Support Ending for Windows XP (without Service Pack 3)

Support Ending for Windows XP (without Service Pack 3)

Effective 1st July 2015, our applications will no longer work with examinees and users running Windows XP that does not have Service Pack 3 installed.

This change is being made to comply with industry recommended best practices.  We will provide appropriate messaging when possible, but in certain cases connections will be refused and it will look like a network error.

Why is the change being made?

ITS is converting our test delivery and administration servers to use SHA256 SSL certificates.  SSL is a protocol that is used to encrypt traffic between the browser and server.  SSL uses a certificate for encryption and part of that certificate is a hashing algorithm.  The older hashing algorithm is SHA1.  The new recommended hashing algorithm is SHA256.  To encourage application service providers to change, major browser vendors (Google, Microsoft and Firefox) began showing a warning when accessing a site earlier in 2015.

These browsers will no longer allow sites using SHA1 to access servers at all in early 2016. New certificates will be installed on 1st July.

How will my program be impacted?

We will provide appropriate system messaging when possible, but in certain cases connections will be refused and it will look like a network error.  You should strongly encourage your institutions (Certification centers and Satellite centers) to confirm all testing and administrative workstations meet the new minimum requirements by 1st July 2015.

Windows:  Windows XP with Service Pack 3 or higher and Internet Explorer 7.0 or later are required.  Server Pack 3 and the latest version of Internet Explorer for Windows can be downloaded from Microsoft Downloads, or a later version of the operating system my be used.

For more information see the following links:

https://support.servertastic.com/deprecation-of-sha1-and-moving-to-sha2/

https://support.servertastic.com/sha2-sha256-compatibility/

https://community.qualys.com/blogs/securitylabs/2014/09/09/sha1-deprecation-what-you-need-to-know

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any queries.

Kind regards,

Autodesk and Engage