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Hi everyone, My name is Ricardo and I'm 25 years old. I am a big collector of vintage hardware and software and have been for about half of my life. My daily occupation is IT support for other companies and mainly with Windows client/server networks. Besides this I have always been a big fan of social events, tinkering, cars and I have a big general interest towards fascinating things.

The installer has been added and files have been updated in the same Mega folder as usual. kernel32 is updated both on x64 and x86, as is new x86 wrappers, ntext and ntk32.dll. I thought I had done it last night, but it seems that I somehow distracted myself enough from actually uploading it.

There is a new extended kernel version released. Development was hindered greatly by the struggle to make new x86 shell32 functions well, function. ntdll is the source of that discontent and the secret may lie in either the Server 2003 version or even one from a later Vista build. Most x86 programs rely on the shell32 functions, which means that there will not be much in the way of new x86 programs working aside from what has been shown already. However, SetThreadErrorMode has been stabilized on x86 and WMP 11 x86 (the default WMP on Vista x64 as well) is working again (x64 version continued to work anyway). TryAcquireSRWLockShared is implemented on both Vista x86 and x64; there were several programs I'm aware of asking for it.

Even if I wanted to play Windows 10 only game, I would not switch my 8.1 for it. I would create dualboot.

These two look the same? I think you might want to see a optometrist

The point is though is not even the UI or that. Sure, Windows 10 uses a lot of ram, and it's not surprising because as time goes on, the operating systems for whatever reason keep getting bigger. The main reason for this in Windows 10 is the addition of like 100 more processes running, most of them being svchost.exe. Microsoft added a LOT more services into Windows 10, most of them being diagnostic and telemetry related. First red flag there. I will continue to hate the Windows 10 UI until it is consistent. Fun fact, there are still Windows XP and 2K icons in Windows 10. Generally because shell32's code hasn't changed since then. Only the resources have. The telemetry is the main reason why I really want to leave 10. I don't like having my data sold, its not Microsoft's data. The OS on my computer is what I purchased. I have the right to tamper with it, modify it, and use it without what I do on it being sold and Microsoft telling me that I can't modify it. They think that Windows is a service that you bought to use your computer. They call it that so people don't realize that its really just so they have control on the computers. People say that Satya came in and fixed everything. That is a businessman's perspective. On the consumers, it completely destroyed our right to use Windows privately and personalize it the way we want to. Remember back when everyone used 7? How most of the time you would see really modified and personalized installations? You don't see that often with 10 anymore. For those who like 10 and argue back to the ones who hate it, saying that modifying it is casuing the bugs with it, you are right. Exactly correct. That is the problem. We shouldn't NEED to modify our OS just to make it secure and less invasive. That is just how Microsoft made it need to be. Does anyone still remember when Microsoft actually had Windows Update channels regardless? People who clicked Check for Updates more often got less-stable updates on purpose because Microsoft assumed they wanted beta software? Windows 7 was the last OS that Microsoft actually tried to make good. After the rocky road with Vista they wanted to redeem themself. And they did. Everyone loved Windows 7. People still use it 11 years later. Windows 8 was the first attempt at a "OS for all." They failed at that because they never made it appealing for mouse and keyboard users. They overestimated the growth of touch screens. Windows 8.1 just added the start button back and nothing else. Still fine as you can use Classic Shell to fix this. Windows 10 was supposed to fix all the issues of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, as well as bring all the features loved. We're talking the best OS of all time. But what we recieved at launch was an incomplete OS that had LESS features than Windows 7 and 8.1. The worst part of all, is that unlike Windows 8.1 release and Windows 7 release, this time Microsoft wanted people to use it. So GWX existed. Never had that happen on previous releases of Windows. People hated GWX because some people got forcefully upgraded without their consent and against their will. Microsoft never owned the computers. They do not have the right to forcefully change how our computers work. I BOUGHT THE COMPONENTS AND THE LICENSE. It doesn't matter what the EULA says even though it may be in there, but it is my property and I have the right to do whatever the hell I want with it. In fact, a small business computer, which was used for basically all their things, was forcefully upgraded to 10. The upgrade failed and the revert failed so it was stuck in an unusable state. They sued Microsoft for it. Microsoft calls it the "latest and greatest Windows ever" because its extremely profitable for them. They could not care at all what you think about it. Microsoft also tries to shut out the competition and absorb it if they find it dangerous for their business. Its an extreme monopoly thats happening there. The reason that Office 2019 didn't support 7 or 8.1 even though they were still in support at the time was because they wanted you to stop using 7 or 8.1 regardless of support or not. They wanted you on 10 so they could earn more money. Telemetry did exist in 7 and 8.1 near the end of its life because Microsoft made it that way, but you could easily disable it and remove it, because they were just Windows Updates. Another reason is that WSL suddenly over the last few years got a lot more development going on with it. Mainly because, Microsoft does realize how much poetential Linux has in the future. To prevent Linux from gaining motion, they suddenly started developing hard and fast with WSL to drive people considering to switch back into Windows and move some Linux users back to Windows. Nothing will change under Satya at this point. They never wanted to copy Apple. They just had a strategy to control their userbase and shape it into what they wanted it to be. And we here are the last of the legacy Windows fans. I loved Windows 7. I was such a big fan of it. I just loved how it was so simple and I was so much more productive on it. It was an actual tool, unlike Windows 10, where you have to tool the OS. I really don't know what type of drugs happened in 2014 but ever since then Microsoft has completely destroyed that Windows fans loved about the OS. And all of this will be forced upon us in the next few years. As programs drop support for Windows 7 and 8.1, we will find most of us forced on Linux (which will also fall apart because of Microsoft trying to destroy it) and last of all Windows 10. Microsoft will force everything to run Windows 10 in the future. It's how they want it. Until there is a class action lawsuit against them (which will never happen, because those companies get some nice juicy data about their users from Microsoft) nothing will ever change and we could be seeing the most unexciting software. I guess in the future its time to just give up our privacy and right to own our computer.

