Tag: Windows XP

WTAM 1100 – Protect Windows XP, Look Forward to 10

Play Audio – WTAM 1100 Newsradio – Tech Tuesday – November 4th, 2014

WTAM 1100 Newsradio Cleveland OhioWhile Microsoft support for Windows XP ended on April 8th, there are still some owners who are holding onto their Windows XP systems for a while longer. Either they have a proprietary business app that’s only designed for the older operating system, or they simply don’t want to move onto Windows 8 quite yet, those systems still need protecting in an online world full of malicious software.

For tips on helping keep Windows XP, here’s the Geek Squad guide on what to do if you want to keep Windows XP after support ends.

Eventually, even the most stalwart Windows XP users will need to upgrade as 3rd-party software support wanes and old hardware begins to fail. Fortunately, Microsoft is be making their next operating system more inviting to those users.

Find our more in Meet Windows 10, a Geek Squad UK guide to the features Windows users will most be interested in when it arrives in the latter half of 2015.

WTAM 1100 – Heartbleed & Windows XP

 
WTAM 1100 Newsradio Cleveland OhioTwo topics dominated tech news last week, with the new Heartbleed security vulnerability hitting web servers and the end of consumer Windows XP support by Microsoft.

I spoke to Bill Wills of Cleveland’s WTAM 1100 Newsradio about what regular users can do to protect themselves.

AMD HP Pavilion PCs and Windows XP Service Pack 3

I came across an issue today with an HP Pavilion desktop PC with an AMD processor that displayed a BSOD error message after it was updated to Windows XP Service Pack 3.

I found the resolution here, which involved booting into Safe Mode and changing a registry setting that was causing the system to load incompatible Intel drivers due to a mistake on HP’s part.

There are two ways to fix the issue, both of which will require the system be booted into Safe Mode.

Non-Regedit Fix:

  1. Start system in Safe Mode.
  2. Click on the Start button.
  3. Click on Run.
  4. Type “sc config intelppm start= disabled“. (note the space after the = sign)
  5. Click OK.
  6. Reboot.

Regedit Fix:

  1. Start system in Safe Mode.
  2. Click on the Start button.
  3. Click on Run.
  4. Type “regedit”.
  5. Click OK.
  6. In Regedit, locate and click on the key “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Intelppm“.
  7. Click on “Start” entry in the right pane and click Modify.
  8. Change the value from “1” to “4”.
  9. Click OK.
  10. Exit Regedit.
  11. Reboot the system.

After the reboot, everything worked fine. For some reason, the Intel service was set to start, causing issues on the AMD-based system.