[HN Gopher] Windows XP Delta Edition
___________________________________________________________________
Windows XP Delta Edition
Author : kosasbest
Score : 250 points
Date : 2022-05-21 15:18 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (xpdelta.weebly.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (xpdelta.weebly.com)
| no_time wrote:
| Not bad but I prefer Gold Edition for its additional bling.
| https://preview.redd.it/bv1f9do7esky.png?auto=webp&s=dc5a65b...
| kcplate wrote:
| To each their own, but to my eyes that is bloody awful.
| dymk wrote:
| That's _why_ it was great. So gaudy. Blatantly opulent and
| tacky. Like rolling up to the Trump tower with spinning rims.
| userbinator wrote:
| "Pimp my OS". The creativity from those days was definitely
| interesting to see. A lot of the people who did that
| weren't even really into computer science/software
| development; they just liked customising stuff.
| Lammy wrote:
| For maximum nostalgia they should find a way to remove the
| volume-license key blocklist (added in SP1) so I can install
| Delta Edition with the "FuCK GateWay" key that is still seared
| into my memory 20 years later.
| rootw0rm wrote:
| pretty sure that's done? I used to distribute my own little
| hacked together bit of kit called TurboXP that used volume key
| 8organicbits wrote:
| This looks like a lot of effort for pirated software, unless I'm
| missing something.
| xmonkee wrote:
| Why are there so many narcs on HN
| andai wrote:
| From the FAQ:
|
| _Q: What is the product key?_
|
| _A: One is not provided so the project stays legal._
|
| https://xpdelta.weebly.com/about.html
| 8organicbits wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that's not how copyright works. Besides
| there's a product key on the download page.
| stordoff wrote:
| As far as I can tell, there's only one listed by a reviewer
| on the archive.org page, not by the original uploader
| Beltalowda wrote:
| Someone left a review on archive.org with a product key.
| Can't hold the XPDelta people accountable for that. I could
| post it here too, and accuse YCombinator of encourage
| piracy.
|
| Other than that, Microsoft has always been fairly relaxed
| about copying CDs/ISOs (not sure what the license says
| about it). It's the product key that matters.
| rektide wrote:
| Your original claim was,
|
| > _This looks like a lot of effort for pirated software,
| unless I 'm missing something._
|
| This is false. Whatever law may protect Microsoft from
| people being awesome & investing enormous effort improving
| their products for them- and I'm sure there are plenty such
| laws- this claim of piracy seems false.
|
| I do not see any product keys on the download page. These
| folks have no interest in helping piracy.
| gunhfgujh wrote:
| Eh it's clearly a violation not to mention the trademark
| violations everywhere. it wouldn't take much to go
| through the image to find unlicensed msft programs and
| likeness. Sometimes hn confuses how things ought to be
| reasoning from first principals with how they actually
| are.
| rektide wrote:
| > _clearly a violation_
|
| It's awesome to me that no one can clearly state what
| this is a violation of, but we all tend to agree, yes, a
| rag-tag group of product-loving enthusiasts absolutely
| have no right to go poke around & make things awesome &
| cool & to improve the product. That's absolutely not ok.
| We agree. But we also don't even know why or how we got
| here & why that is.
|
| It's still not piracy.
| CyberRabbi wrote:
| There's a difference between "what ought to be" and "what
| is."
|
| I get that you think this project is cool and the authors
| are doing admirable work. I don't necessarily disagree
| there but the reality is this is not legally defensible.
| It is a violation of copyright to redistribute software
| without the copyright owner's permission. That is the
| definition of software piracy. Whether or not Microsoft
| pursues legal action is a separate matter.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Would that stop you from downloading and using it?
| 8organicbits wrote:
| No comment on the rest, I think we simply disagree on
| terminology, but the product key is visible when you
| click the download link.
| vore wrote:
| The product key is a user-submitted comment on
| archive.org, I don't think you can hold the project
| owners accountable for this one.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| What if I have a legally bought copy of WinXP and therefore
| have a"working" product key?
|
| What if I installed a copy of WinXP from my CD with my
| bought key and it doesn't activate because WGA servers are
| long offline?
|
| Same, but I use any WGA activation hacks?
|
| Same, but instead of MS copy I used "Delta Edition"
| distrib?
|
| And by the way, "working" in quotes because even if you
| have the key - the product key itself doesn't mean nothing
| except the way to _allow_ installation process to succeed.
| It even doesn 't guarantee what it would accuse you of
| pirating the said software (see WGA).
| PapaPalpatine wrote:
| Did you even go to the website? I'm not seeing a product
| key anywhere.
| kosasbest wrote:
| There is one here: https://archive.org/details/windows-
| xp-delta-edition
|
| You may have clicked the 'Extras Pack' link where there
| is no serial.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| You understand what user comments are, right? I mean,
| you're making one of your own right now.
|
| So you'd understand how HN, for instance, has little
| responsibility with what you post in your comment. I
| can't claim that "Hackernews posted [your comment]".
|
| That extends to Archive.org and the owners of this
| project.
| PapaPalpatine wrote:
| I replied to a comment saying "Besides there's a product
| key on the download page."
|
| That's not true: there is no product key listed on the
| download page. It sounds like there is a link somewhere
| on the page that goes to another site that hosts the
| product key.
| [deleted]
| frostedflakes wrote:
| You might've missed the following: That not everyone cares
| about all that legal intellectual property stuff, and, that it
| was probably fun to make.
| rektide wrote:
| In a better world, companies would support & embrace this
| kind of creative exploration.
|
| It's just a sad chilling legal regime that rules us. Control
| is prioritized over fun, for fear that the fun get out of
| hand or come to not reflect well on the corporate image.
