[HN Gopher] Microsoft Download Center Archive
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       Microsoft Download Center Archive
        
       Author : luu
       Score  : 93 points
       Date   : 2025-12-05 19:33 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (legacyupdate.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (legacyupdate.net)
        
       | MPSimmons wrote:
       | PowerToys (https://legacyupdate.net/download-center/powertoys)
       | used to be on my "first software to install" list on a new
       | machine. Between Tweak UI and Deskman, you could _almost_ get a
       | minimal X Windows-like UI. Get those set up and add on LiteStep
       | (http://litestep.net/) and you were pretty much good to go, with
       | the exceptions of the kernel, network stack, and CLI toolset, of
       | course.
        
         | chungy wrote:
         | Wow, somehow I entirely missed that Windows XP versions were
         | made. I relied pretty heavily on the Windows 95 PowerToys when
         | I used Win95.
         | 
         | Deskman seems like it'd be awesome.
        
       | socalgal2 wrote:
       | This is great! But, it feels like it's only a matter of time
       | before it changes ownership and everything is re-bundled with
       | malware. It sucks that I can't get old downloads but it would be
       | nice if they came from official sources. I don't have a solution.
       | But looking for old drivers etc, mostly leads to bad sources.
        
         | JohnTHaller wrote:
         | Legacy Update has been well-supported for over 3 years and
         | takes donations via Github (11 current, 61 past sponsors) and
         | Patreon (where you can sponsor up to $80 to fuel Adam's 3D
         | printing addiction). I recommend it to our PortableApps.com
         | users who are on older operating systems and use it in my
         | virtual machines for testing our releases. I'm hopeful it'll
         | stay as is for a while.
        
           | Imustaskforhelp wrote:
           | Hey its awesome but regarding donations since I actually
           | wanted to talk about it.
           | 
           | But can you please look at adding yourself/Download Center
           | archive to liberapay too as I was hoping to find liberapay.
           | 
           | You mention having kofi being the lowest prices but I think
           | Liberapay has no fees other than payment processing and is
           | itself an non profit and funded via donations.
           | 
           | Maybe then you would have "too many options to donate" but I
           | think liberapay can be a good option to have honestly imo and
           | I am interested to hear your thoughts about it.
           | 
           | Also I wanted to download windows 7 iso to run a simpler
           | thing on my pc but Microsoft being shitty removed the
           | download link of it and everything so great to see your
           | project, Going to bookmark it right now and thank you!
        
             | embedding-shape wrote:
             | OpenCollective is another good alternative, that use the
             | same means to fund themselves as they're offering projects
             | to use, compared to the GitHub/Microsoft way of doing
             | things.
        
       | jamesdhutton wrote:
       | Genuine question, not being sarcastic: why would someone
       | want/need these downloads?
        
         | hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
         | I have a legitimate need to replicate systems that are
         | sometimes very legacy for security research (apps that sit on
         | top, rather than the os itself). Building stuff like a base
         | Windows XP image is easy enough, but sometimes system updates
         | are required - even stuff like iirc tls1.2 isn't supported in
         | IE6
        
         | dbcooper wrote:
         | There's a tool for blocking selected driver updates that still
         | works on Windows 11. Very handy.
        
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       (page generated 2025-12-08 23:00 UTC)