Turn Off MS Security Essentials End of Support Nag Notifications

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Windows XP users: To Remove the annoying nag and restore the green house status for Microsoft Security Essentials, just extract this executable overwriting the one in typically in C:Program FilesMicrosoft Security Client. The easiest way is to rename msseces.exe to msseces.exx before copying this previous version of the notification icon. Cheers from Mike

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Why would you want to do that?

The flag serves a purpose in different colour states, overriding is ridiculous, you’ll think all is good when it may not be.

Plus of course, ehy would anyone download a file like this from an unknown provider.

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Why would you want to do that?

The flag serves a purpose in different colour states, overriding is ridiculous, you’ll think all is good when it may not be.

Plus of course, ehy would anyone download a file like this from an unknown provider.

I totally agree….that defeats the purpose of the warning/notifier system it all together.

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I totally agree….that defeats the purpose of the warning/notifier system it all together.

I can think of one possible reason. I have XP installed in Virtual Mode on my Windows 7 Professional. I have MSE installed in the Virtual Machine also. Since support has ended for XP, I get the “red house” MSE. BUT if you read the MSE home page, it says my virus definitions are up to date and real-time protection is on. The “nag” makes it red (because XP is no longer supported), in spite of the fact that MSE is actually working as an anti-virus (and will be supported until July 2015).

While I just ignore the red house MSE, it would be nice to be able to opt out of the XP nag (red) and have the MSE be green IF MY DEFINITIONS ARE UP-TO-DATE. As it is now, I have to click the update tab and check. Can no longer rely on the older color coding schemes, since the fact that XP is no longer supported defaults everything to red.

However, I am not irritated enough to install a download from an unknown provider….:p

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I totally agree….that defeats the purpose of the warning/notifier system it all together.

With RED indicating ‘all systems are “Go”‘, and
with RED indicating you haven’t downloaded virus signatures for a while, and
with RED indicating your machine is infected,

I don’t really see the value of this ‘warning/notifier system’.

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Why not uninstall MSE and install a free antivirus program which still supports XP? Like Avast! ?

BATcher

Plethora means a lot to me.

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Uninstall MSE and go with another AV that supports XP.
MSE is on it’s way out as far as XP is concerned & you’re going to have to dump it sooner or later.
Now is just as good a time as any.

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The msseces.exe is not from an unknown provider; it is just the notifier from the previous release of MSE i.e. one without the nags and scare tactics. It should work as intended, notifying you if the definition files are out of date or if there is any other issue to be addressed.

We were promised that MSE support should continue for another year at least, so I do not think a red warning here is appropriate.

Also, the task scheduler includes popups at regular intervals to remind you that Windows XP support has ended. That should suffice but even those could be deleted if preferred.

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The msseces.exe is not from an unknown provider; it is just the notifier from the previous release of MSE i.e. one without the nags and scare tactics. It should work as intended, notifying you if the definition files are out of date or if there is any other issue to be addressed.

We were promised that MSE support should continue for another year at least, so I do not think a red warning here is appropriate.

Also, the task scheduler includes popups at regular intervals to remind you that Windows XP support has ended. That should suffice but even those could be deleted if preferred.

Mike,

By “unknown provider”, the whingers don’t mean Microsoft. They mean YOU!

I did compare your msseces.exe with the one that I extracted from version 4.4.304.0 of the MSE installer (mseinstall.exe), which is the version that was available just before Microsoft decided to scare the living bejeebers out of (some) people by making that nice comforting green MSE icon turn permanently red. :angry:

I also find that red icon annoying and unhelpful so I have fixed it using a slightly different approach reported on Superuser:
http://superuser.com/questions/738131/disable-the-security-essentials-end-of-life-warning-on-windows-xp
This approach also means you can keep Automatic Updates on – not sure why that is needed now – because it doesn’t matter if MS overwrites or updates msseces.exe because the registry patch tells MSE to use the old version of msseces.exe which is renamed msseces2.exe.