| CyberRabbi wrote:
| > It's just a sad chilling legal regime that rules us
|
| It's not so sad when those same laws protect your work from
| being stolen from you and exploited for profit by someone
| else. It's only sad when you want to steal someone else's
| work.
| hakfoo wrote:
| This just feels like it's a _very debatable_ relative
| perspective.
|
| Even as a professional software engineer, the value of
| being able to obtain and hack on "the rest of the
| software universe" would be far greater than the value I
| can obtain by being able to deny others that right on my
| relatively minor scope of work.
|
| Copyright tends to enable one software business model
| above others: selling canned bits with no extra work. If
| you're not in that business, you have little to fear, and
| only free publicity to gain.
|
| If we eliminated copyright tomorrow, you could torrent a
| copy of $work_monolith with no repercussions. There would
| probably be little demand, as it's in-house tooling for a
| niche industry that requires non-trivial infrastructure
| to use. I would still have a job, because I'm still among
| the best-qualified people to manage updates, bugfixes,
| and compliance needs. Hell, now I have multiple potential
| buyers for consultancy and development services!
|
| I think you can also say that there is something
| inherently sad about squandered value. Nobody ends up
| better off in the current scenario.
|
| Microsoft has little to no interest in selling Windows
| XP, but there is a cadre of users who are interested in
| it. I've seen a fair number of people who want to build
| "the dream gaming PC of their childhood" now that they
| have the disposable income to do so, or people with
| technical "we can't replace the extremely specific
| software/hardware that controls the $5 million industrial
| machine with anything newer" lock-in. They lose out on
| being able to legitimately build something they want, and
| it's not like Microsoft was going to convince these
| people to buy Windows 11 for that use case instead. There
| may be some Rube Goldberg chain of downgrade rights you
| can invoke, but I doubt it's as simple as "buy a Win11
| key and enter it in the XP installer's prompt", nor is it
| the sort of thing that's widely communicated.
|
| I always figured the compromise solution was a (likely
| state-mediated) mandatory licensing board. You want
| Windows XP and the vendor won't sell it? Buy a concession
| license at a negotiated price from the licensing
| authority instead, and your "acquired somehow" copy is
| now legally sanctioned. That would ensure permanent
| availability of "back-stock" content, and the concession
| funds could be funneled back to the original authors,
| providing an effortless trickle-source of revenue on
| otherwise unsaleable products.
| CyberRabbi wrote:
| > I always figured the compromise solution was a (likely
| state-mediated) mandatory licensing board.
|
| The majority of your argument seems to be based on the
| premise that you do not have rights over your own work.
| That the perceived public benefit has priority over your
| will over your own work. The day that the state ceases to
| enforce copyright based on that premise is the day that
| many types of software businesses will cease to exist.
| The incentives just won't be there to create software
| that thrives under business models that require
| enforcement of copyright.
|
| Microsoft, as the owner of Windows XP has the right to do
| with it as they see fit. It's not anyone else's concern
| whether they are not making the best use of Windows XP.
| Especially not a mandatory governmental board. It's their
| property, it's their choice.
| rektide wrote:
| What is Microsoft being defended from here, by these laws
| which prohibit this? This isn't a pirated work. This
| isn't distributing keys: they explicitly say you need to
| get your own key.
|
| I'm honestly not sure your claims are at all valid, that
| the laws you are describing are the ones protecting
| against awesome works like this. If they are, then what a
| shame that those laws would be so overbroad, would
| threaten & wreck such innocent & virtuous remix-culture,
| would deny the world any of their agency & enforce top
| down corporate control.
| CyberRabbi wrote:
| > This isn't a pirated work.
|
| Distributing software without the permission of the
| author is the definition of software piracy. This is
| literally software piracy.
|
| The laws that prevent what you consider awesome work like
| this also prevent people from stealing your work. If we
| didn't have these laws, we couldn't have a software
| economy. It would be nearly impossible to make a living
| as a software engineer. The people who created these laws
| had the prudence to judge that the ability for
| programmers to securely make a living for their work is
| more important than the ability for programmers to take
| someone else's work and do whatever they want with it.
| rektide wrote:
| That sounds reasonably accurate. It seems silly that
| software that protects itself from unauthorized use via a
| key would be entitled to such prohibitions. It seems
| silly software which is generally downloadable (such as
| windows10 here[1]) would be entitled to such
| restrictions. But yes, the corporations have rule.
|
| [1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-
| download/windows10
| CyberRabbi wrote:
| > It seems silly that software that protects itself from
| unauthorized use via a key would be entitled to such
| prohibitions
|
| I think it would be illiberal and draconian to force
| copyright holders to forfeit the rights to their work
| were they to choose to implement piracy deterrents.
| rektide wrote:
| You updated your post to add this after I said I agree:
|
| > _Distributing software without the permission of the
| author is the definition of software piracy. This is
| literally software piracy._
|
| It's disagreeable that you'd make such a drastic change
| under my feet.
|
| So to update my previous stance, I there may be some
| technical ground but I think users have a right too, to
| archival, to exploration. Leaving the software with all
| copy protection intact & in an unusable state for a user
| is pretty obviously difference than the hard fast clear
| case you make this out to be. This is pretty obviously
| different. Technically it's probably not up to snuff but
| the law is probably not competent in technics & needs to
| reel itself in to maintain legitemacy.
|
| There is significant public interest in being able to
| look at & understand & see our past. Microsoft doesnt
| wish to be a part of that past but I dont believe it
| grants them the right to make the world forget & become
| ignorant.