Heyo! I've been a supporter of Glass8 for quite some time now, to the point where I would usually delay updating Windows 10 until Glass8 was ready as well. But seeing as BigMuscle has gone MIA (which I totally respect, life happens), I decided to look for a legitimate alternative that I felt fit the look and feel of what Glass8 was going for. I tried a Windows 7 theme for WindowBlinds, which looked great, but WindowBlinds caused my quite overpowered computer to lag quite a lot. Recently, within a post on this very sub-forum, I found a theme for Stardock Curtains called "Eleven Seven". I checked it out, but found a few issues with it that I really wanted to fix. I thought the rounding on the corners didn't look sharp enough, the forced blue color made blending it in with non-blue backgrounds was impossible, among a few other things listed in the download page. Thankfully, Curtains is PNG based, so modifying the issue I had wasn't a big deal. I feel I've modified it to the point where it's worth sharing with others. Full credit to atslah01 for the base theme. All I did was make a few changes here and there to touch it up. I also use "StartIsBack++" and "OldNewExplorer" to further push Windows 10 towards a Windows 7 look. This theme does not have blurring behind the Window frame, because Curtains as a whole lacks that feature. If that's a deal-breaker for you, then I wouldn't recommend Curtains themes at all. I THINK Curtains might also lack the feature that allows for the glassy looking reflections to move behind the window frames, which is a distinctive look of Windows 7, but I'm not absolutely sure if that's the case. If I ever figure out if that's possible, I'll also try to modify the theme with it. I've gotten used to the differences though, and find that by setting the color theme to a light-ish gray, the benefits make up for the lack of blurring and lack of the glass movement reflection effect. It sure beats the stock Windows 10 look by miles IMO. Hope you enjoy, and hope this helps hold people over until BigMuscle returns, if he does. Wish him all the best! https://www.wincustomize.com/explore/curtains/199/

New build of Serpent/UXP for XP! Test binary: Win32 https://o.rthost.win/basilisk/basilisk52-g4.7.win32-git-20210102-6d7bb9f-uxp-0bb464bfc-xpmod.7z Win64 https://o.rthost.win/basilisk/basilisk52-g4.7.win64-git-20210102-6d7bb9f-uxp-0bb464bfc-xpmod.7z source code that is comparable to my current working tree is available here: https://github.com/roytam1/UXP/commits/custom IA32 Win32 https://o.rthost.win/basilisk/basilisk52-g4.7.win32-git-20210102-6d7bb9f-uxp-0bb464bfc-xpmod-ia32.7z source code that is comparable to my current working tree is available here: https://github.com/roytam1/UXP/commits/ia32 NM28XP build: Win32 https://o.rthost.win/palemoon/palemoon-28.10.2a1.win32-git-20210102-ddf403cf3-uxp-0bb464bfc-xpmod.7z Win64 https://o.rthost.win/palemoon/palemoon-28.10.2a1.win64-git-20210102-ddf403cf3-uxp-0bb464bfc-xpmod.7z Official UXP changes since my last build: - Issue #1053 - Part 1c: Remove references to mobile/android targets and paths (9f004841a) - Issue #1053 - Part 2a: Remove android from /layout (partial) (ae2a16034) - Issue #1053 - Part 3a: Remove Android conditionals from /gfx (8d4456c79) - Issue #1053 - Part 3b: Remove AndroidSurfaceTexture and Android media decoder interface. (e011a048e) - Issue #1053 - Part 2b: Remove android from /layout reftests (0bb464bfc) Official Basilisk changes since my last build: - update link to new repo (dec2340) - Merge pull request 'Update link to new repo' (#35) from micwoj92/Basilisk:master into master (6d7bb9f) Official Pale-Moon changes since my last build: - [SSUAO] Add netteller to UA overrides. (ddf403cf3)

