Users are complaining that a new anti-malware updates is slowing down Windows XP

Apr 17, 2014 09:36 GMT  ·  By

There are plenty of users out there who are still running Windows XP, even though Microsoft no longer provides updates and security patches for this particular OS version, but many are running the freeware Security Essentials in an attempt to protect their data.

One of the latest updates for Microsoft Security Essentials is reportedly slowing down Windows XP computers so much that they’re becoming unusable, a number of users complained, and without an official patch to fix this, turning to various workarounds is the only option.

According to Fudzilla, it all comes down to the MsMpEng.exe process that needs to be killed in order to make your Windows XP computer usable once again. This means that Microsoft Security Essentials must be disabled completely, which isn’t quite a recommended thing now that Windows XP no longer receives support and fixes for found vulnerabilities.

To do this, you can either go to Task Manager and kill the aforementioned process, or simply type “services.msc” and disable the Microsoft Security Essentials service to make sure that it doesn’t run on startup. Reboot your computer and you should be ready to go.

Microsoft hasn’t yet released a comment or more information on what’s happening, but one would think whether this so-called bug could be part of the company’s attempt to move users off Windows XP or not.