Tag: windows

How to get security updates for Windows XP until April 2019

May 28, 2014 /
Written by  on May 24, 2014 in Windows – Last Update: May 24, 2014 36
Article reprinted from ghacks.net

Microsoft’s official support for the Windows XP operating system ended more than a month ago. While some companies and organizations are still receiving updates for the operating system, end users do not.

 These companies pay Microsoft for that, usually because they were not able or willed to migrate computer’s running Windows XP to another operating system before the extended support phase for the system ended.

There is another exception to the end of support rule: Windows Embedded Industry, formerly known as Windows Embedded POSReady, operating systems continue to receive updates.

What makes this interesting is the fact that Windows Embedded POSReady 2009 is based on Windows XP Service Pack 3, and that the security updates released for that system are identical with the ones that Microsoft would have released for XP systems.

The extended support for Windows Embedded POSReady 2009 systems ends on April 9th, 2019 which means that you can use the trick to get another five years of security patches for XP.

windows xp updates

What you cannot do is go ahead and install those updates as you will get a version mismatch error when you try to do so. There is however a trick that you can use to bypass those checks so that you can install those updates on your version of Windows XP.

Note: The trick works only for 32-bit versions of Windows XP SP3 and not 64-bit versions. While POSReady systems are very similar to Windows XP systems, it is recommended to back up the system before you make any changes as differences between the systems may result in issues after installing updates designed for it.

All you need to do is add the following to the Windows XP Registry:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\WPA\PosReady]
“Installed”=dword:00000001

I have uploaded a Registry file for you that you can use for that purpose. You can download it here: xp-security-updates.zip (6039 downloads)

If you prefer to create one on your own do the following:

  1. Create a new plain text document.
  2. Paste the contents displayed above into it.
  3. Save the new document as xp.reg.
  4. Double-click the Registry file afterwards to add the contents to the Registry.

Alternatively, open the Registry Editor manually: tap on Windows-r, type regedit and hit enter. Navigate to the key listed above and create a new Dword with the value listed there as well. (via Desk Modder and Sebijk)

Both source sites are in German. If you open the Sebijk site, you will also find instructions on how to get this to work on 64-bit Windows XP systems. It involves running a batch file that replaces original update files with temporary ones that bypass the restrictions set in place.

Closing Words

If you are running Windows XP and do not want to switch to a new system or cannot, then you may want to try this trick to install security patches designed for the POSReady 2009 operating system on your PC.

I recommend highly that you create a backup before you update the system as there is no guarantee that all updates will work properly on XP PCs. While POSReady 2009 uses the same core, some things are different after all.

Nevertheless, this is better than not installing any security updates.

Article Name:  How to get security updates for Windows XP until April 2019
Author: Martin Brinkmann
Description: Support for Windows XP ended April 2014. but there is a trick that you can make use of to get security updates for the operating system.

Generate Random String

December 3, 2013 /

randomstring

 

Imports System.Text
 
Public Class Form1
 
  Private Sub Button1_Click(sender As System.Object, e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
    Dim s As String = “ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz”
    Dim r As New Random
    Dim sb As New StringBuilder
 
    For i As Integer = 1 To 8
      Dim idx As Integer = r.Next(0, 61)
      sb.Append(s.Substring(idx, 1))
    Next
 
    TextBox1.Text = sb.ToString
  End Sub
End Class

Recover Off-Screen Windows

November 20, 2013 /
  • Use ALT-TAB to switch to the off-screen application.
  • Press ALT-SPACE to bring up the system menu (you won’t see it because it is off screen)
  • Press R to select the “Restore” menu choice to ensure the windows isn’t is maximized (you can not move it if it is maximized)
  • Press ALT-SPACE again, then M to select the “Move” menu choice.
  • Press one of the arrow keys to initiate the movement.
  • Now just use the mouse to place the window where you want.

Remotely Enable Remote Desktop

November 15, 2013 /

Remote Desktop (aka Terminal Service) is disabled by default in Windows 7.  If you have administrator access to the computers on your domain, you can remotely enable it by doing the following:

Step 1: Open ports in the Windows firewall

There is no native way to change the settings of a remote Windows firewall. However, you can use PsExec from SysInternals to disable it or change some rules.

If you download the app and drop it into your c:\ drive, you can run this command and get command line access for that remote box.

c:\psexec \\remote_machine_name cmd

Once you have that command line open, you can run this command to disable the firewall:

netsh advfirewall set currentprofile state off

Alternatively you can run this command to allow only Remote Desktop while still leaving the rest of the firewall as is:

netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group=”remote desktop” new enable=Yes

Step 2: Start the Remote Registry service

Load up the Services MMC (Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services), right click on “Services (Local)” and choose “Connect to another computer”. Enter the name of your remote machine and connect to it. You should now be able to find the “Remote Registry” service and start it.

Depending on your environment, this may already be running, but I have found it generally isn’t on fresh computers.

Step 3: Change a registry setting to enable Remote Desktop

It’s time to make use of the Remote Registry and actually enable RDP. Load up regedit and go toFile > Connect Network Registry. Enter the name of your remote computer and connect to it. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > System > CurrentControlSet > Control > Terminal Server. Change the value of “fDenyTSConnections” to “0″.

Step 4: Start the Remote Desktop service

Go back to the Services MMC you used in Step 2. Find the service “Remote Desktop Services” and start it (or restart if it is already running).

Silent Install of Java 7 Update 40

September 13, 2013 /

1. Download the Java update from java.com.

2. The file you download will be an EXE. To get silent installations with some additional features you will need to pull the MSI from within the EXE.

To accomplish this, run the EXE on a test computer. (Just double click the EXE and move to the next step).

When the installation wizard starts, DO NOT proceed. By starting the installation wizard you have caused the Java MSI to be extracted to a special directory on you workstation.

To find this directory open your run command and type in %LOCALAPPDATA% and hit enter. This will open a window to your appdata\local directory. Go back one level and go into LocalLow. Inside this directory you’ll see a subdirectory called Sun. Drill down into the Sun\Java directory until you see the jre1.7.0_40 directory. This directory contains the Java .msi and .cab files needed for the Java installation.

3. Copy the jre1.7.0_40 directory  to another directory on your computer. After the copy you can cancel out of the Java install wizard that you started a minute ago.

4. Assuming you copied the jre1.7.0_40 folder to c:\temp, issue the following commands:

cd c:\temp
msiexec /i c:\temp\jrel.7.0_40.msi allusers=1 /q /norestart ju=0 javaupdate=0 rebootyesno=no

ONE VERY BIG note. If you receive an error 1603 when deploying to some computers, that’s a sign that the computers may have had some Java applets running. This is usually the case when they have browsers that are running.

If you hit errors on your deployment you may want to try adding addtional steps to kill browser sessions.

Java installation errors (1603, 1618)

If you get errors (1603, 1618) then you will want to consider removing older Java entries. This is done by removing the keys in the registry. It’s an involved process that sys admins love to hate.