I suppose if I were Microsoft, I would immediately issue another update that deleted all files matching msseces*.exe, just to foil the workaround. But that would be even too devious for MS, wouldn’t it? :<_<: Maybe I’ll rename my msseces2.exe to some random name… just in case. :D:

A friend of mine also fixed the problem using another variant of your approach: he uninstalled the update that caused the red icon, copied the version 4.4.304.0 of msseces.exe back into the Microsoft Security Client folder and turned off Automatic Updates to stop msseces.exe being “updated”. After all, if MS aren’t giving any more security updates, why have that function on?

Nil illigitimi carborundum

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Thanks, Mike

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FWIW

I personally don’t need a reminder that XP is no longer supported. So I don’t need or want the big reminder popping up to tell me that. I mounted a drive image using TBI View, copied msseces.exe from the image file, then overwrote the file in Microsoft Security Client.

Microsoft is still issuing updates for MSE for XP, and will continue for a while. Using the old executable returns to the color scheme with which we are all familiar. I’m not really using XP online other than on my home network, so I’m not really worried. My home network is protected by the hardware firewall in my router, and I can update MSE just by opening it and clicking on “Update”.

YMMV

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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for all you XP users out there, check the version of Microsoft Security Essentials installed on your machines.
If the msseces.exe file and their DLL files are version 4.5.216.0 or higher, you need to completely uninstall MSE, reboot and install version 4.4.304.0 from this Filehippo.com page.

Far better than just copying an EXE file with an older one that has full features for Windows XP and have mis-matched versions of the EXE/DLL files for the Microsoft Security Essentials program. XP users should stay with version 4.4.304.0 of MSE, period!

And as Khun Roger has said, shut off Automatic Updates to prevent MSE from being upgraded from 4.4.304.0 and also dump Microsoft Update and revert to the plain Windows Update feature on XP.

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for all you XP users out there, check the version of Microsoft Security Essentials installed on your machines.
If the msseces.exe file and their DLL files are version 4.5.216.0 or higher, you need to completely uninstall MSE, reboot and install version 4.4.304.0 from this Filehippo.com page.

Far better than just copying an EXE file with an older one that has full features for Windows XP and have mis-matched versions of the EXE/DLL files for the Microsoft Security Essentials program. XP users should stay with version 4.4.304.0 of MSE, period!

And as Khun Roger has said, shut off Automatic Updates to prevent MSE from being upgraded from 4.4.304.0 and also dump Microsoft Update and revert to the plain Windows Update feature on XP.

Yes, that’s exactly what I ended up doing as I couldn’t always get the green icon to appear in the “System Notification Area” on the task bar using the “msseces.exe” method in my previous post.

So with automatic updates turned off, I disabled the Internet, uninstalled MSE completely (using “Revo Uninstaller”), installed MSE version 4.4.304 and re-enabled the Internet. Now, no more red icon or nag screen from MSE.

Version 4.4.304 of MSE is also available from several links here, in the section labelled “Download links”: http://superuser.com/questions/738131/disable-the-security-essentials-end-of-life-warning-on-windows-xp

Nil illigitimi carborundum

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I have a much simpler solution. MSE still functions and updates on XP without the notification ICON — you can separately disable it.
I simply unchecked the Start-Up item ”C:Program FilesMicrosoft Security Clientmsseces.exe” -hide -runkey.
I use CCleaner’s Start-up tool, but you can also Run … msconfig or use AutoRuns.

Since I have MSE set to “Auto” on all actions, the notification never told me when viruses were quantined anyway. Now, with RED all the time, it’s even less useful.
When I do periodically check up on MSE, I simply use the Program Menu to launch MSE. It still displays the out-of-support warnings, but it also shows that the definitions are up to date AND the last time a scan was run.

I also have Windows Update set to “notify but don’t download.” That way, MS won’t re-establish the MSE start-up item for mssecs.exe. Even if it happens, I’d just uncheck it again. MSE is still working — RED flags hidden. Easy! ~RonR

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Figuring out which button to click on File Hippo took awhile. It is the one in the top right corner of the page, that says

Download Latest Version (10.61MB)

Now Microsoft Security Essentials Reports that my PC status is Protected, and everything is green, but the Windows Security Center shield in the notification area is red, because Automatic Updates is turned off.

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