[HN Gopher] Windows 2000 Modernization Guide
___________________________________________________________________
Windows 2000 Modernization Guide
Author : gjvc
Score : 173 points
Date : 2021-12-27 11:53 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (w2k.phreaknet.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (w2k.phreaknet.org)
| GeekyBear wrote:
| I don't use Windows as my host OS, but I still keep a Windows
| 2000 VM around for running Win32 software. It's so much more
| lightweight than recent versions of Windows that if the software
| works in Windows 2000, I much prefer to run it there.
|
| I honestly can't think of any features of Office since Office 2k
| that I require for my personal use either.
|
| I just don't allow the Windows 2000 virtual machine access to the
| network.
| wilhil wrote:
| Up until a few years ago I had to support a .Net 2 app for a
| global company.
|
| I had a few Windows 2000 VMs and they were a joy to use.
|
| Started in seconds - I could have LOADS of snapshots that would
| only take up a handful of MBs and generally speaking, it was
| excellent.
|
| Only reason I stopped was because I no longer needed to run that
| project.
|
| I'm not stuck in the past - I get why things get slower and are
| more complex... but, sometimes I do wish we could go backwards a
| little!
| dragontamer wrote:
| Pre-Vista Windows is simply insufficient from a security
| perspective compared to modern post-Vista Windows.
|
| All XP-and-older versions of Windows allowed any program to
| access the hardware directly. Back then, a Win2000 program
| would need to access the "in" and "out" hardware instructions
| to talk with gamepads because... well... gamepads were read to
| directly through hardware instructions.
|
| Don't look at me like that! USB wasn't really that common yet,
| and there were all sorts of weird specific hardware differences
| in controllers still. It was a different world. Gamepads were
| glorified potentiometers
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potentiometer) and game-ports
| were just ADC converters controlled by Windows. And assembly
| language knowledge was much more common too!
|
| ----------
|
| Letting modern software touch the hardware directly like that
| is a security nightmare. Vista+ forced everyone to write signed
| device drivers and hide that direct-hardware access behind a
| layer of APIs (the Windows Driver API).
|
| Today, if your video games touch hardware directly, you at
| least know about it... and the practice is discouraged (though
| still widely used for DRM and other such "features").
|
| -------------
|
| In any case, "stripped down" Windows 10 IoT core builds and
| runs on the Raspberry Pi.
| rep_lodsb wrote:
| Are you sure? I don't think any NT kernel allowed userspace
| code to directly access I/O ports. The earliest versions
| didn't even let graphics drivers do that, but that was
| changed (in either 3.51 or 4.0?) for performance reasons.
|
| For compatibility with DOS and 16-bit Windows versions, the
| kernel _may_ emulate I /O access, similar to modern virtual
| machines. For simple devices, that layer of emulation may be
| very thin (with some accesses going directly to the
| hardware), but that isn't a security problem. A simple polled
| ADC can't do any harm to the system, at worst you get garbage
| if multiple programs were to use it at the same time.
| dragontamer wrote:
| IIRC, the big one was Serial-ports and Parallel-ports
| (which were commonly used for all sorts of custom
| equipment, especially in the medical field).
|
| IIRC, user-mode programs of WinXP (and earlier, including
| Win2k) were able to directly access these hardware ports.
| Which meant that WinXP / Win2k had far better latency,
| leading to obscure hardware bugs to anyone who upgraded
| from XP -> Vista (or later). Even if you rewrote the
| program to use Win Vista+ style COM ports, it wasn't good
| enough.
|
| So a lot of people stayed back on WinXP / Win NT.
|
| ---------
|
| 16-bit programs were DOS / segmented mode. Win95 remained
| compatible. IIRC, Win2k forced you into 32-bit flat-mode
| programs, which had some security benefits.
|
| But these 32-bit "flat mode" security benefits were not
| enough, and were still a far cry from the expectations of
| the modern computer user.
| rep_lodsb wrote:
| As long as the hardware isn't DMA-capable or has to be
| shared, allowing programs direct access _isn 't a
| security violation_. Since everything runs in protected
| mode, the kernel is still "in charge", and can limit what
| I/O should go directly to the hardware. This is supported
| by the processor, which has a per-task bitmap of allowed
| I/O ports.
|
| Virtualization was introduced on IBM mainframes in the
| 1970s, and in a somewhat more limited version has been
| present in 32-bit x86 operating systems (even Windows 3.x
| could run several virtual DOS machines at the same time).
|
| Every 32-bit version of Windows still supports running
| 16-bit programs. Microsoft could have continued
| supporting 16-bit protected mode even on 64-bit, or even
| used the newer virtualization features (in place of V86
| mode) to run real mode code, but choose not to.
|
| As for the expectations of modern computer users, those
| that don't know how any of this stuff works probably
| believe that everything has to get slower, more
| restrictive, and less backward compatible in the name of
| Security :(
| dragontamer wrote:
| > As long as the hardware isn't DMA-capable or has to be
| shared
|
| We're talking about Parallel-Ports here, aka "The Printer
| Port". Any printer program written "old-school" would
| have tried to send data to LPT-1, except you have an
| X-Ray machine sitting there confused at these messages
| its getting.
|
| The proper technique of printing, is not to directly
| contact the LPT-1 port and shove data into it... its to
| talk to Windows's printer spool and interact indirectly.
|
| The user then configures the LPT-1 port: is it to be
| managed by the printer spool? Or should LPT-1 port be
| divvyed out to a particular program and reserved through
| another manner?
|
| ---------
|
| There's absolutely a security concern about random
| programs sending messages to the hardware. Maybe the OS
| doesn't have a security issue, but those medical devices
| could have commands (such as rewriting firmware) sitting
| on those ports.
|
| You'd want to make sure that only approved programs
| directly interacted with those kinds of hardware
| devices... with the protocols that are appropriately
| specified by the user.
| smm11 wrote:
| And a few days after Windows 2000 was released, I was obsessed
| with installing FreeBSD and then only the ports I needed, to keep
| things as slim as possible.
| emptyparadise wrote:
| What I dream of is an unholy union: a modern Linux with a Windows
| 2000 VM as its GUI. The VM will have enough Wayland bits to
| provide any missing modern amenities such as a web browser
| isolated in a container far far away. It would be beautiful.
| coldpie wrote:
| XFCE gets you pretty much all the way there.
| dreamercz wrote:
| Someone already mentioned it here, but you should checkout
| Chicago95, a Windows 95 based theme for GTK2 and GTK3.