| irthomasthomas wrote:
| I've been using the same xp vm about 8 years and I love it. 2
| secs to boot and blazing fast. Only occasionally do I need win 7
| or rarely 8. Not that I use windows much. I'll never use 10+,
| never ever.
| [deleted]
| wtallis wrote:
| I similarly have a Win2k VM that I use for vintage software.
| Post-XP applications tend to be easier to still run natively or
| with Wine.
| orf wrote:
| If you're using a VM, why wouldn't you just suspend it? Boot
| speed seems somewhat irrelevant
| chrsig wrote:
| windows tends to need rebooting at just about every turn
| adrian_b wrote:
| The original Windows XP did not require a reboot at least
| once per day, like Windows 98, but it still required a reboot
| after 2 or 3 days of intense use.
|
| The many Service Packs that have been applied later to
| Windows XP have improved a lot its stability, but I have not
| used Windows XP for enough years to reach a Service Pack
| version where Windows XP would never need periodic reboots. I
| have stopped using Windows XP in 2005, maybe later revisions
| have solved the remaining bugs.
|
| I have used Windows 2000 on much less computers and for much
| less time than Windows XP, so the accumulated experience
| might be insufficient, but with Windows 2000 I have not
| encountered any situation when I was forced to reboot the
| computer, like it was needed from time to time with Windows
| XP. Even so, the improvement in stability between Windows 98
| and Windows XP was huge.
|
| Simultaneously with using Windows XP on many
| desktops/laptops, I was managing a large number of FreeBSD
| servers. Those were rebooted exactly once per year, in order
| to do a kernel upgrade, even if that could have been skipped
| without problems.
| RedShift1 wrote:
| God I love that superbly crisp Tahoma font.
| accrual wrote:
| Early Windows UI as a whole was incredibly crisp, like using a
| bitmapped OS sometimes. I miss it.
| bovermyer wrote:
| Starting from a Windows frame of reference... 98SE, then XP, then
| 7, and then (with reservations) 10 was the gaming experience.
|
| From a nostalgia perspective, I'm likely to view even Windows
| 3.11 clones in a positive light.
|
| Really, though... harboring no specific ill will toward any OS
| developer, I just hope that L/indo/nix figures out how to
| properly interoperate, and we get a computing ecosystem that
| allows for new users to quickly and accurately figure out what
| kind of system they want to live in.
| OsintOtter69 wrote:
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| This reminds me of XPize.
|
| https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/xpize.html
| kif wrote:
| Whoa... this throws me back. It was pretty slick for the time.
| I loved it.
| kosasbest wrote:
| For those wondering about other fan-made XP editions, there is
| MicroXP:
|
| https://archive.org/details/MicroXP-0.82
|
| As for piracy, it seems Microsoft just don't seem to care.
| MicroXP has been on Archive.org since 2019!
| ranger_danger wrote:
| It's not that, archive.org has a DMCA exemption for being a
| library. It makes it legal for them to host the data, but that
| doesn't mean it's legal for you to download it. Weird I know...
| I mean why else would they store it if it's illegal to access?
| I've never gotten a straight answer to that.
| [deleted]
| wtallis wrote:
| > I mean why else would they store it if it's illegal to
| access?
|
| It's not permanently illegal to access. In the US, there's a
| constitutional requirement that copyright and patents be
| time-limited, so eventually all that stuff will be public
| domain. And the copyright period is current so absurdly long
| that by the time XP is public domain, it will be hard to find
| outside of dedicated archives.
| sp332 wrote:
| They have fairly strong protections, but it's not a blank
| check. Nintendo for example is aggressive about getting stuff
| taken down from there.
| wrp wrote:
| Even if you have a licensed copy of WinXP, MicroXP is useful
| because it is a stripped down version that has been tested.
| That represents quite a lot of work.
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| Microsoft themselves offer a freely downloadable software
| compatibility tool which internally contains a full Windows XP
| virtual machine. There's instructions online for how to import
| the imagine into Virtual Box.
|
| I wonder if it has to do with the common practice of using a
| stripped down windows install as a live bootable environment to
| run recovery tools?
| zeusk wrote:
| WinPE (recovery tools) is very different from the desktop SKU
| userbinator wrote:
| The kernel and a lot of the userspace DLLs (of which the
| former has far fewer) are exactly the same, AFAIK.
| joshcryer wrote:
| You can get a ton of old, abandoned, or unsupported, software
| from Archive.org. I have no idea if the original authors are
| aware of it but if they are they don't seem to care that much.
| pjerem wrote:
| Everything on archive.org is user uploaded. So I think
| authors don't event know. I just recently uploaded an old
| Pocket PC / Windows Mobile game that I found on an old disk
| drive. It took me less than five minutes to register and
| upload it and it was immediately available.
| nyolfen wrote:
| man, eXPerience brings back some memories. i used tinyxp for
| most of the late 00s, in high school.
| kenesary wrote:
| I sometimes have to develop and test for Windows, and running
| latest 10-11 dev evaluation version from Microsoft in a virtual
| machine is nothing but pain (in terms of performance and
| usability, since I use FreeBSD/macOS/Linux for last ~15 years and
| anything after XP is a huge pain to me).
|
| Will definitely try this one and see if it will work for my
| purposes!
| tlhunter wrote:
| The Royale theme remains one of my favorite OS interfaces to this
| day.
| itvision wrote:
| Windows XP, Vista and 7 were the most beautiful operating systems
| ever.
|
| Since 7 we've had what could only be described as horrendously
| unusable and ugly.
| andix wrote:
| To me XP always looked ridiculous. Like an April's fool joke,
| ,,Windows Toys"r"us Edition". I still can't believe that it was
| used to run nuclear power plants (it probably still does).
