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I totally agree but, I think Intel initially caused it but after talking it over with M$, they both agreed to “work together” to solve their own self-interests & future monetary balance sheets.

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HiFlyer

In reference to my previous posts: #200783 & #200801

After giving this some additional thought, I now believe that Microsoft initially modified May 2018’s Win7/Vista Windows Defender engine version “1.1.14901.4” which purposely set an “end date” for defender engine & def updates for Vista at 6/12/2018 – 1 day prior to June 2018’s security patch Tuesday. However, Win7 updates would continue to receive whatever the next MOST current engine & def versions were available on the actual day/time the update was performed as verified in my previous posts above.

For Vista …

Running update resulted in engine updated to “1.1.14901.4” & defs to “1.269.1075.0” dated 6/11/2018 6:50AM.

But … why only to 6/11/2018? … this is not the MOST current engine & defs! Win7 just updated fine (see above) when starting with engine at “1.1.14901.4” & defs at “1.269.1075.0” dated 6/11/2018 6:50AM.

Running a 2nd/3rd update resulted in “No new updates found”.

In addition, June 2018’s engine version “1.1.15000.2” was also modified I believe “with the intent to stop all future Vista updates” but also in a way “without giving distinction between Vista & Win7” as currently both seem to use the very same engine & defs. I think this was where the error of “overlooking Win7” was made.

If Microsoft had intended to stop future updates for Win7, why did they allow for that “one” & “only one” next MOST recent update past 6/11/2018 for Win7 in engine version “1.1.14901.4”? They could have just as easily made Win7 & Vista the same using the same “end date” or different “end date” just for Win7.

With the way things stand now, even accounting for today’s Microsoft, everyone’s last defender update is/would be different dependent upon the actual day that the last Win7 update was done with engine “1.1.14901.4”. This seems a bit strange.

It could be that Microsoft intended to stop updating Win7 prior to July 2018’s security patch Tuesday but if that were the case, one would still get Win7 updates up until then with engine version “1.1.15000.2” and we know this is not the case today.

I guess only time will tell if it’ll be back (get fixed) or if it’s gone forever. Oh well …

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Cybertooth

@HiFlyer …
I’ll give you that, you might be absolutely correct in your assessment.

But, I really don’t depend on Windows Defender so it’s really not that big of a deal to me one way or the other.

But for those who do, their updating process has yet again become somewhat more cumbersome.

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HiFlyer

@sldc88 …

In post #200824, I wrote:

Though I have no way of knowing for sure, I’m thinking some bright young Microsoft Defender Team engineer during a team meeting asked “why are we still updating Defender for non-supported OS’s like XP & Vista” then subsequently some scrupulous mid-level manager received a bonus for submitting a cost savings proposal to upper management and … wallah! … no more Defender updates post 6/11/2018 for non-supported systems to include XP & Vista.

I just did some testing on several of my Windows 7 systems & 1 resurrected Vista system. My results are posted #200783 & #200801.

As such, I believe Microsoft, in tweaking the Defender engine version “1.1.15000.2” to disable future definition updates for XP & Vista, made an error which introduced a negative side effect (bug) in Windows 7 Defender once it’s updated to engine version “1.1.15000.2”.

Again, this is all conjecture on my part so this may not actually be the case but it sure seems to fit well within the current Microsoft update environment/mindset.

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sldc88

@cybertooth

Though I have no way of knowing for sure, I’m thinking some bright young Microsoft Defender Team engineer during a team meeting asked “why are we still updating Defender for non-supported OS’s like XP & Vista” then subsequently some scrupulous mid-level manager received a bonus for submitting a cost savings proposal to upper management and … wallah! … no more Defender updates post 6/11/2018 for non-supported systems to include XP & Vista.

I just did some testing on several of my Windows 7 systems & 1 resurrected Vista system. My results are posted #200783 & #200801.

EDIT:
I think the reason that the “manual” update method still works for Vista is because the engine & definitions are the same (at least as of today) for both Windows 7 & Vista but not sure if it’ll remain that way in the future.

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Cybertooth

OK, here’s what I got … some systems worked fine, some didn’t, see findings below:

Findings for Win7 (x64 & x86) …
If the Win7 Windows Defender “engine” version is pre “1.1.15000.2”, Win7 Windows Defender will find and update the engine & definitions to the MOST current version available.

