VXPSafe

Windows XP has been Microsofts longest lived operating system, which was originally released in August 2001 and patched to Service Pack 3 in May of 2008. Its longevity was caused by a number of factors, including that Windows XP was one of Microsofts best released operating system (I believe 2000 was their best) and that Windows Vista was such a nightmare and then followed up by the disastrous Windows 8 (and 8.1).

The date set by Microsoft for the support deadline was April 8, 2014. At this time it is not clear how Microsoft will handle security patching beyond the official extended support deadline, but many anticipate that they will provide supplementary support due to its ongoing popularity. In fact at this time you can see that Microsoft still holds about a third of the Internet operating system market share. I have this expectation because Microsoft is supporting embedded systems with Windows XP until 2017, which run important devices like our cash ATMs, so they will already be developing the patches, plus since it is so popular that it would be a PR nightmare for Microsoft if they did nothing.

In any event I wrote this program to make Windows XP as safe as possible following the deadline by disabling key features that could be exploited.

What does it do? It installs Chrome (downloads from the Internet so this will fail if Internet access isnt available), disables Internet Explorer ("removes" it through Add / Remove Components, and then usually removes permissions to the iexplore.exe), disables some system services (Windows file sharing, Universal Plug and Play, Remote Desktop), removes firewall exceptions and applies group policies (disables Remote Desktop and disallows Firewall overrides).