| jhgb wrote:
| The first thing I always did with any XP install was to
| switch to the W2k look. It saved screen space, too.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| More like we're all just all getting old
| extrememacaroni wrote:
| Agreed, 7 was the last Windows I felt had more to love than to
| complain about. When 10 entered a silly update failed - keep
| retrying failing updates just to fail again loop I just said
| nah not worth it and switched permanently to linux mint. It was
| the last straw so to speak. I was supposed to install an update
| manager and use it to install updates instead? Bleh.
|
| Some audio tweaks here, some kernel tweaks there, we've been
| through a lot together already this OS and I :D
| icedchai wrote:
| I always felt XP looked like a toy, compared to say Windows
| 2000 or NT 4.
| lostlogin wrote:
| It certainly grated if you were coming to it from macOS.
| icedchai wrote:
| Mac OS? or OS X? "macOS" didn't exist at the time. ;)
| lostlogin wrote:
| Probably Mac OS 9. I still hit command + n for a new
| folder, and get a new window. I loved that OS, but if I
| checked it out now I sure I'd be very disappointed.
| dashundchen wrote:
| I think mobile OS designed also peaked with Windows Phone 7.
| Android and iOS haven't touched the intuitiveness and usability
| it had. Not to mention the Nokia Lumia hardware was light-years
| better in build quality then even most Android phones today.
|
| They were too late too market and lost developer mindshare with
| the Windows Mobile to Phone transition.
| andix wrote:
| Okay, nice idea, well done, but whyyyyy? :D
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| Why not?
|
| With a proper BIOS PC or CSM enabled, you can partition a SSD
| for a few MBR-layout partitions, then format the first
| partition FAT32. Following partitions can be formatted NTFS.
|
| Windows 98SE can then be installed to the volume if your BIOS
| can enable ATA mode (for HDD access to complete the boot
| process), otherwise you still can manually install the plain
| DOS (which underlies W98SE itself) to the FAT32 volume, but
| that way you only boot to the bare metal command line.
|
| DOS is simple enough where the BIOS or CSM can transparently
| handle access to the ATA, SATA, or USB drives, keyboards and
| mice without drivers or anything. Sound is not so easy though.
|
| DOS will usually work with the full amount of modern memory
| still physically installed, but W9x not, so excess memory might
| need to be disabled in BIOS or physically removed beforehand
| for full W9x use.
|
| If you have a (empty) WINDOWS folder already on your FAT32 DOS
| volume before you try to install W9x (or WXP) on it, then you
| will be given the option of putting the new install into a
| differently named folder if you wish, I would choose for a
| WIND98 folder rather than WIN98 since the latter was almost
| like a keyword.
|
| To a fresh FAT32 DOS volume without any of its few files in
| actual folders (directories) at that point, when you installed
| W98 it created your first 3 folders; Documents and Settings,
| Program Files, and your main Windows OS folder (which was
| either the default WINDOWS or your chosen alternative such as
| WIND98).
|
| When you upgraded from DOS to W9x the bootsector no longer
| loaded simply IO.SYS, but WINBOOT.SYS then which brought in the
| whole Windows GUI on top of DOS.
|
| As mentioned WXP can also be installed to a FAT32 volume, works
| great but it was never a mainstream approach. You can search
| _much_ faster when its a FAT32 volume.
|
| XP install CDs usually also need to use ATA mode rather than
| SATA (AHCI) mode in the BIOS unless the proper SATA drivers
| have been slipstreamed into the ISO.
|
| Maybe this Delta edition handles that well.
|
| If you install XP to your FAT32/DOS/W9x volume which still
| contains your (intentionally empty) folder named WINDOWS, you
| will again be given the option to choose an alternative OS
| foldername such as WINXP. The WINXP choice was the actual XP
| default at the very beginning (W2k used WINNT foldername just
| like NT3 & NT4) before reverting to WINDOWS foldername for most
| XP PCs and newer.
|
| This would not be a recommended approach for users who were not
| comfortable renaming an existing Program Files folder used by
| Win9x to something else such as Prog98, otherwise installing XP
| over W9x would overwrite a number of the default Windows 98
| programs in the Program Files folder with NT versions. Better
| to just hide the W9x Program folder and let XP write a whole
| new Program Files folder for itself when it installs. Either
| Windows version then boots using just its own uniquely named
| Windows folder. W9x doesn't care if the Program Files folder is
| from a newer version of Windows, it will still boot. When
| booted to W9x some of the common programs in the XP Program
| Files folder will only run under NT and you will get an error
| for that, but to workaround you could set a shortcut to your
| renamed Prog98 folder in that case.
|
| This NT install also overwrites the DOS volume bootsector so
| upon bootup it searches for NTLDR rather than DOS bootfiles,
| but it also makes a backup of your DOS bootsector first saving
| it as c:\bootsect.dos so if you want to you could use your new
| NTLDR to still boot to DOS or W98 if present (since it's FAT32
| anyway) by adding the line c:\="DOS from W98" to your boot.ini
| text file. In boot.ini "c:\=" syntax in this case is shorthand
| for "c:\bootsect.dos=". Quite convenient and un-necessarily
| deceptive at the same time.
|
| IOW for advanced MBR operators who want to sometimes boot to
| Linux from a Windows-formatted volume using the NT bootloader,
| you need to back up the NT bootsector (disk editor is good for
| this), prepare a Linux bootsector using GRUB or Syslinux then
| save it as a file named something like c:\bootsect.lin. Then
| you can replace the NT bootsector to the volume from backup.
