How to Perform Microsoft Windows Maintenance

You've probably been getting the warnings popping on your computer's desktop and in your Microsoft Security Essentials dialogs for a few weeks, and you've been seeing the headlines for longer than that. When you have Facebook friends in the IT industry, doubtlessly they've been sharing articles for the past six to twelve months.

Right now, you've realized your Windows XP computer didn't explode or stop working after the sunset of support, so what are the implications of continuing to use an unsupported operating system? For one, if you want to call Microsoft for support with any problems from this day forward, they're not going to simply help you. If you're like the majority of people, you probably haven't called Microsoft previously dozen years, so you won't miss the truth that they're not likely to be there going forward. Be assured that for provided that you want to continue using XP, consultancies like Maverick Solutions is likely to be there to greatly help solve any problems you could have.

Without Microsoft support, however, you will have you can forget security patches, feature updates, bug-fixes, or driver updates. Presumably after 12 years, Microsoft has probably found and resolved the majority of the bugs. For all your current hardware available, drivers have previously been published if they're going to be. There will be no new Windows features, so today's Windows XP is the greatest it's ever going to get.

Think about security? Hackers have already been attacking technology for so long as people have already been using technology, and nothing is going to change that. Previously, when Microsoft identified a vulnerability in Windows XP, they released a patch to improve it. The identification of vulnerabilities, however, is normally the result of analyzing exploitations of the vulnerabilities, after the fact. Just like medicine doesn't create vaccinations before diseases are discovered, so, too, security experts don't patch security holes until someone finds and exploits those holes. Even then, it takes time to produce solutions, and it will take time to distribute them to Windows users. If your personal computer was configured to automatically download and install Windows updates, it still might have got a week or longer before your personal computer received and installed security patches. If your personal computer was configured otherwise, it's likely you have never received such patches.

In fact, you will find an incredible number of bad guys attacking technology, and many fewer security experts defending us from their website, so the nice guys tend to utilize a kind of triage when determining which holes to patch first. Those which may have the potential to cause the absolute most widespread damage are remediated first, and the more-obscure or less-harmful ones are left on the back burner. Third-party anti-malware software has the exact same shortcomings, so relying solely on operating system patches and anti-malware software is never the best way to safeguard your systems. buy windows 10 key

The fact that Microsoft is stopping support for XP and moving their security experts to the later operating systems is really a good sign for Windows XP users, in a way. In the same way security experts attempt to maximize of these time by remediating the most-widespread, most-harmful malware, hackers economize on the time, too, by attacking the most frequent software. If less than one percent of today's computers still use 1980s Microsoft DOS, there's no vig to locate vulnerabilities; there will be terribly few places to exploit those vulnerabilities and it would take time to even locate those systems. Microsoft moving its security experts'mitigation efforts from Windows XP to the later operating systems is indicative of the increasing market-share of the systems, that may also attract more hackers away from Windows XP.

As a technique, however, the very best anti-malware idea remains effective, and remains free: don't use an administrator account as your everyday user account. The second-best strategy will also continue to be free and effective for a little longer: install and update Microsoft Security Essentials. Microsoft announced they'll continue to offer it to Windows XP users through July. If you need help employing either of these strategies, seek out an area consultancy like ours to come set them up for you.