| accrual wrote:
| It's clearly not the same, being neither Linux nor a Windows
| GUI, but I immediately thought of SerenityOS which was inspired
| by a similar ideal. :)
|
| https://serenityos.org/
| schnevets wrote:
| Beyond the step-by-step guide, the writer's main page has some
| compelling words about Windows products being less engaging since
| XP and the planned obsolescence that was built into Windows 8 and
| 10.
|
| I do feel like one could also protest bloat and planned
| obsolescence with a Linux desktop (as long as they aren't running
| Ubuntu).
| tryauuum wrote:
| my xubuntu isn't bloated in any way.
|
| But I am afraid that they will make snapd mandatory in the
| 22.04 and I _will_ have to migrate to something else...
| edoceo wrote:
| Huh? Is Ubuntu the un-bloated one?
| reificator wrote:
| I think what they're trying to say is something like "If you
| want to act in protest against bloat and planned obsolescence
| you can use a Linux desktop other than Ubuntu"
| alekun wrote:
| cof cof...snap to install calculator
| rbanffy wrote:
| Indeed. To use a snap to install something that is pretty
| much integral to the Gnome desktop and has no dependency on
| anything other than Gnome, this is ridiculous.
|
| Snaps are useful for packaging dependencies that aren't
| (AND CAN'T in a timely fashion) be provided by the distro.
| pcdoodle wrote:
| The guide seems to focus on getting office 07/10 running.
| Honestly, if I'm going to run an OS that old, I'd download the
| support packages for office 2000 that can open/save docx/xlsx.
| Would love to see a browser with ssl.
| timbit42 wrote:
| Try Legacy Proxy:
| https://metalbabble.wordpress.com/2020/12/06/better-web-brow...
| _nickwhite wrote:
| Instead of "Making Windows 2000 Usable in 2021" I'd like to see
| something more along the lines of "Making Windows 11 Usable in
| 2021". Past attempts at doing this (oftentimes) produced shady
| utilities (or illegal ISOs) that would hack out "essential"
| Windows components. If done right, open-source, developed out in
| the open, I could see this being a hugely successful endeavor.
| Imagine being able to use a modern Windows system (officially)
| that had no bloatware or the things we hate about modern Windows.
| (yes, I know I'm almost describing Linux and MacOS here)
|
| To pull this off, I see a utility (kind of like Chocolatey) with
| modules that can be run to disable certain annoyances- and
| changes that can always be fully reverted if necessary. Create
| some global modules such as "gaming-only" that removes all the
| bloat needed except for gaming.
| rectang wrote:
| Hacking a platform puts you at odds with the platform vendor,
| with the consequence that any hacks are likely to be
| incompatible with subsequent releases of the platform.
|
| Platform vendors want to shunt you down very specific paths.
| The interests of platform vendors and developers are not always
| aligned, and are often diametrically opposed -- especially with
| regards to creating portable code that runs on multiple
| platforms.
| bloblaw wrote:
| When I was an active Windows user, I always used the server
| editions as my desktop OS.
|
| Eg, I ran Server 2003 (instead of XP), Server 2012 R2 (instead
| of 8.1), and finally, Server 2016 (instead of Win 10).
|
| Much less bloat. Not sustainable for an enterprise deployment,
| but for my home use it worked quite well.
| _nickwhite wrote:
| Unfortunately, using Windows Server as a gaming computer is
| highly frustrating, and rarely works long-term. Biggest issue
| is driver compatibility (especially video drivers). Direct X
| used to be an issue, but I think it actually runs fine now in
| Server 2019. A much better solution in today's world would be
| to just run Linux. Steam now has >80% of the Top-100 Windows
| games running on Linux.
| simlevesque wrote:
| > Steam now has >80% of the Top-100 Windows games running
| on Linux.
|
| When it works. CSGO claims to work on Linux but has stopped
| working for many months now. There is a fix that includes
| changing a library but you risk getting banned by
| anticheat.
|
| https://github.com/ValveSoftware/csgo-osx-linux/issues/2659
|
| It has been going on for almost a year.
|
| If you want to game, you should just to dual boot Windows
| or buy a console.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| When I was an active Windows flight sim user, I always
| installed either 98lite, 2000lite, or XPlite on heavily
| slipstreamed installations:
|
| https://www.litepc.com/
|
| I was ruthless in tearing out cruft. To me this made the
| consumer versions seem quicker and more stable. I have
| absolutely no flight sim use case now for any of the Windows
| OSes, past or present.
| userbinator wrote:
| The reason is that Win11 (and 10, and all the other "still in
| support" OSs) is still subject to constant change by MS ---
| including the automatic updates --- so it is quite a moving
| target to fight. In contrast, "EOL" OSs won't change any more
| and they start off not fighting you as much in the first place.
| They're also probably much simpler in many ways. I see many
| similarities between projects like this and the automotive
| tuning community; there's a lot of people interested in newer
| cars, but many of them prefer working on the old stuff (roughly
| 50s-70s).
|
| That said, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Core exists, so
| maybe someone could run the UI from older Windows versions on
| it.
| accrual wrote:
| You might be interested in the LTSC versions of Windows 10. I
| know you said Windows 11, but IMO, Windows 11 currently is
| missing some usability that's still present in Windows 10 (like
| the taskbar). Of course you'll also be missing the scheduler
| updates, but I've witnessed some users disabling efficiency
| cores on Alder Lake anyway due to bugs or performance.
|
| > LTSC, Long-Term Servicing Channel (which was until 2017
| branded as LTSB, Long-Term Servicing Branch), is a unique
| version of Windows 10 Enterprise. Unlike all the other versions
| of Windows 10, LTSC has zero bloatware and the least amount of
| telemetry (data being sent back to Microsoft).
|
| A friendly intro can be found on this Reddit wiki:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10LTSC/wiki/index
| zamadatix wrote:
| The main problem with LTSC (assuming you're fine ignoring
| licensing requirements) is what you touched on - it's LTSC so
| rarely up to date from a feature perspective. Of course this
| is it's real purpose and 11 will eventually get an LTSC
| release as well (once it's fit for said main purpose) but
| these types of "well there are a few things it doesn't have"
| are rolling issues not one off things you can just accept up
| front.
|
| Also it's a pain to get Store stuff working. Normally that
| wouldn't be a big deal but Minecraft Bedrock is a common
| dealbreaker.
| kingcharles wrote:
| Hmm.. they're missing an acquisition method. I just checked
| my "MSDN" subscription and it's right there. I'm going to
| have to check this out.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Even buying LTSC requires enormous amounts of hoop-jumping:
| https://reddit.com/r/Windows10LTSC/wiki/acquisition
|
| It's not practical for most people.
