Horrid zombie update messages, how to turn off?

[simsmj]

OK, I've posted the article as a pdf in the Xara Art Gallery forum, as it seems the most appropriate place for the content. Sorry it took so long, there was a fair bit of tidying up to make things presentable! Not to mention getting the output to retain its graphic detail without going over TG's limits, because of quite a few images embedded in it.

Edited for spelling!

[simsmj]

This is to answer the question I came here for, how to block the irritating Zombie update messages. I created two Outgoing rules in Windows Defender Firewall to block two of the Xara/Magix apps from calling home. Once blocked, the two message popups no longer appear, and without it appearing to affect my normal usage of XPGD-17 in any way. You will need to go into Defender's Advanced mode to create a new Outbound rule, and for each you will have browse for the relevant application, both are identified in the screenshot. Once the rules are enabled, the irritations will no longer pop up.

edited Outgoing to Outbound.

[Egg Bramhill]

Looks good Mike. I have XaraPro+ so don't get these messages unless I occasionaly open my outdated Xara Designer Pro X whatever ;-)

[ss-kalm]

I'm not too worried about blocking it ... The point is that - Once again - IT ISN'T WORKING.

[simsmj]

"Once again - IT ISN'T WORKING."

So the popups still come? My XPGD-17 definitely stopped getting these popups when I blocked their access to the Internet. The PhotoGraphicDesigner.exe one stopped the update expiry popup, and the other one stopped the Update service updater which wouldn't update itself. The blocks weren't suppose to make it work properly, that's Xara/Magix's job. If you mean something else, can you be more specific? There were two other possible .exe files in the Designer/17 paths that I blocked but which didn't make a difference to the popups I was getting, so I deleted those specific blocks. Perhaps they need blocked for your system/setup/version.

[ss-kalm]

No, that's not what I meant. I'm not worried about the popups.

The Magix RENEW THE UPDATE SERVICE installer doesn't do anything, so even if you say "okay, renew the update service" NOTHING happens, and it pops up again next time.

You'd think that if you accept the install, it would at least work and not ask you again next time wouldn't you!

[Acorn]

It's just Magix's way of showing how much it cares.

Acorn

[simsmj]

"You'd think that if you accept the install, it would at least work and not ask you again next time wouldn't you!"

Agreed, the Update service updater doesn't work, but as I said that's Xara/Magix's job to fix. I don't know what's taking them so long to fix it, or to stop the constant reminder of the update expiry, but I can't believe they don't know about the complaints. The annoyance factor to what may well be many users that two useless popups have to be clicked away EVERY TIME XPGD-17 starts up is something they really need to fix, and especially the service updater which has a real job to do but isn't doing.

And it's not just the annoyance to what may be many of their users, it also questions their coding competence and their ability to properly test their code before it gets deployed onto users' machines. If I was Xara/Magix, I'd be embarrassed and worried about that!

[browj2]

This was reported in the Magix.info forum under Xara - try renaming this file Service_rel_u_x64_vc12.exe that is under C:\Program Files\Xara\Xara Designer Pro X\18 or ...\17 in your case by changing the .exe to .bak.

As I mentioned, I have many Magix products on 2 machines and the Update Service thing worked properly on all of them. For some unknown reason, some users have had problems; most users, have not had any problems with this.

[simsmj]

Interesting, does anyone know if it is specific to v17?