|
Patch reliability is unclear. Unless you have an immediate, pressing need to install a specific patch, don't do it. |
For those of you that still rely on Windows media center, I see some folks saying that they are buying extended support updates for Windows 7 because
[See the full post at: Patch Lady – what about media center?]
Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher
I plan on using Windows Media Center for the foreseeable future. I’ve been using EPG123 and Schedules Direct for the past several years now for guide information so there shouldn’t be any interruption in service when Windows 7 support ends. In fact (others may disagree), I feel that the whole end of Windows 7 support is grossly over blown as is the new hardware argument since I’ve been running Windows 7 x64 on my main Ryzen 3900x MSI X570 machine without any problems for the past 4 months.
It’s not “grossly overblown”. As it goes with many things in life, people always believe they are safe until they become a victim.
There have been tons of ransomware attacks against government orgs and companies in the last year, and most of them exploit vulnerabilities in Windows that have already been patched. There was a story in the news just this week about a company in Alabama that laid off hundreds of people over the Christmas season because their computers were all hosed after a ransomware attack.
Most modern botnets are built with unpatched machines, too.
The vulnerabilities that attackers exploit (e.g. Wannacry) existed in Windows 7 for 8+ years before they were fixed, so don’t think for a second that can’t be another flaw lurking in there somewhere. Chances are in fact excellent that someone does know a major vulnerability and is just sitting on it.
You could be right. Mark Twain said “Education is the path from c**** ignorance to miserable uncertainty”, however I have off-line images of all of my drives, all remote file sharing, printer sharing, desktop, registry etc. disabled, as well as robust antivirus/ anti-malware solutions. In addition when the security vulnerabilities can be ameliorated in a different way such as disabling SMBv1 via the registry, I have done so. Since my computers are for private use only and the information on them is of no use to anyone else, I feel the risk is low and one I’m willing to take.
VLC plays everything on most platforms. My daily driver for many years.
Also, agoldhammer, there might be a way to get untied from Windows Media Center.
Give these a read.
https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/win7-media-center-replacement/
https://www.askwoody.com/forums/search/videolan/
Win 8.1 (home & pro) Group B, W10/11 Avoider, Linux Dabbler
Media Center will continue to work on Win7. There just won’t be any security updates for Win7 after Jan 14th.
You’ll be running a machine that will not be isolated from the internet and it will not be getting security patches.
Those of us running Win7 WMC recognize this. The PC hooked up to the television is dedicated only for that use and does nothing else. It goes out once daily to Schedules Direct to download the updated channel guide. The only other Internet use is for streaming and I’ve isolated the URLs for the streaming services that I use.
I recognize that there “may” be some vulnerabilities but most problems are user inflicted by either dodgy emails or websites. No email on this PC addresses the first and the second is dealt with by only going to websites I trust. As I have already noted, if Netflix starts delivering malware there are much bigger problems.
Please refer to the related Blog Post clearly linked from the abbreviated OP above:
[See the full post at: Patch Lady – what about media center?]
The key issue is protected content and the need for a cable card if one is using Windows Media Center as a replacement for TIVO or a telecom cable box. I’m tied to Win7 and WMC for the foreseeable future as this is my cable box solution (there have been attempts to port the program over to Win10 but it seems that every Win10 update causes problems). I cannot move to Plex or some other solutions as they don’t support cable cards. As noted by @ryegrass, I’ve updated to EPG123 for schedule information 18 months ago and that untied me from MSFT schedule updates. The PC is protected by a firewall and the only thing I need to do is move potentially move to a new antivirus solution form MSFT Security Essentials.
I don’t use this PC for email or random web browsing. The only Internet stuff this PC does is video streaming from about five websites (Amazon Prime, Netflix, ESPN+ and a couple of more). If any of those sites are compromised there are much bigger problems with the Internet than my little PC. I have a system image and some redundant hardware in case there is a failure of some kind.
IMO, Windows Media Center was a very nice piece of software and it is really too bad that MSFT decided to discontinue support.
The Windows (7) Media Center PCs in our household will be unaffected by the events of January 14.
Our first HTPC (home-theater PC) would routinely get clobbered by the monthly Windows Updates to the point where we could no longer watch live TV or record new programming. I would have to laboriously uninstall and reinstall updates until I hit on the problem patch, or else tediously install each patch, then reboot and launch WMC to see if still worked after that one, rinse and repeat. Tiring of this time-consuming, white-knuckle ritual, about six years ago I simply set the first PC to update Never, and it’s been running like a champ ever since.
The second HTPC was set up a few months ago. I updated it all the way to that month and then set it to Never check for updates.
So the impending end of updating will have no implications for these computers. More significant was the early end of program-guide information by Rovi, the company that Microsoft had used to provide that data. This ended on December 31 and not January 14.
The first TV computer had already been set up with EPG123 to download program data from Schedules Direct, and the other one just made the switch this week. Both can get the data off the same $25/year subscription to SD.
Neither computer gets e-mail (a major vector for malware infection) or surfs the Web (another major vector), and both are protected in real time by Norton Internet Security and Hitman.Pro Alert. The browsers on those machines are kept up to date (except for Internet Explorer, which is no longer used), and for good measure have add-ons to block Web ads for those rare occasions when they do go on the Web to look up an actor or a fact in a movie.
Further, like all the computers in our home, they are invisible to intruders behind the router (to use Steve Gibson’s terminology, the ports on our computers are not merely “closed,” they are “stealthed”), such that port scanners would remain unaware of their existence.
Because we watch live sports and news, streaming options are inadequate to our preferences, so our systems are fitted with CableCARDs from the cable company.
I too use WMC, for one reason, the DVR capabilities to record OTA. Like others have mentioned, I had to switch to EPG123 last week. It works as advertised.
As far as being unsupported, blah blah blah. If something happens I do a reinstall. With proper precautions and some common sense, the odds are slim. An acceptable risk. It’s a dedicated HTPC, nothing critical on it, just music files. Which I have backed up.
If WMC truly becomes unusable, JRiver looks promising and is OS agnostic.
I’ll continue to run all 6 of my machines on win7 until pc hardware dies and can no longer be found to run it. All have WMC set for FTA and library access to media on the primary machine.
Considering the patch quality from MS, there is not much incentive to pay for a threat perceived to be greater than malware.
Donations from Plus members keep this site going. You can identify the people who support AskWoody by the Plus badge on their avatars.
AskWoody Plus members not only get access to all of the contents of this site -- including Susan Bradley's frequently updated Patch Watch listing -- they also receive weekly AskWoody Plus Newsletters (formerly Windows Secrets Newsletter) and AskWoody Plus Alerts, emails when there are important breaking developments.
