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As much as I despise the look and feel (and performance downgrade) of every version of Windows 10, I found the Windows Blinds thing just didn't cut it for me. In fact, find all of Stardock's stuff is bloatware that isn't done well. Even Start10 is junk compared to StartIsBack, not to mention it is also overpriced. But, anyhoo, Window Blinds... I almost bought this piece of garbage a couple of weeks ago since it's not clear how much longer it will be until we have AeroGlass for Windoze OS X 2004, and OMG... so glad I did the trial first. It sucks. Removed it within a few hours after tinkering with it and hating it more the more I used it. And, then I tried Stardock Curtains and found it was equally a bloated and buggy piece of crap that make Windows 10 uglier-looking instead of better. There's just no substitute for AeroGlass and StartIsBack as far as I am concerned.

I have resigned myself to declaring that ntdll on Vista and up is indeed off limits. I again went to XP x64 for some inspiration and installed (Vista-compatible) Blender 2.90 on it. Several functions were missing like InitializeCriticalSectionEx. That function imports RtlInitializeCriticalSectionEx from ntdll, which also was introduced in Vista. So that requires doing the near-impossible, import table expansion. Then I looked at One-Core-API. As @Ximonite pointed out, ntext helps extend ntdll. ntext is a layer between kernel32 and ntdll, and most of ntext is imports and forwards respectively from/to ntdll. No new imports unless we make our own binaries, but forwards are indeed exports from the file. The people designing the PE format certainly had some nice tricks up their sleeves! Though I was forwarding functions to ntdll from kernel32 in Windows 2000 back in June, so my memory is going I guess. So this ntext would be a copy of ntdll with new and upgraded functions. But what about programs that call ntdll directly (which is frowned upon for win32 applications as kernel32 is what they're supposed to call as an intermediary)? A patcher that changes import table references from ntdll to ntext in a particular program is needed. Preferably, I'd like to make the file that ntoskrnl loads and is integrity-checked a decoy named ntext (which would be the original ntdll), while everything else calls a modified ntdll (so no changes to import tables are necessary). But changing the reference to ntdll I found in ntoskrnl did nothing.

Here is KB4566371 for Windows NT 5.x: https://mega.nz/file/Us9GSQ6a#wDnAvUagKV05btOMEd5jBXI6_14tkmoDAcp-xyHxo1I

W2k3_SETUPLDR_SP2_to_SP1.xdelta3Most of us don't really need/use the WAIK to build our custom WinPE's. So there were always a problem to get the few tools like wimgapi, imagex or the WIM filter drivers. Attempts were made to use httpdisk to download files from inside the WAIK iso, but it was not a good solution as you still need to load hundreds of MB and it requires to install an unsigned driver. You even had to set your x64 Windows in testmode ... But now we came with a good solution: Our tool uses cURL winhttp functions provided by Homes32 to download only the needed bytes for the hugh WAIK ISO's. There is no need for admin rights and you only need to download 4-6 MB per choosen WAIK. For command line: GetWaikTools -? W2k3_SETUPLDR_SP2_to_SP1.xdelta3 GetWaikTools.zip

Finally got the time to create the much requested Update Repository for Vista. I've collected these updates a year ago, but only recently took the time to put them on my Mega account and organize them. It has roughly the same format as my post-EOL repositories, with x86 and amd64 versions. A few highlight points: Most updates come in ".cab" format, because at the time it was easier to manage bulk installations in this format (I was trying to update offline images) Includes hotfixes not distributed through Windows Update. These were collected through a mix of the now defunct MS Hotfix service and the website "hotfixshare". There's some interesting fixes in there. While most of the updates are language agnostic, some are specific to the language I use, Portuguese of Portugal (like the IE9 installer). If you'd like to provide a version for your language, please contact me. To install a ".cab" format update, just run the following command: start /w pkgmgr /ip /m:<path to updates> /s:<temp path for extraction> /l:<path for log files> /norestart To bulk install updates, I usually run the following set of commands: forfiles /p <path to update folder> /m *.cab /c "cmd /c mkdir @fname" forfiles /p <path to update folder> /m *.cab /c "cmd /c pkgmgr /ip /m:@file /s:@fname /norestart" The first command creates a folder for each individual update and the second one installs each update and extracts onto each created folder. Here's a practical example. Say, I have all of the updates from the repository located in my Downloads folder inside my user profile. In this case, I want to install every update in the "General" folder. I'd use the commands above like so: forfiles /p "C:\Users\greenhillmaniac\Downloads\General" /m *.cab /c "cmd /c mkdir @fname" forfiles /p "C:\Users\greenhillmaniac\Downloads\General" /m *.cab /c "cmd /c pkgmgr /ip /m:@file /s:@fname /norestart" I'd recommend you install no more than 200 updates at a time. This can also be used to create an updated Vista ISO for later use (tutorial coming soon™) Anyway, here's the link for the repository

