As expected, on 14th April, Microsoft ended mainstream support for Windows XP and Office 2003.  No further new function or non-security related updates will be released for either product.  Security updates will continue to be released until 4th August 2014, when Microsoft has declared that support for both XP and Office 2003 will formally end.

This is not entirely unexpected, nor is it particularly worrying.  No significant non-feature updates have been released for either product for a good while, and in the case of Windows XP, not really since Service Pack 2.  All Microsoft products are subject to a finite support life, and Windows is no different.  Existing installation will continue to be protected by Microsoft established security updates and patches.

For our support customers, this announcement does not equate to any realistic change in your systems.  Windows XP will continue to operate as expected, and given the average lifecycle of a PC, it is unlikely that you will still have any Windows XP PC still operational in 2014.

Microsoft has released a patch to correct the now well documented Zero Day Flaw in Internet Explorer that applies to all supported versions of Microsoft Windows.  The patch is available through Windows Update and provided your computer has been configured for Automatic Updates, you will be prompted to install it shortly.

If you are one of our corporate support customers, this patch will be automatically rolled out across your networks.  No further or direct action is required on your behalf.

The released patch only applies to versions of Windows that Microsoft still actively supports,principally:

• Windows 2000
• Windows XP
• Windows Server 2003
• Windows Vista
• Windows Server 2008

As Microsoft no longer actively supports Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows ME, we would anticipate no correctiive patch will be issued for these operating systems.

This patch corrects a flaw that has been detected in Internet Explorer and its’ derivatives.  It does not apply to other Web Browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Google Chrome.

One of the recent updates to AVG AntiVirus wrongly identifies a critical windows file (User32.dll) as a virus.  If this file is deleted, it will render Windows XP useless (the computer will either not boot, or endlessly reboot).

This problem should not affected the majority of our customers (if any at all), as it appears the problem is limited to AVG users who use the French, Italian, Netherlands (Dutch) or Spanish versions of Windows.

If you want to learn more, see Topic 1574 on AVG’s Support website at http://www.avg.com/support.

We must have been asked this question at least a thousand times: How do you create a screenshot? There really is no great mystery or complexity in this, and it only takes a few seconds to do.

To that end, you will now find a new article in our Support Knowledgebase entitled How to Create a Screenshot.

As to why you should create a screenshot, the answer to that is even easier.  A picture really does tell a thousand words.  A picture that shows an error message or problem often conveys more detail that can be described.