“Microsoft provided support for Windows XP for the past 12 years. But the time came for us, along with our hardware and software partners, to invest our resources toward supporting more recent technologies so that we can continue to deliver great new experiences. As a result, technical assistance for Windows XP is no longer available, including automatic updates that help protect your PC.
Microsoft has also stopped providing Microsoft Security Essentials for download on Windows XP. If you already have Microsoft Security Essentials installed, you’ll continue to receive anti-malware signature updates for a limited time. However, please note that Microsoft Security Essentials (or any other antivirus software) will have limited effectiveness on PCs that do not have the latest security updates. This means that PCs running Windows XP will not be secure and will still be at risk for infection.”
Stats show that Windows XP still holds 29% of the Market even though it is no longer available. This leaves a lot of Users stuck with the current state of their XP machines, leaving them vulnerable to attack. The only remediation these Users had was to upgrade the system to a newer version on Windows.
A recent Registry Update allows Windows XP users to now receive updates until 2019. This Registry change tricks the Update System to believing that the XP Machine is not outdated and allows it to update.
Here is how to carry out the Registry Update Hack:
Firstly I used an XP Machine within my Virtual Environment. I created a full clone of the current state of my XP Machine.
Paste the below code into a notepad file and save it as XP.reg.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\WPA\PosReady]
“Installed”=dword:00000001
Make sure after the file has been saved that it now looks like the below image. If it does now look similar, more than likely the extension is a notepad txt file (XP.txt) and not XP.reg.
Click the file and select ‘Yes’ for this Registry change to run.
Once the Registry has been Updated you will receive the successful dialog box like the one below and the Registry Hack is now complete.