| Then in your boot.ini add a line such as c:\bootsect.lin="Linux
| on type 83 partition 4" for instance.
|
| Anyway with DOS, W9x and Wxp in the FAT32 bare metal root,
| WIND98 folder, and WINXP folder respectively, sharing the same
| FAT32 volume you could ideally choose any one of them (even
| further choose Linux or Windows installs on different
| partitions/filesystems if you went there) from the regular
| Windows NT multiboot menu which will appear upon PC startup.
|
| It has also been seen that on an NTFS volume already containing
| W10, if the Windows 10 Program Files folder was renamed to
| something like Prog10 beforehand, XP could still be installed
| afterward to a folder other than WINDOWS and share the same
| volume as long as the HDD was set up using MBR layout rather
| than GPT and you have a good BIOS or CSM, with SATA or plain
| ATA handled accordingly. Carefully, W10 can also be booted from
| the NTLDR bootmenu if you had saved a copy of the W10 NTFS
| bootsector as a file such as c:\bootsect.nt6 beforehand. Then
| address that in your boot.ini. Which you would need the W10
| bootsector backup file anyway normally, to restore to the
| partition (after XP has "downgraded" it) so you can go back to
| using the original W10 NT6 BOOTMGR instead of the older NTLDR
| from XP. You then have to manually add an NTLDR bootentry to
| the modern NT6 BOOTMGR bootmenu to boot XP from there.
|
| But that's kind of backwards, ideally things like Vista, W7,
| W8, W10 & W11 would each be installed on their own remaining
| NTFS partitions without sharing the volume with any other OS.
| As each of these OS's is added to an MBR-layout HDD it writes
| its additional bootentry to the NT6 bootmenu within the
| standard BOOT folder on your "Active" MBR partition, typically
| the FAT32 volume on your first partition.
|
| With a BOOT folder this beefy, and NTLDR in the mix you may now
| have DOS, W9x, NT5, NT6 and even Linux on the bare metal at
| your fingertips.
|
| Next adding a new similarly beefy EFI folder to the FAT32
| volume will provide an additional, alternative way to boot the
| same OS's on the same partitions, but on non-BIOS PCs only the
| OS's modern enough to support UEFI booting will be available
| (for booting) when a proper CSM is not enabled.
|
| UEFI alone is supposed to support booting from either MBR or
| GPT layout on the HDD, as long as a readable useful EFI folder
| is on a recognizable FAT32 volume.
|
| When not using a BIOS or CSM, UEFI can't really boot into DOS,
| W9x or Wxp any more, but when they are on the bare metal anyway
| you can still use them in a VM inside a modern OS, from right
| where they are if you do it right.
| Uptrenda wrote:
| I always loved Windows XPs UI design. So comfy. How legal is this
| project though?
| graiz wrote:
| I was a former program manager on the Windows XP release so it
| warms my sprit when I see projects like this. Thanks for keeping
| the dream alive.
| blackhaz wrote:
| And I thought Program Manager was a Windows 3.1 thing... Badum-
| tss!
| graiz wrote:
| Congrats on your fatherhood - only a dad could make a joke
| that bad.
| imdsm wrote:
| I have warm memories of Windows XP, upgrading to it from ME at
| about 11/12 years old, where I truly began my independent
| journey into SWE. I used to switch to the silver theme every
| now and then to keep things fresh. Windows XP + an internet
| connection, what more could a 12 year old geek want? Thanks for
| helping provide that!
| iKevinShah wrote:
| I am with you on that. Almost same timeline. Plus the amazing
| art work, icon packs, editing shell32.dll (or whatever it was
| called, sorry I dont remember accurately) to make it look
| like Aurora (or longhorn). Those were the days for a geek.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Windows XP was actually the trigger for me to move to Linux
| full time. There was an option to let windows verify you
| owned the media files on your computer via a third party
| service when you set up Windows media player. Since this was
| slightly after all the hoopla about Napster and copyright
| law, it struck me then that perhaps Microsoft wasn't one of
| the good guys.
|
| I was slightly older than you though, so perhaps that gave me
| a different perspective.
| golergka wrote:
| > perhaps Microsoft wasn't one of the good guys
|
| That's the thing that tipped you off? After the 90s?...
| fartcannon wrote:
| Unfortunately, in the 90s I was profoundly more
| interested in what kind of pop music was acceptable to
| enjoy. Teenagers are dumb.
| blep_ wrote:
| It doesn't matter when it started; it matters when you
| started paying attention to it.
|
| Many people, of age > 0, discover every day that someone
| isn't a good guy.
| graiz wrote:
| Windows Media team made a lot of bone-headed decisions.
| This was at a time when WinAmp was taking off. WinowsMedia
| could have leaned into MP3 culture while giving a very
| basic nod to DRM, instead they created a bunch of
| confusion. At the time Microsoft was considered the "evil
| empire" so being considered not one of the good guys would
| have made the marketing team proud at the time.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Damn. That's dark but very enlightening. Thanks.
| bombcar wrote:
| I held out on Windows 98SE for awhile because of games, and
| then went to Windows 2000 for the classic UI when I learned
| you could often get XP drivers to load in 2000 with a bit of
| INI fiddling.
|
| It wasn't until nearly 2003 that I finally moved over to XP.
| genewitch wrote:
| I built and installed and repaired a lot of XP machines
| (tens of thousands, probably), but ran win2k myself until
| Windows XP x64 Edition came out, and then promptly
| installed that. Other than in a VM, i've never actually ran
| windows XP 32 bit myself. win3.11 "wfw" -> 98SE -> 2k -> xp
| x64 -> 7 'ultimate' -> 10 pro for workstations. In the gaps
| i used MacOS (7,8,9) and then redhat, then gentoo.
