problem with MSE on XP

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stuck
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problem with MSE on XP

Post by stuck »

Yesterday my XP machine booted just fine but about half an hour later it locked up and MSE told me it had stopped working. I couldn't restart the MSE service so I tried a reboot. The PC then hung at the point when it would normally have displayed the MSE icon in the system tray. Holding the power button seemed to be the only way out.

Two or three reboot attempts later, all with similar lock ups I left the PC so see it if would eventually respond. It did but MSE was clearly unhappy and again reported it had stopped so I shut the thing down and went and got on with my life.

Today I left it to boot, took about 10 mins, rand a full scan, nothing nasty found with MSE (or Malwarebytes Anitmalware) but still decided to nuke MSE with Revo Uninstaller. PC booted just fine so downloaded Avira Free and all is well again, though I am double checking by running a Trend HouseCall scan.

Google lead me to this explanation of the problem on Tom's Hardware, in outline MS released a bad update.

Ken

JoeP
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Re: problem with MSE on XP

Post by JoeP »

Just run Windows Update to get the latest definition update.

Joe
Joe

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stuck
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Re: problem with MSE on XP

Post by stuck »

I may yet do that but MSE for XP is history and the nag pop-up it displays now is a pain so I'll probably stick with Avira for the short time until I finally get a chance to retire my XP box.

Ken

PJ_in_FL
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Re: problem with MSE on XP

Post by PJ_in_FL »

GRRRRRRR!

This "error" by Microsoft :bash: cost me all of last evening getting my old (and still main) XP box to boot up so I could clean out MSE and replace with AVG.

Tonight I'll burn another evening getting AVG to play nice with all my programs and URLs. Going to burn an ISO of Linux on one of the other computers in the meantime....

(Yes, I have procrastinated moving my old box to another OS, but, "Darn it Jim, I'm an doctor, not a computer scientist" -- actually an engineer, but hopefully you get the gist of my meaning...)
PJ in (usually sunny) FL

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stuck
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Re: problem with MSE on XP

Post by stuck »

PJ_in_FL wrote:...so I could clean out MSE and replace with AVG...
Except as Joe pointed out all that was required was to run Windows Update to get the latest definition update for MSE - assuming you are prepared to carry on suffering the sky is falling warning that MSE displays now that XP has reached EoL.

I'm still wondering about going back to MSE as my choice of alternative AV (Avira) has slowed down my PC boot time considerably. I had hoped to find time of the Easter break to do something about my XP machine but the weather was good and it was more fun to go and play outside :grin:

Ken