If, however, the engine version is already at “1.1.15000.2”, newer engine & definition updates are no longer found – verified as the system I just successfully updated earlier (posted above) with engine at “1.1.15000.2” & def at “1.271.328.0” dated 7/1/2018 7:00AM, it now can’t find the newest most current def version “1.271.332.0” dated 7/1/2018 12:44PM.

Manually downloading & installing the latest “1.271.332.0” update from Microsoft here works as I was able to download it then manually update the system I just updated in my previous post above.

All other Win7 (x64 & x86) systems I tested had various defs versions (pre 6/12/2018)
& all had engine version “1.1.14901.4” and all updated to engine “1.1.15000.2” & def “1.271.332.0” successfully.

Findings for Vista Ultimate (x86) …
When I started, engine version was at “1.1.14800.3” & def was at “1.267.425.0” dated 4/26/2018.

Running update resulted in engine updated to “1.1.14901.4” & defs to “1.269.1075.0” dated 6/11/2018 6:50AM.

But … why only to 6/11/2018? … this is not the MOST current engine & defs! Win7 just updated fine (see above) when starting with engine at “1.1.14901.4” & defs at “1.269.1075.0” dated 6/11/2018 6:50AM.

Running a 2nd/3rd update resulted in “No new updates found”.

Manually downloading & installing Windows Defender update from Microsoft here, engine is now at version “1.1.15000.2” & defs at “1.271.332.0” dated 7/1/2018 12:44PM so a manual update seems to currently work for Vista as well.

My thoughts …
Microsoft tweaked the engine(?) to stop updating Defender for Vista after “6/11/2018” as, well … Vista is no longer supported & IE9 for Vista is no longer supported, so why continue to support Windows Defender for Vista? Though presently, the manual update method still seems to work but for how long?

In tweaking the engine(?), I believe Microsoft screwed up their tweak which seems to allow Windows 7 to update to the MOST current engine & def versions but only if the previous installed engine version is pre “1.1.15000.2”. Once the current engine version is at “1.1.15000.2”, no further updates are allowed and/or found.

I think this is a mistake/bug but, who but Microsoft really knows. Let’s hope they discover & fix it or we Win7 (& Vista) folks will have to do manual updates (for as long as they let us) from now on.

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Cybertooth

So far since 6/27, FF v61.0 seems to be running fine without any issues on all of my Win7 systems …

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Charlie

I normally keep Windows Defender disabled as I use SEP 2.1.6 MP10 as my 3rd party Anti-Malware/Anti-Virus/Firewall solution. But once a month, I perform manual updates/scans using various other 3rd party Anti-Malware/Anti-Virus products just prior to creating my monthly system backups in preparation for updating Windows 7 with next month’s security only & IE cumulative updates.

With all the hubbub about Windows Defender no longer updating in Windows 7, just moments ago, I enabled it and performed a check for updates within the Windows Defender Help pull-down tab & within a couple of seconds, it indicated it was downloading a definition update – Version 1.271.328.0 created on 7/1/2018 at 7:00 AM. Prior definition version was dated 6/11/2018 I think.

I don’t know if the problem is fixed or if it only effects some but not others – all I can say is that it seemed to work as expected on one of my Windows 7 x64 systems. Also, I don’t know if it “automatically” downloads definition updates as I normally keep Windows Defender disabled as to not add additional system slowdowns nor interfere with SEP.

I’ll try it on some other Win7 systems (x64 & x86) and also re-install a Vista x64 hard drive in one of my laptops to see how they behave and post my results.

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HiFlyer, Elly

FYI for those that really want to stay with Filezilla …

I’ve always gotten their “bundle free” Filezilla downloads (both client & server) from their “Official Homepage of FileZilla®” at …

https://filezilla-project.org/

If you poke around the website, you’ll also find that you can download their “portable” no need to install version (so far no bundled crapware, at least not yet) here …

https://filezilla-project.org/download.php?show_all=1

Or, if you’re looking for a specific previous version, you can find all of them (with & without bundled software) here …

https://download.filezilla-project.org/client/

I avoid getting anything from SourceForge these days as most if not all of their software downloads are overloaded with all sorts unwanted / unneeded nagware bundles.