|
| I also ran NT4 as a fileserver because it had the best SCSI
| controller support. had almost a year of uptime on that
| before a blackout took it offline.
| dvtrn wrote:
| Similar story, except instead of 98 for me I held on to
| Win2k (and the laptop running it, the first laptop I ever
| bought with my own money) as long as I possibly could.
| Absolutely loved that release.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| Windows XP was my first operating system when my family got
| their first computer. At the time our school computers were
| running Windows 98. I felt so special having the new "XP"
| system at home haha. The login sound still brings back
| memories. Thank you for your contributions!
| fartcannon wrote:
| How did you guys feel about all the Linux patent sabre rattling
| that Microsoft was doing at the time or shortly thereafter?
| jchw wrote:
| I think when it comes to big companies of any sort, not just
| big tech, a lot of unloved initiatives are also not well-
| liked from within, but even fairly critical people tolerate
| it as long as they're not in close proximity to it. I can
| only imagine others here can relate to the pressures of
| trying to balance pressure to prioritize short to mid-term
| business success vs investing in long-term gains and user
| trust. Maybe Google is a bit of a weirder case, but I was
| there when Dragonfly was uncovered and though some people
| quit, most people just complained. (To be sure, I definitely
| understand that some company culture would be more aggressive
| against internal dialogue like this. I'm somewhat neutral on
| it as it definitely had its ups and downs.)
| fartcannon wrote:
| I used to work in a field that clashed with my personal
| ethics. Took me a decade to figure out it. More than enough
| time to be culpable. Life is interesting.
| graiz wrote:
| Keep in mind that at the time Microsoft was being sued for
| being anti-competitive behaviour by Netscape and there were a
| lot of attention on the company for being a bad actor. Most
| of Microsofts's patents were defensive (they rarely used them
| offensively to my knowledge). There was a group of execs that
| were nervous about Linux but the lack of UI/UX/Usability
| strength put most of the focus on server capabilities. To
| this day many people want Linux to be a broader desktop OS
| but the only strong and focused effort on this are ironically
| ChromeOS and Android.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Interesting, from the outside it definitely appeared like
| there was a lot of effort into destabilizing footholds
| Linux and FOSS were making. There was the whole 'true cost
| of ownership' advertisement FUD, attempts to paint the
| desktop experience as poor (as you just did) when it was
| and continues to be a superior experience ever since KDE
| 3.5 (imo, of course), the sabre rattling about patents at
| the start of android, numerous institutions switching to
| and then back from FOSS equivalents of office repeating
| Microsoft PR verbatim as if it was facts... From the
| outside, it looked like a big deal.
|
| Very interesting to hear it from the other side though,
| thanks.
| genericacct wrote:
| Such modernity. I liked windows better when you had to install
| your own tcpip stack
| 101008 wrote:
| So many memories. I am one of those who grew with WinXP (though I
| usd Win95 at school and for a few years Win98 at home), and as
| someone said in another comment, what else could a teen geek want
| besides WinXP with a bandwith connection?
|
| I still feel that seeing a XP Desktop screenshot invites to much
| more experiences (possibly online) than a Win10/Win11 screenshot.
| It may be with the fact that I associate it to different internet
| eras as well. With XP I used to browse websits, fansites, blogs,
| forums, chats, MSN messenger/Yahoo Messenger/etc, whil now
| everything seems to be the boring social networks where almost
| everything is generated/shared.
|
| Internet used to be much fun back then, and it may be the reason
| why most of the people have good memories about XP. I think the
| main reason (and I wanted to write an "essay" about this for a
| while) it's that we were offline by default in our lives, and we
| used to "go online" for a few hours durnig the day. Then you had
| your experience in the real world and went online to talk about
| them. Now it is the other way around - we live online by default,
| sharing photos and videos from a concert almost in real time,
| photos from a museum, etc. I think it took away its novelty.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| You know, nobody actually needs to participate in this rat race
| for few seconds of attention (of people you don't care about
| much), there are no real gains at all in it, not long term, not
| anything in say quality of life lived or happiness.
|
| I used to be like that, posting 50+ albums of beautiful curated
| adventure photos per year (basically every weekend trips to
| alps, backpacking plus ie some evening climbing outdoors on
| mountain nearby and rest of life like concerts etc). Literally
| tens of thousands of photos at this point, sometimes stuff
| NatGeo would be happy to use. Backpacking around the world in
| wild places relatively few visit, always having full frame
| camera (+ diving cam + often gopro) with me.
|
| I got told I should start Instagram, get followers, create
| 'brand' etc but never went that way since that wasn't the
| reason for doing it.
|
| When first kid came, I toned down everything, stopped some
| things, less time to curate all those photos in lightroom. With
| second child, I practically stopped using camera and currently
| use just good phone (Samsung S22 ultra). My public photo stream
| basically died since I don't feel the need to share my
| kids/family photos, they feel much more intimate than just
| myself doing something cool/extreme. Close family still gets
| quite a few of those, but that's it.
|
| And you know what? I am fine, I don't miss this at all, and I
| definitely don't miss similar feeds coming from other folks
| (especially if they go to some place / experience something and
| then for a week there are photos dripping 1 by 1 about the same
| single thing, I began to hate that). Actually I am more than
| fine, unplugging quite a bit, reversing this process, having
| more time for much more important matters in life.
|
| Unplugged from quite a few social circles around those
| activities (but not all). So online life became similar kind of
| novelty you describe.