| LocalH wrote:
| Do you really think MS would allow that to exist unhindered?
| Look at what they did recently when people started combating
| the forced Edge launches.
| cube00 wrote:
| Windows serves whichever axe is deemed to need grinding and
| they're not going to give up that control.
|
| At the moment it's Edge getting shoved down our throats at any
| opportunity and in some cases it even ignores the "default
| apps" (looking at you links from the lock screen)
|
| I've also started getting prompts to "restore my web browser"
| settings as a way to get Edge reset back to the default along
| with a permanent "restore recommended" banner on the top of the
| Settings app.
|
| _Use Microsoft recommended browser settings: Set the latest
| Microsoft Edge as your default browser and pin it to your
| desktop and taskbar. It 's the best browser for Windows 10 with
| enhanced privacy protection._
|
| The "learn more" takes you to
| https://microsoftedgewelcome.microsoft.com/en-us/privacy and
| two of the promises are "control" and "respect". It's funny, I
| don't feel either in control or respected about my choice not
| to use Edge.
| gjvc wrote:
| The whole point of this submission is that Windows 2000/XP were
| the last versions before Windows jumped the shark.
| hackerhandle wrote:
| You might check out a tool called O&O Shut Up 10.
| p1peridine wrote:
| Or Blackbird v6
|
| https://www.getblackbird.net/
| novok wrote:
| It looks like blackbird hasn't been updated since nov 2020,
| while O&O shut up was updated just last month. One thing I
| wish O&O had was a feature / taskbar version that watches
| if any setting has been changed once an hour / restart,
| alerts you, and asks you if you want to restore that
| setting, along with auto update.
| p1peridine wrote:
| Everything blackbird claims to disable will be disabled.
| Shutup has way less features.
|
| Try this out: download SysInternals ProcMon and run both
| tools and then compare. You'll see.
| 323 wrote:
| > _Imagine being able to use a modern Windows system
| (officially) that had no bloatware_
|
| One's feature is another's bloatware.
|
| As Joel Spolsky used to say, 80% of the people use only 20% of
| the features, the problem is that each one of those 80% uses a
| different 20%.
| pjerem wrote:
| Windows 10 ships with Candy Crush.
| chem83 wrote:
| You may or may not have realized that you only reinforced
| the previous point.
| danachow wrote:
| Sigh, no it doesn't. The Spolsky argument was directed
| mainly about supposed feature creep within applications
| like Excel and Word. This could apply to the OS level -
| but it was never used to argue for the inclusion of
| micropayment shitware.
|
| Further countering your argument - minesweeper,
| solitaire, and paint are no longer included in Windows.
| If anything had established itself as staple OS accessory
| "feature" apps those would qualify.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Either it applies to the OS level or it doesn't,
| micropayments in software are something completely
| orthogonal and irrelevant to what Spolsky and this thread
| was talking about one way or the other.
|
| The counterpoint seems tangental as well. Whether or not
| something is removed or kept isn't what defines it as a
| staple feature to a portion of the userbase. Most of the
| uproar about Windows 11 is things people considered core
| functionality being remove e.g. local accounts during
| setup on Home or moving the taskbar away from the bottom
| of the screen. Also iterations of Solitaire and Paint are
| still default apps anyways.
| cube00 wrote:
| Windows 11 ships with TikTok.
| xxpor wrote:
| And 95 shipped with solitare.
| danachow wrote:
| It goes back to 3.0 and quite notably did not convey
| advertising to spend money. It also wasn't located
| blatantly in your face in a tiled menu. There's a very
| different incentive.
| ndiddy wrote:
| Windows 10 also ships with Solitaire, except it plays a
| video ad after every game and the only way to remove the
| ads is by paying for a $10/month "solitaire premium"
| subscription.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Solitaire had a secret purpose, it taught people how to
| use a mouse in a way that they would enjoy, an important
| consideration when most people had never used a mouse
| before.
|
| Candy Crush teaches you what pay-to-win DLC is.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| One of these days, I need to create a guide like this for OS X
| 10.9 Mavericks. I have a bunch of tools at
| https://jonathanalland.com/old-osx-projects.html, but it could
| badly use some overarching instructions.
| The_SamminAter wrote:
| Just wondering, why 10.9/Mavericks over 10.12/Sierra?
|
| As a side note, I've been using macOS Sierra as my main OS for
| a few years now (until quite recently when I switched to
| Manjaro), and find it works quite well, aside from not being
| able to run a large chunk of newer software.
| whalesalad wrote:
| I don't think Microsoft realizes that if they re-introduced a
| lightweight Win2k style OS for professionals they could charge
| any price they wanted for it.
|
| I would gladly pay for Windows if it wasn't a hot pile of
| incomplete and disjointed consumer-focused noise.
|
| I have an i7 3770k box that I repurpose occassionally for random
| projects. It runs Linux really well, but Win10 is an absolute
| dog. I can't even imagine Windows 11? Overclocked, 16gb RAM,
| SSD's in RAID... it doesn't make sense.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| What you propose seems nice but is infeasible. Lightweight
| doesn't just mean getting rid of Paint3D and all this cruft
| installed by default. Today you have tons of APIs and services
| that need to be running, otherwise X breaks. The X could be
| your Bluetooth audio connection, and app that uses an obscure
| API call, a network service etc. So basically your lightweight
| alternative would be a broken, less powerful copy of Windows
| 10.
|
| So at that point it's just safer to use an older combination of
| OS and software that you know has been working fine.
| kaetemi wrote:
| I think you'll find that Bluetooth audio already breaks,
| regardless.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| That's weird, until recently I had a 3930k on which I
| occasionally ran Win 10. The computer had a SATA SSD (Samsung
| 840). It worked very well. It was occasional because I find
| Windows annoying for reasons other than performance.
|
| I've upgraded the CPU to a Xeon E5-2667 v2 (basically a 4th gen
| i7) to get PCIE 3 for my GPU. I've installed Windows 11 on it
| for my curiosity / gaming needs. It works _very_ well, I 'd say
| it's smoother / snappier than Win 10, but I'm wondering whether
| that's just some tweaked animation delays.
|
| It's undeniably better than on some 8th gen i5u + NVMe I have
| on a work laptop - which is officially supported!
| qalmakka wrote:
| A "modernized" - i.e. new icons, better colors and fonts -
| Windows 2000 UI would be awesome. One thing I really like of
| Mac OS is that after doing the big switch with Mac OS X, the UI
| has remained very similar and consistent, without too many
| paradigm shift. Windows went instead from having one of the
| best UIs ever designed (Windows 2000) to a fractal of
| inconsistency that has only worsened with every release since
| then.
