[HN Gopher] Legacy Update: Fix Windows Update on Windows XP, Vis...
___________________________________________________________________
Legacy Update: Fix Windows Update on Windows XP, Vista, Server
2008, 2003, 2000
Author : weissbier
Score : 89 points
Date : 2022-12-16 20:30 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (legacyupdate.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (legacyupdate.net)
| accrual wrote:
| I haven't tried this personally but I'm already a huge fan of it.
| I build and benchmark various retro PCs and some of them are fast
| enough to be fully patched, which I do if it's an option.
|
| For XP I really like the unofficial SP4 service pack which rolls
| up all post-SP3 updates into a single executable, with or without
| .NET. The later POS-only patches are also available. It makes it
| really simple to bring an old system "up to date", even if the
| last update was a couple years ago.
|
| These machines are just for fun of course and I don't do real
| work on them, and I'm behind NAT and monitor my traffic, so I'm
| not really worried about these systems.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I agree, this is excellent! Honestly, shame on Microsoft that
| these sorts of things have to be a community-produced and
| delivered. Not singling Microsoft out, either--most software
| vendors' support for older products is abysmal. I'm tired of
| the attitude in the software industry of only maintaining back
| to some arbitrary time (mere years!), inevitably leaving users
| of older systems out in the cold. Unpopular opinion, but if you
| can't be assed to support a product for the duration that it's
| deployed in the field, you probably shouldn't release it to
| begin with.
| londons_explore wrote:
| I love the style/theme of the site. I might use it on some of my
| own sites too. I think it's now old enough to be cool again...
| zaggynl wrote:
| Neat, could one combine this with
| https://download.wsusoffline.net/ ?
|
| Edit: would need to pull from
| https://archive.org/search.php?query=wsusoffline&sin= I guess
| WhackyIdeas wrote:
| I am very curious of how long it would take to be 'pwned' whilst
| browsing the web with internet explorer on XP.
|
| Seconds, minutes, hours?
|
| Time to fire up a VM I think.
| mmcgaha wrote:
| A long time because the old TLS does not let you connect to
| modern servers.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| Most likely never because nothing more advanced than very basic
| HTML sites work with IE6 nowadays and with JS enabled you are
| more likely to crash the browser than visit a site.
|
| This includes the vast majority of ads which are the main way
| to get such malware. Also chances are even if a bad ad (or
| other vulnerability) hits you, it wont work because it'd be
| designed for browsers people actually use :-P.
| hulitu wrote:
| Years ? I don't know if the newest ransomware runs on Win XP.
| danogentili wrote:
| Actually, it would make perfect sense for malware to rely
| very heavily on backwards compatibility and old exploits.
| guestbest wrote:
| I've used windows XP tablet is on a Toshiba with a patched up
| version of Firefox designed to use TLS 1.3 on the internet
| without issues for hours. I think most software is so I'm
| compatible with it that even hacking it is a history lesson.
| userbinator wrote:
| If you turn off JS and all the other features (ActiveX, etc.)
| that should've never been allowed on anything other than sites
| you fully trust, probably a very long time.
|
| I wonder how much malware now just refuses to run on XP because
| it attempts to use functions that were introduced in later
| versions.
| causality0 wrote:
| Depends on your browsing habits. If you're only visiting a
| handful of trustworthy websites maybe never. If you spend nine
| hours a day on bootleg hentai streaming sites, maybe very
| quickly.
| WhackyIdeas wrote:
| Maybe. See we had a trusted B2B site we use for stock. Then
| we noticed our bank account being raided. Turns out they had
| hackers on their system skimming all the card details.
|
| Maybe they were hosting on XP. Didn't ask.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| Chances are said bootleg hentai streaming sites wont work on
| IE6 anyway.
| Koshkin wrote:
| I wish ReactOS were ready by now...
| Animats wrote:
| I could see staying with Windows 7. That was the best version
| Microsoft ever made. Microsoft finally figured out how to make it
| stable, and it didn't have all the ad and cloud crap nailed in.
| You can run current Firefox, current Thunderbird, and current
| LibreOffice, which covers the basics. Most Windows software still
| works.
| Koshkin wrote:
| > _That was the best version Microsoft ever made_
|
| No. 7 was a rollback on Vista. The best one which was not a
| step back but rather a step forward was Windows 2000. (Some
| even swear by NT4, which I feel also has some merit.)
| nix23 wrote:
| I think WindowsServer2003R2 was the best OS Microsoft ever
| made, then XP >SP2 and Windows2000, then Win7.