| andrepd wrote:
| >With XP I used to browse websits, fansites, blogs, forums,
| chats, MSN messenger/Yahoo Messenger/etc, whil now everything
| seems to be the boring social networks where almost everything
| is generated/shared.
|
| That 2005-2009 period was absolutely the swan song of the pre-
| corporate internet.
|
| Or maybe it's just nostalgia for a simpler time.
| com2kid wrote:
| > That 2005-2009 period was absolutely the swan song of the
| pre-corporate internet.
|
| Try pre 2000. Nearly every website was made by an enthusiast
| of some type. Banner ads just barely existed, and you could
| reach out and talk to almost anyone who was online. There was
| also an assumption of politeness and civility.
| tijuco2 wrote:
| "we were offline by default...you had your experience in the
| real world and went online to talk about them" that is strong
| and so true.
| gdulli wrote:
| I wonder if the custom Windows image scene will get a revival
| when they start to force online accounts. I'm not looking for a
| way to avoid paying for Windows, but I'll do what it takes to
| keep a local account.
| 323 wrote:
| There will always be offline accounts because there will always
| be offline computers, for a variety of reasons.
| dymk wrote:
| For enterprise, sure. But they've already shown a willingness
| to gimp their operating systems for common consumer use. For
| instance, you can't use virtualization features on Windows 10
| Home edition. I wouldn't be surprised if you need a special
| license key to use Windows offline (past activation, at
| least) in the future.
| 323 wrote:
| > _you can 't use virtualization features on Windows 10
| Home edition_
|
| Get the Pro edition then?
|
| What exactly is "common consumer use" of virtualization
| features?
| sp332 wrote:
| The 22H2 release of Win11 requires an online account even
| for the Pro edition. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022
| /05/windows-11s-first-ye...
| 323 wrote:
| Only for installation. Afterwards you can create and use
| it with a local account:
|
| > _For those who want to use a local account, the best
| solution is to create a burner Microsoft account for use
| during setup and then to either create a new local user
| account or sign out of your Microsoft account once the OS
| is up and running._
|
| https://www.ghacks.net/2022/05/06/how-to-use-local-
| accounts-...
|
| If users hate this they can use Apple or Linux.
|
| But the vast majority want online accounts for data
| backup.
| blep_ wrote:
| > If users hate this they can use Apple or Linux.
|
| This is the "if you don't like one particular thing your
| country does you should move to a different country"
| argument with a couple of the words changed.
|
| Lots of people use applications for which there are only
| Windows versions. Switching operating systems is not the
| trivial thing you claim it is unless you _only_ use a web
| browser.
| mikae1 wrote:
| _> Switching operating systems is not the trivial thing
| you claim it is unless you only use a web browser._
|
| And in the case of "use Apple" (macOS I guess), it's also
| quite costly as you'll have to buy a new computer.
| rootw0rm wrote:
| I have an education N license that Microsoft gifted
| me...no online account BS required
| dymk wrote:
| Running a virtual machine. Something you could do on
| Windows 7 Home Premium, without having to purchase a
| "Pro" edition.
|
| My point is that they're slowly gating features behind
| their more Enterprise-y editions, which at some point
| won't be available to the general population. If they can
| force you to make a Microsoft account at some point, they
| will.
| emteycz wrote:
| Wasn't the Home Premium for the same price as Pro is now?
| hakfoo wrote:
| Well, the obvious one was when the did the "XP Mode" for
| compatibility purposes.
|
| I'd have expected to see a lot more along that theme by
| now. Windows's biggest opportunity and problem was always
| backwards compatibility, and the more hardware gets
| virtualization-ready, the easier it is to shift
| compatibility burdens to sealed-box VM images.
|
| I could imagine a future Windows that finally achieves
| the vision of "only modern apps and APIs" by packaging
| everything else into sealed VMs running a predictable
| steady-state "classic Windows" install.
| 323 wrote:
| Modern Windows, Home or Pro already runs under a
| hypervisor, it's called Core Isolation.
|
| > _The entire idea of Core Isolation is that your OS will
| segregate critical core processes from the rest of the
| other normally running ones in order to defend against
| hostile or ill-natured software /driver or malware. You
| can think of it as a vault that only the allowed have
| access to, something that is not open to everyone.
| Windows achieves this feat by using its virtualization
| technology._
|
| https://feedthecuriosity.com/windows-os/what-is-core-
| isolati...
| stevewatson301 wrote:
| The field is active even today, you may want to check out
| TeamOS. (I'm not sure if I can leave a link to it here, so just
| search for it.)
| andix wrote:
| i think they will never force online accounts. A lot of small
| business prefer/need offline accounts, and there needs to be a
| solution for them, besides Windows Enterprise Edition.
| causality0 wrote:
| That would be nice. Windows AME and NinjutsuOS are basically
| your two options for Windows 10, aside from LTSC.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Grrr, make the screenshots clickable...
| igtztorrero wrote:
| What about security holes ?
| zamadatix wrote:
| > Windows XP Delta Edition is an unofficial modification of a
| 21 year old operating system, and should not be used as a daily
| driver. Microsoft ended support for Windows XP in 2014, and all
| unofficial updates stopped in 2019. Windows XP Delta Edition is
| made by enthusiasts, for enthusiasts.
|
| It's not meant to make it usable, just fun.
| orionblastar wrote:
| Just don't use it on the Internet. Internet Explorer doesn't
| work because the certificates have expired.
|
| I would rather use Linux with WINE.
| accrual wrote:
| I still play around with my XP laptop and even browse with
| MyPal. It has native WPA2 and can connect to a modern access
| point. As long as you're behind NAT and aren't downloading
| random warez, there's not too much to worry about. Just don't
| do anything sensitive like banking, of course.
