Bug in Microsoft Security Essentials lames Windows XP

Since the end of support for Windows XP, strange things happen on some computers with the formentioned operating system using Microsoft Security Essentials.

First Microsoft informed the world that MSE would still be supported (read: updated) on XP until July 2015, but since April 10th the system tray icon of MSE has turned RED (and stays red!) to tell us after every boot up that the computer is not protected anymore because of the end of support for XP. Microsoft is not only misleading users with this message but frightening them as well. I call this unacceptable!

Secondly another - more crippling - problem has arisen. I am a professional computer engineer and maintain many desktops and laptops for my customers on a daily base: as of today (April 16th) I have seen about 12 computers on which Windows XP - after every boot up - throws up an error message referring to MSE, stating: "MsMpEng.exe application error. The instruction at "0x5a4d684d" referenced memory at "0x00000000" The memory could not be read", leaving the computer in an unusable state, because it won't go on anymore, whatever you try, and the only solution is to disable MSE or uninstall it completely (if a user who is not a computer engineer knows how to do that anyway!). This I call even more unaceptable!!

I'm not suggesting that Microsoft is doing this on purpose, but I can't imagine that this situation is coincidental.... And how is Redmond supposed to fix this problem when those computers are not responding anymore, apart from the fact that updates and hotfixes are no longer offered?

 

Seeing this on many many computers here.
Looks like updating the definitions stops the error on some computers.

 

Same problem Here

Do you have some solutions?

 

Same thing here, problem is PC will not boot to bios or safe mode. We have two PC's left in office with XP that have been running great until this morning.

Has to be Microsoft related...

I'll keep an eye on this forum throughout the day, hope one of you folks smarter than me can come up with something

 

there are also other free antivirus that will do the job

I have two pc's running 360 Internet security from Quiho and one running avast free

there are pros and cons to both, but both are still supporting xp fully

 

Hi Alex (and others), Maybe there is or will be a fix, but actually I'm not interested anymore in MSE and will not bother to find a solution or workaround: if Microsoft thinks that XP does not deserve proper support anymore although millions of computers are still running this operating system, then I prefer to get rid of MSE (which is not very protective anyway) and install Avast or AVG free editions. Good luck!

 

MSE issue

I started seeing this on 4/15...just as I was trying to finalize my taxes. Oops. Eventually the PC would allow me to log in, but it took about 30 minutes for everything to timeout to a point where it would get to the desktop. I agree with the original poster this is unacceptable and needs to be fixed.

 

I've suddenly been dealing with this problem all day today. I have seen this in several computers and multiple sites. All are Windows XP using MSE. Some give the memory error, some just freeze for many minutes at a time, some lose network connection. All are fixed by uninstalling MSE and replacing with another free AntiVirus. Looks awful fishy to me.

 

McGruff753, your my hero, I read your post and waited for about 30 minutes and was able to get Avast on my laptop and now all is well. Mahalo big time for posting

 

Same boat here. Has Microsoft made any sort of announcement about a fix for this?

 

That happened to me too. then i uninstalled MSE

 

Use F8 (usually) at boot up to get the boot menu. Select "Safe Mode with Networking". Log in then try to open MSE and do an update in the update tab. Do a normal reboot.

Another thing that works is to boot into "Safe Mode with Networking" then go to:
support.microsoft.com/kb/971606
follow the instructions then do a normal reboot.

 

@gmitch, I believe it would be better to uninstall MSE at this time and look at the other free antivirus' available that will support xp for a while yet:

http://www.360safe.com/internet-security.html

you can download from here
http://www.avast.com/download-thank-...w&tag=0337VjCh
(official avast direct download) watch out that you do not install chrome which may come bundled with avast.

 

Fixed?

We had the issue at work as well, but our Corporate office opened a high priority ticket with Microsoft. Supposedly it is now fixed. I'm not sure if it is just us, or if the fix covered everyone. This was the memo we received this morning.

Update

The fix for the Endpoint Protection issue was deployed last night and was able to fix the majority of the clients. There are however still some machines that did not update properly due to client side issues.

Overview & Impacted Area

Microsoft released an antivirus definition which impacts MS Endpoint Protection clients running on Windows XP workstations and Windows 2003 servers. This definition causes the antivirus service to switch to a disabled state.