| Koshkin wrote:
| As to "the best OS Microsoft has ever made," it was OS/2
| (which they abandoned in favor of the "hugely successful"
| Windows 3.0 which was clearly inferior on all technical
| accounts).
| ahartmetz wrote:
| Yes, 2000 was by far my favorite Windows. Very solid, very
| clean style. I have a burning hatred for the visual design of
| Windows 7 (and Vista to a lesser degree) - it may have been
| technically great, but the design felt appropriate for a
| toothpaste, not for an operating system. I could only stand
| XP with the 2000 style as well. What the hell were they
| thinking?
| rzzzt wrote:
| The theme in Windows 2000 and its classic counterpart in XP
| 64-bit used a darker shade of blue for the background,
| which I always tried to hand-select on the systems that I
| had (and weren't running these versions).
|
| There was also some tiny difference between the active
| window colors as well, IIRC.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Windows 7 also had the best customization/theming, followed by
| XP. Both 7 and XP had some amazing looking community-made
| .msstyle themes but 7's theme engine allowed for things like
| full transparency while XP was limited to 1-bit transparency.
| This was nice in that it offered UI looks that were more modern
| than the classic theme yet more understated than the gaudy
| Luna/Aero.
|
| Then Windows 8 came along and decided flat squares were the
| only option anybody could use, removing theme transparency
| support altogether.
| synaesthesisx wrote:
| It amazes me how many machines there are still out there,
| connected to the internet, running Windows XP (a 21+ year old OS)
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel_version_history
|
| I wonder if there is a sizable position easily identifiable
| Linux 2.6.x running out there.
| dezgeg wrote:
| Plenty of routers (especially on Broadcom chipset).
| Lammy wrote:
| Lots of old Androids
| https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/51651/which-
| andr...
| doodlesdev wrote:
| There probably are a lot of NAS all around the world still
| running that version, probably somewhat patched with some
| backporting though.
| slt2021 wrote:
| For the love of god just get off of thece ancient systems pls, or
| run the only in airgapped and isolated network segments with
| application whitelisting and manual data ingress/egress controls,
| and everything will be fine without these silly updates.
|
| Just bury the body already, let winxp rest in peace, please
| no_identd wrote:
| Tell that to my desire for a retro gaming experience.
| wnevets wrote:
| > For the love of god just get off of thece ancient systems
| pls,
|
| Is anyone actually writing exploits for these ancient systems?
| I wouldn't be surprised if it is actually safer from non-
| targeted attacks.
| Koshkin wrote:
| Why, they all have been written already, long ago.
| throwaway0x7E6 wrote:
| there are hundreds of multiplayer games that dont work past
| win7 bro
| hhh wrote:
| do you have examples?
| userbinator wrote:
| You're welcome to stay on your leash and do as MS says.
| Klonoar wrote:
| OP is appealing to modern security needs and general advances
| in computing. Your comment isn't really necessary or useful.
| causality0 wrote:
| Give me a new Windows that isn't dripping with contempt for the
| user.
| cpuguy83 wrote:
| That's what they said about XP when it came out.
| throwaway0x7E6 wrote:
| really? who, when?
|
| I have actually lived through that era, and I can't
| remember there being negative sentiment about XP. I don't
| know about the dark corners of the internet, but the people
| in my circles were neutral about XP, hated Vista, loved 7,
| hated 8, hated 10 and hate 11
|
| to this day, the only criticism of XP I saw is about the
| UI, which doesn't make sense to me - switching it was a
| matter of 3 clicks
| bitwize wrote:
| XP was the first Windows with phone-home DRM.
| mostlysimilar wrote:
| Better to have at-install license key check than all of
| the hostile telemetry and ads in Windows 11.
| bitwize wrote:
| Yeah, but that shit was a big deal back then. We were
| used to having software work for us and not anyone else,
| so monetizing your eyeballs or attempting to profile you
| and enforce copyright through the internet was weird and
| creepy. People lost their shit when they found out Bonzi
| Buddy and Comet Cursor had spyware. Today's Bonzi
| Buddy/Comet Cursor is called... well, Windows 11, and no
| one seems to care.
| throwaway0x7E6 wrote:
| guess they were right then that it was a sign of things
| to come
| Koshkin wrote:
| > _there being negative sentiment about XP_
|
| I, on the other hand, clearly remember a huge wave of
| disgust and resentment towards XP right after it came
| out. Slow and bloated, with hideous, gimmicky visuals, it
| had been an object of all kinds of ridicule and
| criticisms by "sophisticated" computer users.
