Windows XP and Microsoft Security Essentials... End of Life?

Here we go again, Microsoft cutting of a good portion of their customer simply because they are 'obsolete' in the virtual world. I can understand about the age issue as they would take the position of wanting to move forward with the latest and greatest (haha) and have to make some sacrifices, however the problem i have arises with what they seemed to have done with Microsoft Security Essentials.

I have had a number of customer machines come in to my office all reporting the same issue; machine is locked up after the last round of updates Microsoft pushed out for Windows XP, coincidentally one of those updates being a Microsoft Security Essentials 'security update' or something along those lines. Every time my customers would faithfully install these updates, being the well trained Microsoft users they are, they would immediately start having issues on their machine to the point they could no longer use it.

The Symptoms

I have seen numerous symptoms on Windows XP machines after having the MSE update installed.

• Worst case: the whole machine was locked up, and unusable.
• Unable to open Internet Explorer as it was 'crashing'.
• Unable to browse the internet from any browser.
• Unable to open applications in general, but still could use Windows Explorer.
• Performance issues, the machine was way way slower than normal.

The Causes and Fix

Honestly, i don't know exactly what it is about this update that causes the problems mentioned above, and i do not even know if the problems i mentioned above are the only issues. The issues above are the only ones i have seen so far, and i sure hope not to see any more than that. 

The ultimate fix for all of the issues mentioned above to simply remove Microsoft Security Essentials, and everything went back to normal!

Let me make one thing clear. Just because Windows XP is deemed 'obsolete' by Microsoft does NOT mean that it is useless! You can still use Windows XP like you did before all of this headache started with the ending support of Windows XP, however you have to consider a few things:

• Windows XP is no longer supported which means that Microsoft will no longer be pushing out updates and patches. This will leave your Windows XP at the mercy of any attacks that may come your way, and unless your willing to invest the time to make your own patches and apply them to XP which would take hours of time that you may not even be successful with, there is nothing you can do about it.
• Microsoft Security Essentials simply just no longer works for Windows XP.

I am a little upset about the issue with MSE screwing up Windows XP, to me, it almost sounds like planned obsolescence so that Microsoft can force you to move up to the newest, latest and greatest (which if we are referring to Windows 8, it might be the latest but not the greatest).