|
| XP's design choices were... rather unique.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Honestly, Windows 2000's UI wasn't as great as people make it
| out to be.
|
| But what it was is consistent. Every program looked like it
| belonged on the system, except for some wacky video or audio
| players that consisted of text rendered on top of bitmaps.
|
| From the bootloader to the web browser, early Windows felt
| like it was all part of a single experience. Windows XP
| provided the same, except it was around for so long that the
| ecosystem around it tried harder and harder to mimick
| different operating systems. Win2k was right in the sweet
| spot.
|
| I'd love for Windows 11 to have a Win2k mode available. Keep
| the impressive kernel improvements, the virtualization based
| security, the WSL system, and just give me a UI that doesn't
| take a second to render the start menu.
|
| Even modern Windows explorer is quite usable (without the
| menu redesign), it's honestly just the shell and everything
| that you'd call an "app".
|
| The general public can take their candy story Fisher Price
| Windows if that's what they want, full of gaudy colours and
| fancy effects.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| The gaudy colors and fancy effects was Windows 7, IMO.
|
| I really enjoy Windows 7 though. It's fast, very little
| bloat, and modern enough that pretty much any Windows
| software works on it. Also, something about the Aero theme
| feels warm and cheerful to me. I can't replicate the
| feeling on Linux or Windows 10, and it saddens me.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I 100% agree with first part.
|
| I don't follow / automatically agree on second part. I have
| three ThinkPads with i5-2520M that my family and I use daily
| with windows 10. Email browsing word excel etc. Some light
| games, lots of photo browsing and sorting and minimal editing
| via acdsee. If windows 10 is lagging in what is clearly a
| superior system from specs perspective, something doesn't work
| right. My first suspicion is ssds in raid as there's a myriday
| ways to get that wrong, but who knows?
| selfhifive wrote:
| You don't notice the lag unless you've used a MacBook or
| Linux. If you ever upgrade to an i7 you will see a
| performance boost and your current system will feel slow. So
| running Linux on the same specs as Windows you'll see that
| Windows is slower and after a while as the bloat happens the
| slowness will become even more apparent.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I mean, yes... My main desktop and laptop are faster for
| big tasks. It's just that win10 on the 2nd generation
| mobile Intel is _usable_ as opposed to a deal breaker. I
| don 't yearn for xp from that perspective which never felt
| particularly snappy on anything. I feel we are at point of
| asking from windows to be something it is not.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| hbbio wrote:
| Kind of a trend... I don't think Apple realizes that as well.
|
| Photos? Tons of frameworks for scanning my photos and adding 3d
| custom emojis to Messages? They also lead the way for
| vulnerabilities like the latest NSO.
|
| What if we could just have a bare OS with all core frameworks
| and let users decide what to install.
|
| If nothing else for reducing the attack surface.
| coldpie wrote:
| > What if we could just have a bare OS with all core
| frameworks and let users decide what to install.
|
| My friend, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_Linux
| least wrote:
| There's a very vocal minority that would object to
| suggesting that Arch Linux is bare, especially since it
| comes packaged with systemd.
| jagger27 wrote:
| If systemd is such a deal breaker, there's always Artix.
|
| https://artixlinux.org/
| coldpie wrote:
| This is not an interesting argument to have.
| genewitch wrote:
| >>> bare OS
|
| >> Arch
|
| > but systemd
|
| Gentoo still "officially" supports openRC, if "systemd" is a
| pain point, as it is for me and several of my datacenter
| populating friends.
| coldpie wrote:
| I don't use Windows, but have to touch it once or twice a year
| for various reasons. It's absolutely wild whenever I do. I go
| to launch Notepad and the Start menu decides to inform me about
| some mass murder situation or the latest horrible politics news
| or some natural disaster?! I just wanted to write down some
| text, not spiral into depression. Who asked for this?
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I don 't use Windows, but have to touch it once or twice a
| year for various reasons._
|
| I'm in a similar situation.
|
| I have to fire up the company ThinkPad every other month or
| so. It's amazing to me what is permitted in an so-called
| "Enterprise" edition of Windows 10.
|
| The part I find most annoying is the way Windows 10
| automatically connects to my wifi, even when the setting to
| not permit auto-connect is enabled. I didn't care when I was
| in the office, but now that I'm in a work-from-home
| situation, no, Windows, you don't get to connect to my LAN
| whenever you feel like it.
|
| After checking and re-checking the setting probably a dozen
| times, but it persisting in auto-connecting to my router, I
| had to ban the ThinkPad at the router level. Now on those
| occasions when I use the machine, I have to remember to un-
| ban it from my network for the duration of the task, then re-
| ban the machine.
|
| Microsoft (and my billion-dollar healthcare company) are
| working with a definition of "Enterprise" with which I was
| previously unfamiliar.
| userbinator wrote:
| _The part I find most annoying is the way Windows 10
| automatically connects to my wifi, even when the setting to
| not permit auto-connect is enabled._
|
| Have you tried disabling the network adapter? That's
| something it won't try to revert... (and I'm almost tempted
| to add "for now", given all the other abusive behaviours
| they've introduced.)
| alibarber wrote:
| It was being shown a tweet from Nigel Farage (Brexit starting
| British 'politician' [never elected as an MP]) in the start
| menu that made me start swearing at work one day when I had
| to do some Dev on Windows. Like, yeah anyone can tweet all
| they like and what have you, go nuts - but I don't want that
| crap shown to me at work when I have to get stuff done.
|
| Honestly would have been frustrated if it was a politician I
| actually liked.
| wanda wrote:
| You can turn that stuff off.
|
| But I agree it's absolutely nuts that advertisements and
| "suggested content" is included as standard without a very
| clear prompt on first use saying "you can turn this off if
| you like" -- or perhaps a "set this PC up as a work
| machine" choice in installation that automatically shuts
| the noise off and adds the Windows classic theme rather
| than the weird start-metro hybrid we have now.
|
| I'm not sure I'd pay _any_ price for modern Windows 2000,
| but I 'd certainly sing its praises which is something I've
| never been able to do.
|
| I'd pay to remove the 2021 social media/marketing BS, sure.
|
| But there's no reason for them to do that. They can instead
| offer Windows VIP down the line as a subscription-model
| recurring payment to keep ads and other shit away.
|
| This isn't anything specific to Microsoft, this is what any
| company that wants to maximise its profits would do.
|
| Doing the right thing isn't "what's right for the consumer"
| any more, it's "what's right for everybody" -- but where
| "everybody" is defined as the provider, its shareholders,
| and perhaps whatever subset of all customers contribute the
| most to the bottom line.