| iso1631 wrote:
| I think people were happy with NT4, 2000, Windows 95, and
| possibly Windows 98 as it had a fair number of technical
| improvements over Vanilla 95 (OSR2 brought in support for
| >2G drives for example but it wasn't until 98 you could
| use it properly)
|
| From memory XP was the first "phone home" windows version
| which required some form of online registration. I
| stopped using windows at home or admining it around then.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| Pretty much everyone i remember hated XP's "Fisher Price"
| look.
|
| Also there was a ton of compatibility issues, at the time
| Microsoft saw Win98 as the biggest competitor to XP and
| it wasn't until SP2 that XP was seen as good.
|
| Funny enough, a quick search for "windows xp fisher
| price" has this Ars Technica article about exactly that
| topic (people hating Windows XP when it first came out):
|
| https://arstechnica.com/information-
| technology/2014/04/memor...
| causality0 wrote:
| As did I. I was excited for everything until 8. I even
| liked Vista, since I was installing it on a real computer
| and not a 256MB shitbox. Still miss Vista's ability to
| dock My Computer as a desktop toolbar.
| danogentili wrote:
| What about switching to Linux? :)
|
| If you're running legacy OSes, you're most definitely not
| playing recent games with DRM or doing anything that can't be
| done on a recent Linux system.
| [deleted]
| archontes wrote:
| I still believe that linux is unsuitable for the vast
| majority of people. I virtualize all of my workstations
| with proxmox, and have the ability to backup and restore
| snapshots quickly, and without that ability, the number of
| times a _gui recommended_ kernel update would just kill
| large portions of my system is too damn high.
|
| Kernel 5.15 still seems to be incompatible with running two
| monitors on a GTX 1080TI with any of the proprietary nvidia
| drivers I've tried.
| StillBored wrote:
| What you give up with linux is the hardware
| compatibility. The linux bigots would say you get better
| HW compatibility but that is only true if your HW is old
| junk the manufacture abandoned years back.
|
| Nvidia tends to be a bit of a no-no when it comes to
| linux these days because of the wayland fiasco (and
| others), although it might be getting better with their
| latest opensource driver efforts. Who knows, but the fact
| does remain that linux's refusal to have a binary driver
| ABI fsk's anything that doesn't have an opensource
| driver, so usually just make sure one exists before even
| trying the HW.
| [deleted]
| causality0 wrote:
| Un-fucking Windows 10 is still easier than Linux where the
| answers to half of my problems are "You fool, if you wanted
| to use more than two mouse buttons you should have used
| Slippery Weasel 7. Trash your install and start over with a
| better distro. By the way Slippery Weasel 7 doesn't support
| changing your screen brightness."
| djbusby wrote:
| I have a 12 button gaming mouse working as expected on
| Gentoo with their binary kernel in XFCE.
|
| It's even easier in any other distro.
| StillBored wrote:
| I get your point, but its not quite that bad if your
| careful about your laptop selection (most desktops its
| not a problem because you just plug in another
| mouse/whatever when you discover a compatibility issue).
| And KDE/etc is still wonderfully configurable with the
| control panel that ships, and there are loads of actual
| themes that aren't just someone changing a color and
| background image like windows. And it supports 3 or 4
| start menu styles out of the box, with just a right click
| properties selection, or putting the task bar on the side
| of the window, etc, etc, etc.
|
| So, yah linux is still shit, but at this point it might
| have finally reached the point where its the least shitty
| if your careful. Largely because the competitors are
| doing their darnest to destroy their own offerings while
| chasing features/etc no one actually wants (ads anyone?).
| wereallterrrist wrote:
| Damn near pure FUD with any remotely, _remotely_
| mainstream laptop. The Linux ecosystem is so wildly more
| consistent and predictable than Win10.
|
| I mean, my laptop doesn't overheat daily in my bag when
| its booted to Linux, but yeah, Windows is so easy. /s
| Lammy wrote:
| The site does agree with you in the Disclaimer at the bottom of
| the page:
|
| "The existence of this site shouldn't be taken as an
| endorsement to continue using unsupported OSes. You should
| stick to a supported OS such as Windows 10 or 11 (or, try
| Linux?!). However, this service exists anyway in recognition
| that using these OSes is sometimes necessary to run legacy
| hardware/software, or just interesting to play around with."
|
| Presumably they knew they would get a lot of
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfUEb_neu3U
| i386 wrote:
| Yeah until some IT moron running a hospital installs this on
| their aging fleet for budgetary concerns.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-12-16 23:00 UTC)