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Bill C., geekdom, SueW, Elly, Kirsty

Yes, it seams that Intel stripped all of their CPU Products with a previous status of “Planning, Pre-Beta & Stopped” & changed their table color code scheme (for the better I think) from their last guidance dated April 2 2018.

As far as you or I using any of “Beta” or “Production” updates, we must first be able to get our hands on them.

I may be wrong but I presume those marked in green have been released to and/or buy EOMs and will soon be or are already available via system OEM BIOS or Microsoft/Linux updates.

The yellow/gold ones I presume are either still being validated by Intel and/or system OEMs so those probably won’t be available for a little while longer.

As far as the “legalese” at the bottom of the last page, it’s the same as before in their previous April 2 & March 6 releases and I suspect it’s very similar to most Intel documentation presented on their webpages so I’m not really surprised they included it in here too.

From my understanding, adding mitigation for Spectre Variant 4 adds/removes CPU features that’ll undoubtedly negatively effect system performance. I’m sure Intel has some sort of “test bed”, either real, simulated or both, to verify/quantify CPU performance.

As such, I interpret the last paragraph to simply state that every system may or may not be effected in the same way as their “test bed” results were as far as performance is concerned and as such, I’m neither surprised nor alarmed by it being included.

I just hope it’s not too much of a performance loss or I’ll be turning it ON/OFF regularly as needed.

(let’s just hope they don’t keep finding/mitigating new Spectre issues or we may all end up with PIII class performance with our current systems)

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HiFlyer, Microfix, Elly

FYI …
Intel just released yesterday an updated “Microcode Revision Guidance” dated June 21 2018.

https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/sa00115-microcode-update-guidance.pdf

No details other than …

The following table provides details of availability for microcode updates currently planned by Intel.

I suspect this includes the next round of microcode fixes for Spectre Variant 4 as the microcode revisions are being updated from the previously released versions for Spectre Variant 2.

Good news … maybe ?

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Microfix, Elly

Please be patient – don’t turn OFF the computer … in just another hour day or two you’ll be fully updated and ready to experience your new Microsoft Windows 10 system

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I suspect when CPU & Chipset designs get initially spec’ed out, they’re usually designed to accommodate next generation memory (think increased density in same family type). But because the memory doesn’t yet exist, the actual released specs depict what was available at the time of memory validation by the OEM vendors.

Both Intel & ASUS spec the i7-990x on a X58 chipset board at 24GB MAX but it runs 48GB just fine … except for an actual memory swap, no need to modify BIOS or anything else.

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HiFlyer

OK, I’m jealous … way to go creating your own custom “I’ll make it work” system  

 

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Elly, DAVe3283

Hey, talking about +17 year old junk …

Though I’ve long recycled my “was still working” Commodore 64 over a decade ago, I still occasionally power-up my trusty old Compaq Armada M300 w/ Mobile Expansion Unit, Pentium II – 333Mhz, 128MB Ram, 4.3GB Hard Drive running Windows 98SE & MS Office 2000 Professional and except for the battery, it still runs great.

Totally in “Group W” with this one as there’s no longer any web activity on it … almost no useful websites work with IE6 or Firefox 2.0 and there are no Windows security or current antivirus updates available.

Surprisingly, believe it or not, the HP support site still has full support with everything available for download at:

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/compaq-armada-m300-notebook-pc-series/96234

You can also get the Armada M300 Maintenance & Service Guide here:

http://tim.id.au/laptops/hp/compaq%20armada%20m300.pdf

And if you don’t have the Mobile Expansion Unit (MEU) P/N 140382-001 with CD/DVD, you can still get one at a tremendous 98% discount here:

http://www.getpartsonline.com/coarm3moexun1.html … $9.99
https://www.impactcomputers.com/140382-001.html … $19.99

Though, other than verifying it’s still alive, it’s getting really hard to find a real meaningful use for it anymore. I guess I, like several others it seems, just can’t seem to part with stuff that still works.

Now … if only we can get MS to follow in HP’s footsteps & provide support for products well beyond their expected lifetime

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Steve, Elly