General Discussions

[kingfish]

Microsoft Security Essentials will receive security definition updates after Windows 7 support ends despite Microsoft's earlier claims stating the contrary.

Earlier this week, Microsoft stated in no uncertain terms that the company's security software Microsoft Security Essentials would not receive any more updates after Windows 7's support end on January 14, 2020.

Microsoft answered the question whether Microsoft Security Essentials could be used to protect computers after end of support:

No, your Windows 7 computer is not protected by MSE after January 14, 2020. MSE is unique to Windows 7 and follows the same lifecycle dates for support.

Woody Leonhard questioned whether Microsoft would indeed retire the application in its entirety even for customers who paid Microsoft for Extended Security Updates. Businesses and Enterprise customers may extend support that Windows 7 receives by up to three years by paying Microsoft per device or user (a bypass for non-businesses systems was found recently).

Would Microsoft really disable Microsoft Security Essentials on these devices despite the fact that these companies and organizations pay Microsoft for extended support? Turns out, no, that is not what Microsoft wants to do.

The company modified the answer on the FAQ page so that it now reads:

Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) will continue to receive signature updates after January 14, 2020. However, the MSE platform will no longer be updated.

The most likely explanation that I have for this is that Microsoft meant software updates all long when it mentioned that MSE would not be supported anymore and that it had no intention of disabling the release of new security definitions.

I think that Microsoft will continue to push definition updates to all Windows 7 devices that run Microsoft Security Essentials. It is the sane thing to do considering that a huge number of Home systems and unsupported systems in organizations still run the operating system.

If you look back at how Microsoft handled definition updates when it retired Windows XP and Windows Vista, you will notice that support was extended and not cut off at the time the operating systems ran out of support.

As far as Microsoft Security Essentials software updates are concerned, those won't be released anymore. It is possible, however, that Microsoft will push out updates if a serious security issue is detected in the application.

It would not be the first time that Microsoft would release a security update for an unsupported operating system. The company released an update for Windows XP back in 2017, two years after end of support, that protected systems against WannaCry attacks.

Windows 7: Microsoft Security Essentials will receive definition updates after support end - gHacks ... 

[elstaci]

That is good news for Windows 7 Users, But how effective will MSE be if the software itself isn't updated to keep pace with the new methods of detecting Malware and viruses. Even if Malware signatures are updated via Security updates, MSE will still be using old technology for detecting Malware and Viruses.

In my opinion, Eventually MSE won't be very effective at spotting new Malware or Viruses. It is better to keep using 3rd party Anti-Virus programs that doesn't have this disadvantage and their software is updated regularly.

[black_zion]

It'll quickly lose effectiveness because of how fast malware evolves, but the bigger problem will come from application vulnerabilities as well as malicious persons who reverse engineer the ongoing paid for patches, and of course processor vulnerabilities which will require a Windows component which we saw with Spectre, Meltdown, and all the others, and none of those are affected by anti-malware programs.

[hardcoregames_]

it never ceases to amaze me at the reasons people come up with to modernize to windows 10

i run windows 10 and it is fairly stable, my RX 480 woes not withstanding

[kingfish]

It amazes me that you keep posting this type of question. Who do you think your audience is? People with similar feelings have the same memory defect you exhibit. People here have perfect knowledge of what you surrender to Microsoft to obtain all these advanced features. Microsoft's reliability and update issues have been documented since day one. Refresh your memory and quit spamming articles meant for Win 7 users.

[black_zion]

Not to mention the fact that the cost to move to Windows 10 for businesses can incur hundreds to thousands of dollars per machine in license costs for specific software they use, as well as the fact that the software they may use currently isn't perfectly, or at all, duplicated in newer versions, or newer versions which work with Windows 10 may not exist. We saw this same issue when it came to Windows XP. This is on top of the fact people, especially older people and the less technically inclined, may not want to shell out in excess of $100 and potentially face updates which brick their machine. And then there's the fact that Windows 10 may offer absolutely zero benefits, especially if their computer is as of the age of Windows 7 which can still be quite powerful if it is Intel based, and may not see Windows updates as anything critical considering the most widely advertised flaws have been with processors and software, not operating systems.

Had Microsoft not changed Windows 10 to be a "service", we would likely be seeing a new operating system version in 2020, since starting with Vista new versions have been released 3-4 years later, and be facing all this again in a few years when 10 dropped out of support.