidia, you are both leading the market in planned obsolescence, helping steer everyone across to closed-system throwaway tablets made in China.

Sounds like a corrupted Windows installation or a bad video card.

And Windows XP SP0 had a bug where if it crashed in a past session, Windows XP would then keep displaying "The system recovered from a serious error" (or similar) on every reboot. Microsoft had a hotfix for this, IIRC.

[lti]

Re: Windows XP End of Life Approaching

Sounds like what the old ATI seemed to do. With the Radeon 9000 Pro, Catalyst later than 3.2 (or much later than that) caused FPS loss.
3D Mark 2001 SE took a loss with later Catalyst drivers.

That isn't that bad. Nvidia removed support for widescreen resolutions in later versions of the driver for old GeForce 4 cards (shortly before they stopped making drivers for those cards) and then said that the cards never supported those resolutions. I remember them making up a bunch of crap about the cards not having a high enough clock speed to support those resolutions.

I can't find the tons of forum threads with people complaining about the updated driver removing support for widescreen resolutions, but here is the standard response I remember from every one of those threads:
https://forums.geforce.com/default/t...th-1680x1050-/

To support widescreen resolutions a video card needs a RAMDAC of 400MHz. Any card below the GeForce 5 FX series only has a 350MHz RAMDAC.

Sounds like a corrupted Windows installation or a bad video card.

It looks like the program he mentioned has issues with certain versions of Nvidia drivers.

[Heihachi_73]

Re: Windows XP End of Life Approaching

Just booted it up today, and there was no error message this time. It probably only had the error messages because the system was in fact crashing, and the last reboot (after the system restore) was the last "serious error" caused by the graphics driver before they were reverted.

The board is an AsRock N68-S3 (Sempron 140 / nForce 630a), no video card installed. The only way this board is going to go down is when the KZGs around the VRM go pop (more like when its cheap-shit Aywun A1-2000 PSU goes pop!).

It's the same story with my (old faithful) main system. If I dare update the Radeon 9550 drivers, it runs much slower in games; go back to Omega 3.8.231 from 2006 and it's fine.

[Kiriakos GR]

Re: Windows XP End of Life Approaching

Most system Errors get recorded by the Event viewer log.
This is where I start its and every time when troubleshooting issues.

[TELVM]

Re: Windows XP End of Life Approaching



Microsoft: We will work on fixing SVCHOST bug in Windows XP "through the holiday"

"From the extended Windows Update logs, we saw the issue stemmed from inefficiencies in the Windows Update Agent processing long lists of superseded updates. And the problem was exponential in that each additional superseded item took twice as long as the previous item to evaluate. With lists as long as 40+ superseded items, the processing cost on SVCHOST via the Windows Update Agent had an exceptional impact on client PCs."

[momaka]

Re: Windows XP End of Life Approaching

And here's how you fix this SVCHOST bug:
1) right-click My Computer and click on Properties, click the "Automatic Updates" tab, then click on "Turn-ff automatic updates". Apply and OK
2) right-click My Computer and click on Manage, then click on Services, and find the "Automatic Updates" service. Double-click it, click "Stop", then from the drop-down box, select "Disabled". Apply, OK, and close the Management window.
DONE!

By the way, I don't know about Windows XP EOL, but it seems many small-city airport still use Windows XP. Heck, there are still ATMs out there running Windows 98! My family used one just last week while we were on vacation.

I don't think XP will die-off this easily.

[Topcat]

Re: Windows XP End of Life Approaching

^
Thank you Kind sir!

I installed MS Security Essentials on a few machines, and notice that it turns on automatic updates without telling you. I always go in behind it and turn it back off, but didn't think to disable the SVC.

[mockingbird]

Re: Windows XP End of Life Approaching

And here's how you fix this SVCHOST bug:...

This doesn't fix the bug. Today I had to run Microsoft Update on a customer's XP machine. The bar kept moving for a while but never showed the updates. Looked it up and it turned out that I needed the December 2013 cumulative security update for IE8 in the interim until this bug is fixed... After that it worked just fine.

[Topcat]

Re: Windows XP End of Life Approaching

This doesn't fix the bug. Today I had to run Microsoft Update on a customer's XP machine. The bar kept moving for a while but never showed the updates. Looked it up and it turned out that I needed the December 2013 cumulative security update for IE8 in the interim until this bug is fixed... After that it worked just fine.

I had an XP Netbook come in that was out of date....the little green bar literally circle jerked for 2 hours before it came to a page displaying almost 400mb of updates. My tinfoil hat says MS does this stuff on purpose....

[momaka]

Re: Windows XP End of Life Approaching

This doesn't fix the bug.

I know... Yeah, sorry, I think I should have added the sarcasm brackets after all (as I was thinking first). To be honest, though, this does "fix" the problem in a way: no updates, no problems .

In defense to MS updates, I wouldn't say they are all bad. In particular, if you have XP just with SP2, you'll probably get the downadup worm infection very quickly. The thing will port-scan and exploit your computer without you even opening a browser. Just need to leave the computer connected to the internet and that's all that's needed. I think it was either TELVM or SIDMX that pointed the MS article to me, but update KB958644 fixes this problem (that is, unless you install SP3, which includes this update already... so if you have SP3 - chill!).

Thank you Kind sir!

No problem . I'm more that willing to help people when it comes to turning off automatic updates .

[Kiriakos GR]

Re: Windows XP End of Life Approaching

My tinfoil hat says MS does this stuff on purpose....

Hey I need of of those too, there is not yet available one daily horoscope about windows updates and bad Carma.

[TELVM]

Re: Windows XP End of Life Approaching

Microsoft Extends Windows XP Anti-Malware Updates 1 Year


Microsoft: You will still need to activate Windows XP after April 8th with a fresh install

^ Which implies that XP activation servers will keep running.

[Topcat]

Re: Windows XP End of Life Approaching

^
The seat of my pants also sees another EOL extension as well.

[Dan81]

Re: Windows XP End of Life Approaching

For a unknown reason I find it silly to keep the XP activation servers running.

[Kiriakos GR]

Re: Windows XP End of Life Approaching

For a unknown reason I find it silly to keep the XP activation servers running.

Great idea lets make them game servers.

By the amount of money spend by all Windows customers together, those servers belong to us, and all the network cables too.

[japlytic]

Re: Windows XP End of Life Approaching

I've read about the many ATMs still running XP (most of which probably run XP Embedded) - and XP Embedded support ends 2016.