|
| Has to benefit the provider, "they're running a business
| not a charity" -- an innocuous line of dialogue from the
| movies that can be used to justify almost any shitty,
| consumer-fucking decision you can think of, because we're
| capitalists, it's 2021, if you're not squeezing every
| dollar out, you're not doing it right.
|
| Except people in the movies who said shit like that were
| typically gangsters or at least crooks. But they're the
| heroes now. The notion that they did wrong never really
| stuck -- they made lotsa money, you can't blame them. But
| they got caught, so work hard, run after that dream, they
| got the idea right -- money is what you want, just gotta be
| smarter than those silly gangsters.
|
| Do it cleverer -- make your racket legit. It's not
| extortion, it's a subscription. It's not protection, it's
| premium. It's not more than they can afford, it's almost
| too little, they don't even know it's gone.
| alibarber wrote:
| I think this is what made me so annoyed - we were doing
| lots of interesting low level, performance related stuff
| across platforms so this machine must have been the extra
| ++ Enterprise whatever version of Windows and the
| associated development software, cost was pretty much not
| a concern.
|
| And yet, this is what we have to put up with. If it was
| free I'd understand...
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The problem with Enterprise isn't the cost. It's that in
| 2021 Microsoft _still_ can 't make a webpage that asks
| for credit card details and gives out product keys.
|
| To acquire an Enterprise license legitimately, you need
| to go through a reseller and pad the order with
| inexpensive client access licenses to reach the 5-license
| minimum order.
| samtheDamned wrote:
| I don't think I'd even pay to remove the ads because any
| OS asking over a hundred dollars per license shouldn't
| have ads built in in the first place.
| heurisko wrote:
| > Brexit starting British 'politician' [never elected as an
| MP
|
| Don't think it's necessary to put politician in quotes.
|
| He won his seat for the European Parliament five times
| before it was abolished and led UKIP, which forced the
| Conservatives to have the EU referendum.
| pxc wrote:
| Similar. I don't use Windows, but every now and then I need
| to test or develop something on it for work. Every time I do,
| it's a shock.
| no-s wrote:
| haha I started using a Windows 10 laptop from work recently
| and had a similar experience. I asked IT why they didn't
| suppress it in their controlled deploys and they said no one
| knows how to do that...thankfully it's not my only computing
| platform, I'd go mad.
|
| Jeez at the beginning of the day I just want to write code
| with only the distraction of measuring my work against user
| requirements. shouldering aside Guilt tripping adware all day
| harshes my mellow, upsets my flow, makes me waste my energy
| daydreaming of revenge hacks (fantasies of course, I'm very
| mellow at heart, but with a wellspring of ideas definitely
| NotSafeForPublicAttribution).
| jnieminen wrote:
| There is a group policy to "turn off windows consumer
| experience". To edit local group policies win 10 pro is
| needed. It is also possible to change the register value.
| See the link for more info.
|
| https://www.prajwaldesai.com/turn-off-
| windows-10-microsoft-c...
| windexh8er wrote:
| Sales and marketing did.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| They likely do realize it but don't care. For all the talk of
| Linux this or Mac that the truth is Windows still dominates the
| PC market. Microsoft doesn't need to make an OS that really
| appeals to businesses to get their business, so why bother?
| collsni wrote:
| Disable spectre mitigations
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| And Windows Defender. It's notorious for slowing down damn
| near everything for the minimal gain of weak malware
| detection.
| Narishma wrote:
| I don't think you can disable it anymore in Windows 10. It
| just restarts after a few seconds.
| fishtacos wrote:
| You can't without group policy changes. It even has its
| own anti-tampering protection so it can't be disabled,
| Admin rights or not. However, it is doable - have been
| running it like this for a few years.
|
| https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
| us/answers/questions/234111/ca...
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| You can turn off the anti-tampering feature, though.
|
| And _then_ use group policy etc to disable it. It worked
| /works for me.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| > " _I don 't think Microsoft realizes that if they re-
| introduced a lightweight Win2k style OS for professionals they
| could charge any price they wanted for it._"
|
| Then buy an MSDN subscription and use the enterprise or even
| server editions. You did say "any price" after all.
| schipplock wrote:
| > I have an i7 3770k box that I repurpose occassionally for
| random projects. It runs Linux really well, but Win10 is an
| absolute dog. I can't even imagine Windows 11?
|
| https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/min...
|
| I'm sorry, but your cpu isn't supported anymore :P.
| ab_testing wrote:
| May be something is wrong with your setup . My daily machine is
| a Dell Inspiron with an I3 2120 and a 256GB SSD. It runs great
| on Windows 10.
| whalesalad wrote:
| I would love to see the "internal wiki" at MS that explains how
| to do this yourself. I have to imagine that there are employees
| internally who feel this way too and run their own "lightened"
| OS.
| zeusk wrote:
| There are multiple stripped out SKUs internally but none of
| them are "win2000" style. More like no shell (OneCoreUAP) or
| no compositor/desktop (OneCore).
| hyperionplays wrote:
| Isnt that what windows embedded is? stripped out lightweight
| windows?
| whalesalad wrote:
| It's hard to say. MS changes the strategy all the time and
| there are so many SKUs it is hard to follow, at least for
| an outsider such as myself. I know there is a long-term
| release version that tends to recieve fewer updates and is
| considered more of an LTS/Stable release - but I think that
| there are also artificial limitations on this too as far as
| what it is capable of and how you can get a hold of it.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I haven't noticed any particular limitations, but my
| understanding is that it's not very straightforward to
| get by "official" means.
|
| At work, another team is in charge of point of sale and
| other similar devices running Windows IOT or whatever
| it's called now, and apparently licensing is completely
| different from the "regular" desktop and server installs.
| agumonkey wrote:
| funny how NT5 was such a massive achievement
| davidgerard wrote:
| The Windows Server version has none of the shit and runs
| everything fine, but costs accordingly.
| philistine wrote:
| Can you game with it? Is Direct X running on it? Honestly,
| gamers, who so often lead the trends in destop PCs, have been
| asleep at the switch decrying all that cruft.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| I don't think Microsoft realizes that if they re-introduced a
| lightweight Win2k style OS for professionals they could charge
| any price they wanted for it.
| richardfey wrote:
| They would also need to hire or reassign a bunch of teams to
| support it
| dragonwriter wrote:
| I don't know how that got posted on its own, it was a quote
| from a comment I was quoting to respond negatively too.
| doubled112 wrote:
| I'd run (probably pay for) an 2K/XP style Windows 10 for sure.
|
| Just leave me WSL and Winget. Put the control panel back in one
| window.