| Hackbraten wrote:
| TIL that MyPal is a thing!
| mproud wrote:
| Powered by weebly
|
| Thus it must be legitimate!
| tomjen3 wrote:
| I was a Windows user until I moved to Linux and then Mac. I don't
| anticipate going back to Windows again, but the one that would
| tempt me would be an updated version of Windows XP. Like better
| security, drivers and maybe the search function in the start
| menu, but otherwise Windows XP.
|
| I feel like this was the last OS where Microsoft gave a damn
| about you as the user.
| sydthrowaway wrote:
| Is Windows XP faster than Windows 11?
| accrual wrote:
| What boggles my mind is how slow the Win 10 start menu can be.
| Unless you disable the web integration via regedit, it can take
| _seconds_ to open something as simple as the calculator. Plenty
| of times I'm tapping my fingers for something that would have
| been instant in XP.
|
| This makes Win 10 so much more pleasant for me:
| [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer
| ] "DisableSearchBoxSuggestions"=dword:00000001
| bombcar wrote:
| Depending on what you want to do with it almost certainly.
|
| After all, it ran on twenty year old computers, and quite
| usable, too.
| sp332 wrote:
| Not for opening .zip files lol.
| divbzero wrote:
| I miss Windows 7 too. That was the last version of Windows that I
| really liked.
| kosasbest wrote:
| You can get lots of other software .ISOs (Mostly operating
| systems) here:
|
| https://archive.org/details/operatingsystemcds
| accrual wrote:
| Even more on WinWorldPC:
|
| https://winworldpc.com/library/operating-systems
|
| I like WinWorld since each file usually comes with a bit of
| history about the release, as well as nearby serials.
| mnsc wrote:
| I love the screenshots of windows ME!
| genewitch wrote:
| aw, they don't have windows home server!
| init wrote:
| Thank you for sharing this link. The Internet Archive is truly
| a marvel of unequaled value. Didn't know it had such a trove of
| warez without the risk of pwnage that warez and torrent sites
| came with.
| manjana wrote:
| How do you know these are free of any malware?
| bsagdiyev wrote:
| For Windows ones the SHA sums are available online to
| compare to.
| [deleted]
| zerr wrote:
| Windows XP is the last Windows where Classic theme (thus GDI
| before WDDM/Aero) is hardware accelerated.
| sigzero wrote:
| Yup! I ran the Classis theme exclusively. I was never a fan of
| the default "Fisher Price" theme.
| mikae1 wrote:
| :)
|
| https://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/421851-accele...
| moralestapia wrote:
| Royale Noir theme ftw!
| imbnwa wrote:
| Anybody remember those Performance Edition ISOs?
| branon wrote:
| Reminds me of the hacked-up Windows XP Service Pack 3 images
| you'd find on warez sites. I fondly remember XP "Black Edition"
| with custom themes.
|
| They also had it configured to receive the Windows XP POSReady
| security updates, which made the system serviceable long after
| the general EOL date.
| syntaxing wrote:
| Super nostalgic! I remember them having a lite edition which
| ran noticeably faster on my netbook
| comprev wrote:
| nLite was popular in the carputer scene. I ran a stripped
| down XP version on a low power industrial PC (Atom CPU, 1GB
| RAM, laptop disk) hooked up to a Lilliput touchscreen up
| front.
|
| Good times!
| accrual wrote:
| I credit nLite with improving my understanding of Windows.
| I was educational to see all the components listed with
| tooltips about their function and dependencies. It was like
| building your own custom copy of Windows. At one point I
| think I had a copy of XP running using 50MB of RAM at the
| desktop.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| Also in the "people who want a fast PC and don't want all
| the extra shite MS keep bundling".
|
| Miss those days. Seems like even Linux installs are
| monsters nowadays.
| genewitch wrote:
| gentoo (and begrudgingly, i'll admit ubuntu server) are
| really light. I run web app servers on mostly gentoo,
| ubuntu if it requires docker, and a base install is
| 30-50MB of ram used. Right now my cgi, syncthing, and web
| fileserver is using 125MB. misskey server is using 725, i
| think it uses 175 on boot, so possible memory leak there.
| matrix server is using 363MB. Mattermost server been up
| for 3 months and is using 383MB.
|
| if you remove all the source files and cruft from a
| gentoo install when you're done setting it up, the actual
| system is less than 1GB on disk, and as mentioned,
| 30-50MB of memory used. Ubuntu is similar, although it
| does include more helper apps so the disk weight is
| higher.
| IceWreck wrote:
| Pretty sure they still do those for Windows 11 and so on
| OsintOtter69 wrote:
| xeromal wrote:
| A trip down memory lane. I loved my pimped out XP black edition
| with all the addons and features.
| russellendicott wrote:
| > POSReady
|
| There's a name I haven't heard for a long time. I used to work
| in POS and remember getting big license packs of POSReady in
| the MS Gold Partner Program loot packs.
| RedShift1 wrote:
| I just intalled it into a virtual machine and it's already doing
| that thing where you go to network connections in the control
| panel and it hangs for like 60 seconds before it proceeds... Good
| times...
| pigtailgirl wrote:
| only ran xp for a while - much preferred win2k - loved skinning
| windows - here's a screenshot from the brief skinned xp days:
| https://share.getcloudapp.com/p9uOpZeB#
| xmonkee wrote:
| That black and orange theme brings back memories. Does anyone
| know of a way to get that exact look in linux?
| opan wrote:
| The Zune theme! I found this from a quick search:
|
| https://linux.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Environment/Metacity...
| xmonkee wrote:
| Thank you!
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