EXE install_wim_tweak.exe install_wim_tweak_NET4.6.exe SOURCE win6x_registry_tweak_src_v1.4.7.zip ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Before i start i have to say that this tool was originally released by wnuku and that i have just updated it with extra features, colours and bug fixes. The original concept was by Aviv00. This little tool un-hides "packages" like Windows Media Center/Player, IE, IIS, Games, etc... so you can lower the size of your install.wim Top left is un-hiding a specific package, top right is writing the log of available files to a txt file, bottom left is un-hiding all components of an image and finally the bottom right is un-hiding all the packages from current installed OS. install_wim_tweak.exe /? This will show all available options.. install_wim_tweak.exe /p <MountPath> This will unhide all the packages in the selected image install_wim_tweak.exe /o This will unhide all the packages on the currently installed OS install_wim_tweak.exe /p <MountPath> /l This will list all the packages available in the selected image and write them to a text file in the same directory. install_wim_tweak.exe /o /l This will list all the packages available on the installed OS and write them to a text file in the same directory. install_wim_tweaks.exe /p <MountPath> /c Microsoft-Windows-......... This will just inhide the selected component from the selected image, can also be used with /o. If you add /r at the end it will remove the package. Changes made from the original version by wnuku */h will restore them to default (must use without /h first) */n will not create backups (faster) */d will not delete owners keys. */m is no longer needed, will do the task by default */l will output a list of all packages to a text file. */o will use currently installed image. *fixed a bug where it did not work if there was a space in the mountpath. */c <PackageName> will un-hide specific package * using /r with /c will remove the package *Win32Security.dll file is no longer needed *Added new colours, errors are displayed in Red *Fixed bug crashing at end of running *Fixed bug where it cannot unmount registry if something fails *Added specific component selection *Fixed some other bugs *Added an appropriate small icon for the app Also normally you will have to put the specific component name i.e. "/c Microsoft-Hyper-V-Common-Drivers-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~x86~~6.1.7601.17514" but if for example you put "/c Microsoft-Hyper-V-Common-Drivers-Package" it will show all packages starting with that. F.A.Q If you have any questions let me know...

Redirector

Thanks, those are some nice to knows! I love the ME interface but always fear its stability. Oddly, the feature I used to love was that barn/shed wallpaper it came with. I have since installed that theme in 98. I think the dos dual boot option is the best one. One can get a cheap CF card for it in case one wants a dedicated dos boot disk! I want the ME just for taking a feel of it, guess i will install it as dual boot someday along with NT4 as well as it was my 1st PC at work.

Go to the folder where your screen reader is located and make a file named nvda.exe.local (or whatever the name of the exe is). Copy the original dlls into the screen reader's folder. Only if you want to use my ntoskrnl/ntkrnlmp on a UEFI system.Though you could use that loader/driver I mentioned earlier. But if you just need to use ntdll, it won't be needed anymore.

Just in case: http://www.retroarchive.org/garbo/pc/connect/index.html http://www.retroarchive.org/garbo/pc/connect/pktd11.zip jaclaz

A small update on the repository. Thanks to the efforts of @Regele there are now EN-US version of IE9 and KB937286. I've also change the folders names in the Ultimate Extras to English.

Things change, new ideas come about, people like to relive old times, etc. Not closing topic.

Well, as RainyShadow already mentioned, after 11 pages it's a bit late to suddenly convert a general topic into a very restricted one: From "old browsers" to: - only Firefox and Chrome - only on XP - AND only their LATEST version for XP that's neglecting "XP" again, and "latest version".... .

Perhaps another option could be to include a few other devs who can help squash bugs and prep AG for upcoming Windows builds while keeping the paradigm the same. Of course, these devs would need to agree and be trusted by @bigmuscle but this could be a sensible middle ground.

Windows always used to be the OS where you could do whatever you liked, theme the crap out of it and customize it to your liking. It's starting to become more like macOS where you can't do much and everything is the way Apple wants it to be.

Must be some telepathy because I just TODAY installed Windows Vista with SP2 just for fun in VMware and found they broke Windows Update due to SHA-2. Offline updating is always better. Thank you! By the way, Windows Vista offline updating finishes must faster if you disconnect from the internet otherwise every update tried to check applicability online and gets super slow. I hope everyone knows this. This was fixed in later versions of Windows. @greenhillmaniac, which updates exactly are language-specific? I noticed some Ultimate Extras folders were named in Portuguese. I did find the updates with pt-pt or ptg in their file names. Any others too? Are Ultimate Extras non-English?

@bigmuscle Yes, please consider this for the future development of Aero Glass. If you want to keep it paid, at least provide a bit more communication.