|
| Most of that other junk can go - UI framework of the day,
| Cortana, Bing in my start menu, Windows Store, enhanced error
| reporting? Don't need it. Don't want it.
|
| There are reasons I run Xfce on Linux desktops. Fast, has the
| features I need (which isn't much) and the features it has work
| reliably. I'm looking for a way to move and switch windows and
| launch programs. Everything else is just distraction.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| > Most of that other junk can go - UI framework of the day,
| Cortana, Bing in my start menu, Windows Store, enhanced error
| reporting? Don't need it. Don't want it.
|
| You are not expected to. Most people believe the new features
| in proprietary operating systems are for them. Sure, a few of
| them are (although in the case of Windows 11 they might not
| be obvious). But today most of these are aimed at extracting
| value from the existing position - hence tons of adware on a
| fresh copy of your OS.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Windows Store is kind of useful, as it manages the
| installed software and keeps it updated, same as a *nix
| package manager.
|
| And that's about it. It is completely infested with low
| quality apps, almost as bad as the Kindle App Store.
| jayp1418 wrote:
| https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95 Windows 95 theme for
| XFCE
| jagger27 wrote:
| It's just not quite right.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Would ReactOS work for you? Or Wine on a *nix?
| doubled112 wrote:
| It has been a long time since I've tried ReactOS. It wasn't
| something I consider daily driver, real hardware ready.
|
| WINE and Proton have made the situation better. My desktop
| remains Windows and I more or less treat it like a game
| console. It runs games, some recording/modelling software,
| Adobe Reader for some terrible gov't PDFs, and my wife's
| cutting machine. The rest are my Linux distro choice of the
| week.
|
| We get closer all the time.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I am yet to play with Proton. Truth is there isn't much,
| if any, Windows software I want to run.
| whalesalad wrote:
| The control panel situation is astounding. It's clear that
| there are a bunch of different silo'd teams in MS doing all
| this work, because I can't really think of why they would do
| this "transition" over years of half-baked lavaflow features.
| It seems like there are 2 or 3 places to access any given
| setting. Some of them have the same UI toolkit from 2000, and
| others look like an Xbox application.
|
| In Linux/BSD it always blows my mind that you can do "crazy"
| configuration changes like bring a LACP/LAGG interface online
| with essentially one command and zero downtime, while on
| Windows you will peck around 23 different UI's like a chicken
| in the sandbox only to break yourself.
| pcwalton wrote:
| I believe it's because important businesses literally have
| scripts that do things like "open the network control panel
| and click at the button at position (123px, 456px)".
| Backwards compatibility is _hard_.
| DoctorDabadedoo wrote:
| I think it's more to avoid complaints and compliance issues
| than anything.
|
| If they refactored everything in a single update, which I
| believe they are very capable of doing, I can't imagine how
| much shit they would get from users and businesses, look
| how much fuss was generated over the start menu.
|
| By doing the snail pace transitions they can rebuff
| anything with a "you had years to get used to it / it's
| been there for ages and we didn't hear anything about
| this". I just don't have a clue of why they decided control
| panel needed to go, settings is absolutely subpar.
| philistine wrote:
| I don't buy that one bit. They could update the UI in one
| go, but that's not what they decided to do. When you look
| at what has been brought over to the new whitespace-
| everywhere settings, they have decided that what needs
| modernisation isn't only the UI, but also the preferences
| themselves. That means it's really hard to change, and
| not everything can be changed.
|
| Whenever something is brought to that forsaken app, the
| old functionality is simplified and changed. Sometimes
| everything makes it through to the new app, sometimes
| breadcrumbs are left in the back of the couch, meaning
| you can click on stuff and end up in XP land.
|
| With this current strategy, I do not believe Windows will
| ever have one single UI for its settings like macOS.
| whalesalad wrote:
| The irony is they get hate and complaints no matter what
| they do - so I believe they are optimizing the wrong
| metric. It's bureaucracy at work: make fuss, busy work,
| spend lots of money, spin wheels, start big projects then
| abandon them etc...
|
| Or just make good software. Do it right the first time.
| Accept responsibility when things go south. If your
| mission is righteous the rest will fall into place.
| gjvc wrote:
| I went to fire up Windows 2000 in a VM this past week. I had
| completely forgotten it was the last 32-bit version. If it were
| 64-bit, I expect there would be many still in service today.
| Lammy wrote:
| Windows 10 is the last 32-bit version
| https://www.engadget.com/windows-10-32-bit-
| oem-173055990.htm...
| terinjokes wrote:
| While there was a 64-bit edition of Windows XP (actually two:
| one for Itanium and one for AMD64), it was not very popular
| or well supported by drivers.
| genewitch wrote:
| It eventually did get nearly full driver support, the last
| pain point i had on WinXP x64 edition was ASIO4ALL, for
| years the author said, paraphrased, "I will never support
| 64 bit OS" - although it works fine on win7 x64 and up.
|
| The drivers that never worked correctly were industrial and
| "weird" things like radio programmers, stereoscopic
| headsets, and limited run PCI[e] cards and specialized USB
| peripherals, but most of those had issues with XP 32-bit as
| well, and never worked past XP, in general.
| Delk wrote:
| I'm curious as to how Windows 10 runs that poorly for you, or
| what to you counts as an "absolute dog".
|
| I've got a laptop that's only a CPU generation younger than
| yours, and Windows 10 for general use works okay for me. I
| don't see a great overall difference in performance when
| compared to Gnome on Linux. Do you use a lightweight desktop or
| something on Linux?
|
| (FWIW, I run Fedora for the majority of the time, and I've been
| using mostly Linux for nearly 20 years, at times exclusively,
| so this isn't Windows advocacy.)
| whalesalad wrote:
| It's been about a year, I can't completely remember all the
| specific gripes. It just felt slow. I'm thinking of trying
| again because I'd really love to play that new Halo game :)
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I have a laptop from 2020 with a midrange CPU, 64GB of ram
| and a fast ssd. It is slower in almost every task that I
| throw at it compared to my kid's lowest config MacBook M1
| Air.
|
| My previous Windows 7 device with similar specs was slower on
| compute tasks, but "felt" faster, and was running all of the
| same corporate bullshit that the new box runs.
|
| It's not the hardware, because Linux runs better in a VM.
| vel0city wrote:
| > and was running all of the same corporate bullshit that
| the new box runs.
|
| It sounds like its probably more because of all the
| corporate bullshit. Does that Linux VM also run all that
| corporate bullshit?
| Spooky23 wrote:
| It does. Namely Anti-Malware and EDR client.
