Microsoft patches XP after support ends for XP

I found this funny, that less than a month after XP support ends and it will never again be patched....Microsoft releases a patch for it.

Microsoft is issuing an update to Internet Explorer today that patches a very serious security issue in its browser. This issue came to light over the weekend and what made it especially problematic was that it involved every version from IE 6 forward.
Windows XP users, however, can’t update their browser beyond version 8 and Microsoft isn’t patching XP anymore at this point in its life cycle. For this bug, however, Microsoft has made an exception and it is patching IE on Windows XP as well.

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Read the rest of the story.
Microsoft Patches Latest Internet Explorer Security Flaw ? Even For XP Users | TechCrunch

I guess the situation was so serious that they had to do something about it. Maybe there will be similar situations in the future.

Seeing as they are making them for the gov still I figure that anytime an update has a huge hole to fix they will take that update they already made and send it to everyone. From what I readed the bug aloud script on some pages displayed in internet explorer which would act like a RAT and could control the computer using whatever permissions that user had(So only a concern if you are an admin which most XP users are, there is no "hidden" Admin like windows 7 by default.)

Aye, it was an isolated issue with internet explorer. I used this exploit on one of my machines for demonstration on one of my college assignments.





Quite scary to think that just by going to a webpage they could have access to potentially the entire system. XP was awful for security to begin with anyway. It is possible to gain backdoor access without any user intervention. With the controversy of Windows 8 I will say that the security architecture has greatly improved when compared to other versions.

Josh

Just curious.....
Is that fix for I.E. available as a download file, either from MS or another source?

TechnoMage said:

Just curious.....
Is that fix for I.E. available as a download file, either from MS or another source?

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For Windows 7 and 8.1 it came as a normal patch Tuesday update.

If it had been an XP only issue they likely wouldn't have patched it. It was an issue across multiple versions of IE though. It likely wasn't a whole lot of extra effort to patch XP's version of IE too so why not.

Yeh, essentially copy and paste the IE 8 patch which probably is the same on Vista

Josh

Every business I have been to since the alleged cessation of updates for XP all have made arrangements with MS for continued support.

I went on an XP-Update-Binge for the week before end-of-life, I thought the Windows Update server would be shut down at Midnight of that day. But to my surprise, they have not shut the update server down. They were not that gracious with end-of-life for Windows 98 , they slammed the door on the update server in very short order.

It figures I missed the most important update! heh.

TechnoMage said:

Just curious.....
Is that fix for I.E. available as a download file, either from MS or another source?

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Yes. It's KB2964358 (04/30/2014). You can download it here.
Microsoft Update Catalog

They still have the updates every month for Security Essentials and Malicious Software Removal tool.

Windows XP PCs No Longer Receiving Updates

A Guy

A Guy said:

Windows XP PCs No Longer Receiving Updates

A Guy

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I just did the 2 updates a couple of hours ago on 2 XP PCs.

Yep!

Actually all that article states is that there are no NEW updates for XP. If you install XP Fresh, you can get every update for it ever made.

The UK government made a deal with MS for private XP extended support for millions of public service computers. I wonder if those fixes and updates would ever one day end up available to the public. Because it seems a waste to keep updating and patching an OS that the majority can't benefit from.

R23 said:

The UK government made a deal with MS for private XP extended support for millions of public service computers. I wonder if those fixes and updates would ever one day end up available to the public. Because it seems a waste to keep updating and patching an OS that the majority can't benefit from.

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As far as I know that's a special case scenario. Microsoft won't do routine monthly updates. Special cases only, and other issues reported by the customer. It's a pay for service so they aren't going to release these patches to Joe public. If they did that the Custoner wouldn't pay for them in the first place.

alphanumeric said:

R23 said:

The UK government made a deal with MS for private XP extended support for millions of public service computers. I wonder if those fixes and updates would ever one day end up available to the public. Because it seems a waste to keep updating and patching an OS that the majority can't benefit from.

Click to expand...

As far as I know that's a special case scenario. Microsoft won't do routine monthly updates. Special cases only, and other issues reported by the customer. It's a pay for service so they aren't going to release these patches to Joe public. If they did that the Custoner wouldn't pay for them in the first place.

Click to expand...

I thought that maybe after the whole contracted support period ends (lets say a couple of years from now) they might bundle up every patch they made for the government and release it publically. I know its a bit ideological but it would only serve to strengthen the security of the internet as a whole because there are still millions of people using XP.

R23 said:

alphanumeric said:

R23 said:

The UK government made a deal with MS for private XP extended support for millions of public service computers. I wonder if those fixes and updates would ever one day end up available to the public. Because it seems a waste to keep updating and patching an OS that the majority can't benefit from.

Click to expand...

As far as I know that's a special case scenario. Microsoft won't do routine monthly updates. Special cases only, and other issues reported by the customer. It's a pay for service so they aren't going to release these patches to Joe public. If they did that the Custoner wouldn't pay for them in the first place.

Click to expand...

I thought that maybe after the whole contracted support period ends (lets say a couple of years from now) they might bundle up every patch they made for the government and release it publically. I know its a bit ideological but it would only serve to strengthen the security of the internet as a whole because there are still millions of people using XP.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't think there would be much point in doing that. For one they want people to move away from XP. Two I don't see to many people waiting two or three years for patches they might not ever get. The contract with said company may stipulate that those patches never get released to anybody other than that company. They paid for them so they likely don't want anybody else to get them for free. Microsoft suddenly putting out patches two or three years down the road would just open up a can of worms for them.