Welcome to MSFN; Ricardo95.. Yeah, it is fun - isn't it to tinker. By far.. the very best investment in software was when I purchased acronis true image, so matter how many (countless) times I've botched my system (tinkering), I'm back in business in about 8 minutes with my 1 of several images I've created on removable storage - backups are soo important! See ya around the forum :)

Do you know that the telemetry in Windows 7 and 8.x can be easily disabled (without third-party tools) and that it is not as obtrusive as Win10's telemetry? Night mode can easily be implemented in any other Windows version through f.lux. Dark themes are available for older Windows versions also, so you can't say that it's a very useful feature introduced in Win10. Individual PowerToys can be downloaded and installed on any other Windows version. Open Shell, however great it is, makes ZERO sense to me on Windows 10. It's only for Windows 8.x IMO. And also, is Open Shell the ultimate solution to making Win10 look like Win7? Please tell me.

50% instability and sluggishness, 25% horrendous unorganised mess of a UI, 10% telemetry, 15% bloat. Those are the things I hate about Win10. Downvote. How much ever you say about Win10 being "great", the truth remains unchanged: Windows 10's "Memory Compression" etc.etc. is just useless and it ate up all 4 out of 4 gigs of RAM on my secondary laptop, and 5 out of 8 gigs of RAM on my main laptop with an SSD when I had it installed (that too on idling, mind you), even with Windows Update disabled and with all bloat from MS Store removed. Substandard. That's what I can say about it in 1 word. Even on modestly powerful PC's such as a friend's PC with: an i5-4440 GTX 1070 a 1TB SSD (dunno which brand) 16GB DDR3-1600 MHz RAM Windows 10 Pro for Workstations runs totally unsatisfactorily. So, he's planning to upgrade to Windows 8.

Downvote. Skype is necessary for me while meet-up is not, so I can't uninstall Skype only to get rid of meet-up. Calculator crashes on me while trying to switch b/w standard and scientific modes and also while doing unit conversions. In addition, O&O ShutUp broke many things when I used it. So, all in all, Windows 10 is the worst crap ever. Nothing has changed in approx. 5 years and tweaks that can be made to 8.x to make it fully usable on a desktop computer destroy Windows 10. @monkeylove Double downvote.

Welcome to this wonderful forum @Ricardo95 and hello from India

The fact that Google never even mentions Windows 8.1 isn’t necessarily a good sign I’m afraid. They supported XP for 2 years longer than M$, which was more than they originally promised, but they never mentioned Vista until November 10, 2015, “as well as Windows Vista...starting April 2016.”

Happy new year guys! I hope Vista will see great improvements through extended kernel this year

I've seen google only mentioning windows 7. Windows 8.1 was not even mentioned. Important: We will continue to fully support Chrome on Windows 7® for a minimum of 24 months after Microsoft’s End of Life date, until at least January 15, 2022.

I upgraded from 7 to 10 about 3 months ago. It's been something of a nightmare since then. It's buggy as heck. Several of my programs are now unstable and crash frequently when they never did before no matter what compatibility I set them to. Programs that were written for Windows 7. I'm not talking about old stuff from 2002 or anything crazy. If I could go back to 7, I would in an instant. But new games are beginning to not support Windows 7 (a mistake, if you ask me) so I was forced to upgrade or get left behind. Feels bad. Considering buying another bank of hard drives so I can dual boot 7 and 10. 10 for games that absolutely will not run on 7 and then use 7 for everything else.

Well, to me, opaque Window borders, missing libraries, flat and opaque taskbar, telemetry up the wazoo, useless assistant, telemetry filled Chromium default browser, file explorer with ads, and more is quite different than Windows 7. Also, it was just a suggestion. A out of date Chromium would make Windows 10 less secure than Windows Vista (With Extended Kernel) using the latest Chromium. That's how little security updates matter with Windows. I even mained Windows 7 updated to 2016-09, out of date browser, out of date Steam client, and more out of date programs for around a year, and I did it all without getting any malware. Also, as long as the security software gets database updates, it doesn't matter if it's out of date, in fact, I use a 2017 copy of my security software.