| mhh__ wrote:
| The M1 is a modern high-end CPU though.
|
| Also how fast is this SSD for reference - windows seem to
| absolutely chug on my mother's laptop despite it actually
| being fairly snappy when the data is loaded into memory.
| howdydoo wrote:
| You're right that Windows 10 is "generally okay" on an old
| CPU, even for relatively heavy dev work. But I just upgraded
| from i7-3770k to i9-12900k and it made me realize how much
| time I spent _waiting_ for every little thing. I've been
| switching back and forth between the two as I migrate, and
| the old CPU definitely feels like a dog to me now.
|
| Aside: I was planning to switch to Linux too, but apparently
| this CPU/chipset is "too new" for Ubuntu to work, so I'm
| stuck on Windows for a few more months.
| selfhifive wrote:
| Running Windows 10 on anything other than an i7 and SSD
| setup is a nightmare.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| throw10920 wrote:
| I think it's a bit of a stretch to call Windows 10 an
| "absolute dog", but I have experienced a noticeable
| performance issue myself: low-end power consumption.
|
| I have a new-ish ultrabook laptop with a mobile Intel
| processor that dual-boots Windows 10 and Linux with the
| Openbox desktop environment. On Linux, doing Lisp development
| with Emacs and SLIME hovers around 3-5% CPU usage. Windows
| 10, with no applications open, idles between 8% and 15%. As a
| result, I get significantly _worse_ battery life in Windows
| than in Linux (despite the opposite situation usually being
| true due to better power-management (drivers) in Windows) - 7
| hours vs 10.
|
| (Windows 10 also uses more RAM doing nothing than
| Linux+Openbox does, but that's not as much of an issue for me
| - RAM does nothing if it's not being used, while a CPU not in
| use directly translates to longer battery life)
| vel0city wrote:
| What is using those CPU cycles? Also, how frequently are
| you booting into that Windows environment?
|
| There's a number of background tasks that Windows will run
| periodically (update checks, search reindex, etc) so if you
| don't regularly boot into Windows it'll end up running
| those soon after you boot up. Those should really only take
| a few minutes to complete so it should drop back down to a
| normal idle level within a short period even if you don't
| boot into Windows often. But if you're checking CPU load
| only a few minutes after boot when you haven't booted in a
| while, its not surprising to have _some_ amount of CPU
| activity in Windows.
|
| Its really strange you experience that much CPU load idle.
| I have an i5 3350P running Windows 10. I use it for Steam
| Home Streaming, Emby, and a few other tasks. Normally its
| CPU load is <5%. Having your machine use 15% CPU at idle is
| definitely _not_ normal, I imagine there 's something other
| than just Windows churning away.
| thrower123 wrote:
| If they would just sell their LTSB/LTSC builds that are
| currently only available through MSDN and volume licensing
| deals...
|
| It's not perfect, but it is wildly better and more stable than
| the consumer-available versions.
| vxNsr wrote:
| I have a hard time understanding what possessed them to create
| Windows 11.
|
| From my perspective it appears to be an OS designed by MBAs
| with no understanding of how software is designed or
| refactored. It very much feels like there was heavy handed too
| down instructions without any input taken from those building.
| achandlerwhite wrote:
| It's because MacOS moved on to version 11 and now 12.
| Seriously.
| rbanffy wrote:
| They even mentioned Windows 10 would be the last major
| version number.
|
| That was a master troll move by Apple...
| chappi42 wrote:
| It's subjective. I like my Win 11 installation much better
| than 10. What I (still) miss though, is a tabbed Windows
| Explorer and some more polishing here and there. The Windows
| terminal and WSL2 work great. -- This said, my main computer
| runs Pop!_OS and Windows is only used when externally
| required.
| lucb1e wrote:
| I want this for Android. If something like Android 2.x or 4.x
| would get a security update and I could run normal apps on it,
| I'd switch back in a heartbeat.
|
| Back then, the enhancement community was huge. Every Android
| version since then has seen fewer and fewer enhancements
| because they just keep getting broken over and over again by
| some new OS requirement. New versions require you to turn off
| permanent notifications for every application that needs to do
| _anything_ in the background (signal, wire, email, etc.); I can
| no longer modify the status bar because the developer for that
| mod gave up after Android 8 and I can 't find a new one; I
| can't slide over the notification bar to adjust brightness
| (useful when the screen is too dim to see the brightness
| slider); the concept of just returning an empty contacts list
| instead of breaking the app by denying a permission is gone;
| etc.
|
| Just look at the number of workarounds OsmAnd needs to apply
| and tell users about to keep track recording working, you can
| ctrl+f for nearly every android version and find remarks like
| "No good solution found for now. Current mitigation is we do
| not use AlarmManager wake-up, instead keep GPS always on":
| https://docs.osmand.net/en/main@latest/osmand/troubleshootin...
| (Of course, Google has no problem keeping location history for
| you. Only if you want to store it locally...)
|
| As a developer I will concede that many of the new APIs are so
| much nicer than the ones available for Android 4 so I do
| understand people drop support for it.
|
| Another thing is that battery drain of garbage apps is a real
| problem, but similar to the Win2k style OS proposal, this isn't
| meant for the mainstream. The mainstream can have their OS
| manage things for them, but as a power user that knows how to
| run 'htop' I'd really rather just manage my own device by
| myself.
| agumonkey wrote:
| every time I run an android 4 device that is not too slow, i
| feel a big relief
|
| android 8+ do massively fancy trick .. but it feels as sexy
| as noisy
| philistine wrote:
| John Gruber's theory is that Google is disinterested in
| running Android, and that's why it's suffering so much. What
| do you think?
| lucb1e wrote:
| Why ask me? I'm not really into the politics of whether
| Google is interested in "running" Android (clearly they are
| doing it and getting massive gains from having the most
| popular OS on the planet, what even is it supposed to mean
| that they're not "interested" or "running it") or who John
| is. I'm just a humble user that would like control of the
| device that touches on so many aspects of life.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| A Nexus 7 tablet with up to date CPU and storage plus a
| patched Android 4 would be an absolute winner.
| smm11 wrote:
| I'd just like it if my S21 didn't delete any downloads over
| 25 gigs randomly, before I can move them off the phone.
| saturn5k wrote:
| The closest you can get to this is modifying a Windows ISO with
| NTLite[1] and remove any unwanted bloatware. I've been doing
| this for the last couple of years on all my machines and I
| suggest you give it a try.
|
| [1] https://www.ntlite.com/tutorial-for-creating-and-
| testing-a-7...
| jayp1418 wrote:
| https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity
|
| This OS has that look and feel of Windows 2000
| lambdaba wrote:
| This looks great. It really is peak computer UI aesthetic, I
| know there are other contenders (Motif, BeOS), but I find
| this strikes a perfect balance.
| newsclues wrote:
| I would pay retail for a modern version with long term support
| of win2kpro.
|
| I've never bought windows. Except one dell laptop prior to
| Linux editions.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I don't think Microsoft realizes that if they re-introduced a
| lightweight Win2k style OS for professionals they could charge
| any price they wanted for it.
|
| I don't think you realize that, no, they couldn't.
| password4321 wrote:
| ReactOS might be a good substitute by now, though they shoot for
| Windows Server 2003+.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?query=reactos%20comments%3E2&sort=by...
| KindOne wrote:
| Win2k has 16-bit colour in the tray icons. You can enable 32-bit
| colour if you hex the explorer.exe.
|
| I've used this program before:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20120824125326/http://www.r1ch.n...
|
| Note: It will timeout when it tries to download the database.
|
| If you want to manually patch it yourself, open explorer.exe in a
| hex editor and edit this:
|
| ---
|
| Original: 57 6A 2C 6A 40 C7 44 24 18 01 00
|
| Modified: 57 6A 2C 6A 40 C7 44 24 18 19 00
|
| ---
|
| Original explorer.exe MD5: 59cf2b7dced9111f48f51b4b570e672d
|
| Modified explorer.exe MD5: 9ac937ca2217cf5a9b71cd6e9014f0e7
|
| ---
|
| Windows will overwrite your changes since it has file
| protections. You can fix that via:
|
| http://smallvoid.com/article/winnt-wfp.html
|
| If you are curious as to what this changes, you can look at this
| file in the leaked Win2k source code:
|
| private/shell/explorer/traynot.c line 991
| tramtrist wrote:
| Been following and using BWC's (Blackwingcat) Kernelex for years.
| Those same instructions will get you very recent versions of
| Chrome as well for daily browsing use. BWC hasn't posted an
| update in quite a while. I hope he's doing well!
| vxNsr wrote:
| I'm assuming this can only be run offline? The number of security
| vulnerabilities published and not are probably too numerous to
| risk getting this on the www
| mysterydip wrote:
| I would think running it behind a hardware firewall/router/NAT
| and using a modern browser (someone further up mentioned recent
| versions of chrome) should take care of most vulnerabilities
| unless opening something malicious (document/app).
| shawnz wrote:
| There are many unpatched vulnerabilities that could be
| exploited just by downloading a file, for example
| CVE-2004-0209 or CVE-2005-2122
| hulitu wrote:
| So is windows 10. Every second month ransomware makes
| headlines and nobody seems to care.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| The practical difference is that keeping on top of the
| Win10 vulns would take considerable effort, whereas
| exploiting (a stock install of) Win2K is "download
| Metasploit and run this one line to get a remote SYSTEM
| shell".
|
| The argument is not that 10 is better or even more secure
| --surely all the added code has to count for something,
| although the (glaring absence of) security engineering in
| 2K gives me a sense of vague horror--it's that running
| the latest 10 probably makes you substantially faster
| than the slowest camper, even if it doesn't make you
| faster than the proverbial bear.
| aflag wrote:
| Isn't there a point that exploits for old systems just sort of
| disappear? Who will be targeting a windows 2000 system these
| days?
| Chernobog wrote:
| Even though I'm not going to use Windows 2000 again, this was an
| interesting read.
|
| On a related note: I have an old scanner that I use about once
| every year. Drivers max out on XP support, so I installed Windows
| Fundamentals for Legacy PCs in a VM, which is a stripped down
| Windows XP. Perhaps someone in the W2k crowd would be happy with
| WinFLP as an alternative.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Honestly, I just run it as-is in VMWare, with contemporaneous
| applications, like my copy of EAGLE 5 that works perfectly. If it
| ever gets hosed I have a checkpoint VM image with all the patches
| and applications install, I can just warp immediately back to
| Windows 2000 nirvana.
| steviedotboston wrote:
| whats the most modern browser that works in win2k?
| timbit42 wrote:
| Newest Firefox is v12. Not sure about other browsers.
|
| It's not very useful on today's web but using Legacy Proxy
| makes it more useful:
|
| https://metalbabble.wordpress.com/2020/12/06/better-web-brow...
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| As much as I loved Windows 2000, the ability to use XP msstyle
| themes is a significant enough value add for me that for a retro
| build, I think I'd use XP instead unless the machine in question
| is old enough that it would've originally shipped with 98/98SE.
| Some of those themes looked great and it's a bit of a bummer that
| there's no way to use them on modern systems.
| accrual wrote:
| > it's a bit of a bummer that there's no way to use them on
| modern systems
|
| I agree. It's odd knowing the original classic theme still
| exists in some form in Windows 10 and 11 for compatibility
| reasons, but there's no way to access it. You can install
| themes and lookalikes, but it's just not the same.
| Avery3R wrote:
| You can by modifying the security attributes on DWM's theming
| handle so that it's inaccessible(you could also just force
| close the handle but that's not reversible).
|
| https://winclassic.boards.net/thread/413/reversibly-
| enable-d...
| fredoralive wrote:
| Kinda interesting, but I can't help think that starting with
| Windows XP and using TweakUI etc. to turn off most of the
| annoying things XP added would be a slightly more useable NT 5.x
| experience, as it got support longer.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| And XP was significantly faster to boot than W2K, to begin
| with. I don't think W2K is a very good choice.
| accrual wrote:
| I was a big user of nLite in the XP days. It allows you to
| slipstream Service Packs and remove/disable lots of unwanted
| functionality directly in the XP ISO. There's a checkbox for
| almost everything. You'd boot directly into your perfectly
| customized desktop with everything working.
|
| https://www.nliteos.com/
| comprev wrote:
| nLite takes me back to the days of having a carputer in my
| TT, complete with a touchscreen, rugged industrial PC chassis
| and a special PSU hooked up to the ignition. Good times!
| kop316 wrote:
| Silly question, I thought there were security vulnerabilities in
| Windows 2000 that MS said WONTFIX. A quick search showed this:
|
| https://www.computerworld.com/article/2527154/microsoft--pat...
|
| But there may be others as well.
| userbinator wrote:
| There's probably plenty of local privilege escalations, but
| those are not really anything worry about for a single-user
| machine. That one you pointed to is an RCE, so definitely more
| severe. I wonder how easy it is to exploit those. I suspect the
| community is eventually going to fix them somehow (especially
| since the 2k source was leaked a long time ago) if it's enough
| of a concern.
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