Exactly! My feelings exactly. IMO, MSFT went downhill when Satya took over. Not from a stock perspective maybe, but from a quality perspective. To be fair, Windows 8 happened before Satya, so it's not completely his fault. Gates should have just stayed CEO. I'll take Internet Explorer over Edge any day. Yup... Ironically, Windows 10 is very lax about activation, so I don't see how they're making money off it. The "free upgrade" still works. They know it's so bad, there's no way people would use it if they forced people to pay... Yeah, Microsoft took a page out of Apple's playbook. "Break everything possible." WSL isn't new. I have the Unix Subsystem on Windows 7. Requires the Enterprise/Ultimate SKU I think, though. Not true. I will just stay on 7. Linux is untennable. It's a server OS, not a workstation OS. Love Linux, all (well, most, besides the Windows Servers) my servers run headless Debian, but it's an awful workstation OS. You can't beat Windows, no matter how crappy it gets.

Yeah, I hear you there - know how it feels https://blog.interlinked.us/44/an-open-letter-to-microsoft-why-windows-10-sucks On the bright side, i look at it this way: I'll never need to purchase Windows or Office again. Microsoft as done me a huge favor!

40% design, 40% instability, 20% telemetry That's a very simplified list of the things that I dislike the most in Windows 10.

Thing is you shouldn't need to use external tools to make an OS simply bearable to use, that should be reserved for additional tweaks and cool stuff. I think that's what most peoples' gripe with Windows 10 lies in too, the fact it requires 3rd party tools in order to improve performance tl the point it won't thrash the page file constantly on systems with less than 8GB RAM for instance (which believe me are not as uncommon as the internet wants you to believe).

Even then, it's still a hot mess. Privacy and telemetry is a gnat compared to the rest of W10

I don't see why W10 uses 1.6GB at idle on a system with 4GB RAM, while Windows Vista uses... less than half of that at idle on the exact same hardware.

To be perfectly blunt, Windows 10 is a hot mess. I'm much more productive on Windows 7. Each version of Windows requires more and more tweaks to make it half-usable, and Windows 10 isn't even then. This sums it up pretty well: https://blog.interlinked.us/44/an-open-letter-to-microsoft-why-windows-10-sucks

We should be able to customize the OS to how the user wants it. Not how Microsoft wants it.

i never used it and will never use it but to say that "OS is fine, only shell isnt", for OS that in core is HUGE spyware (even if this started with XP ? but now is nightmare) and that it bypasses firewall, and bypasses HOSTS, and violates your basic human rights- yes rights- there was article where MS emloyee was QUOTED where he says that "they" can see what files you have on your disk .... for OS which updates are NOT tested, for OS that treats users as beta testers i wouldn't be so light with "OS is fine"

The jury is out on whether we can even do anything to stop or change the path of the climate, however it is more important that we can agree that pollution of any sort is bad and we can always do more to cut down on that and make our environment better for each other. E-waste is primarily caused by many things, of which I can think, but these may be limited to the US. - manufacturers creating products with planned obsolescene and/or not following standards, resulting in short lifespans. - manufacturers using designs that are not publicly documented, or keep documentation behind paywalls or subscription plans. - manufacturers that replace whole parts (such as boards) instead of fixing or replacing individual components. - manufacturers that sue repair shops - trades (in general) not seen as important and not taught in schools, especially electronics Going back to the 1990s, there were repair shops all over the place. You could take you electronic gadget to get fixed and it was an actual fix and not just a PCB replacement. Or you could get the service manual and do the work yourself. Even to this day, if you buy some older electronic device, you can find the service manual online and be able to do a repair yourself. With new products, that isn't an option. As things changed, the removal of electronic repair shops, the disappearing of stores to buy components (although most can be found online), the ceasing of schools teaching trades like electronics/repair and likely the fact that costs have come way down on products has made it so people do not have the same attachment to something they once had. It is cheaper to just "buy a new one" instead of trying to find someone to repair it. Companies do replace products if they are under warranty, but they are doing wholesale changes and does not solve the e-waste issue. It is cheaper for a company to just replace a PCB and sell the "bad" one to a recycler than to spend time to diagnose and repair a problem. So in the current day, there is too few options for what to do with broken or unwanted electronics. Pay a recycler to take the thing? Put it out into the garbage? Throw it into the woods or the ocean? We had a ton of electronics years ago and didn't have this waste problem because the products lasted longer and they could be fixed. And fixing something was cheaper than buying a replacement, or cheap enough to make waiting for a repair a better option than buying a new one.