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Thanks @Tangy. I would be interested to know your results. Just an update, I spoke again today to Panda's technical support people at AnyTech365. Again, really friendly and helpful people, who knew exactly what I was talking about. They are thinking, as many here do, that Panda have actually withdrawn support for XP. They agree that doing this by just breaking the legacy version of Panda Dome, is not a good way of doing this, especially for paying customers, and they are trying to find out whether this really is the case or whether this has been done accidentally and will be fixed, if indeed it's possible to do that. There has certainly been no change made to the system requirements on Panda's website, and the article trumpeting its XP compatibility claims to have been updated on July 1st. They have given me a number to ring for Watchguard, Panda's parent company, so I will try giving them a ring tomorrow to see what they say about this.

I got a response from Watchguard technical support. "At this time, we have not received any official communication indicating that Windows XP support for Panda Dome has been discontinued. Based on the information currently available, Windows XP continues to be listed as a supported operating system for the legacy Panda Dome version referenced on the Panda website. Based on the information you have provided, this issue appears to be related to **Panda Dome**, which is a consumer (home) product. While we understand your concerns regarding the recent crashes of **PSANHost.exe** on Windows XP, we are unable to investigate or provide support for Panda Dome through WatchGuard Technical Support." So it appears that they only deal with professional business customers at Watchguard support, and they can't help private domestic customers. I would have to use the domestic support channels for Panda support, which I've already done, of course! The guys at AnyTech365 have promised to let me know if they hear anything about the status of XP support from Panda, so all I can do is wait.

Assuming you haven't already uninstalled Panda, could you try excluding from scanning the folders I detailed in my earlier post? I would just be interested to know if this helps the problem on your system. I'm still getting occasional stops and starts of the main Panda service, and I'm trying to find out exactly what is triggering them. Again, not a fix, just a better understanding of where the mechanism is now failing. Incidentally, Panda's online support forms are pretty useless, as once you've submitted one, you are supposed to be able to add new information to it by clicking on the link in the e-mail it sends you. Unfortunately, this doesn't work. When you submit the revised form, you just get an error message that the e-mail and customer number don't match any current user! I've had to submit two further forms from scratch to give them more information.

Long story short, I have revived Comodo Antivirus 12.0.0.6818 (CAV) as part of the Comodo Internet Security suite (CIS) since it was no longer working out of the box. It's one of the last working antimalware programmes with real-time protection, HIPS, VirusScope, secure containmenr, online definition updates, even incremental definition updates, and the possibility of offline updating. This is now my new antimalware programme. And Vir.IT of course. All free of charge.

As I already said, it is no longer time to be picky when it comes to real-time protection under Windows XP. And of course, I read such reports about IOBit Malware Fighter. I personally never liked the IOBit company. Their products have never really been any good. And in the case of IOBit Malware Fighter, I can see why. The positives: Easy to install. A clearly structured, very tidy and modern interface. Good usability. Lots of features not usually found in freeware. Excellent uninstallation speed. The negatives: No daily updates as advertised. Today, it’s still installing the version from 9 July. Not really integrated efficiently into Windows XP. When the protection is activated, performance plummets. Version 13 is constantly being promoted, and you’re told to download it, even though it’s not compatible with Windows XP. No self-protection. The scan speed is so poor that I’m lost for words... The scanning speed is the absolute worst I have ever experienced. Smart Scan was cancelled after 123,226 files!!! and 120 minutes!!! with only 5% progress!!! This is no Smart Scan. I then uninstalled it completely. The uninstallation was done in seconds. That just goes to show how poorly the programme was integrated into Windows XP. It was practically just a superficial add-on. And it can even be shut down completely with just two clicks. That’s a goldmine for malware. My conclusion: Looks great on the outside, but a flop on the inside. P.S.: And that’s the good thing about my ancient P4 computer. It mercilessly exposes the weaknesses of software.

@j7n are adamant on NOT using an extension-based adblocker (e.g. uBO) in the browser, because they harbour the conviction that such an extension would considerably impede their browser's performance ; in the past, both myself and other members here have suggested to them the installation and use of uBO, but they still think that their old ways of dealing with ads (blocking "known" ad-serving domains in their HOSTS file) is still sufficient/effective in the web-ecosystem of 2025+ ... Is this on a UXP-based browser (the object of these megathreads) ? Because if you're talking about recent Chromium/Firefox, these now come with built-in ways of dealing with (some of the) unwanted content ...

Yes indeed, but if you remember, Malwarebytes did pretty much the same thing. They maintained version 3.5.1 for several years 'as is' for XP users and still provided pattern updates for it. Then they pulled the plug, without any warning, and no longer provided pattern updates, although the program still worked OK. Likewise, Panda keep 22.03.05 as their legacy version for XP users, which can still be downloaded and installed. As long as it still works, I'm not that worried if the program files are old. This is not quite the same scenario, of course, as Panda doesn't use local pattern files for scanning, which makes it even stranger that they would suddenly break XP compatibility. Whatever they do with the daily 'synchronisation' mechanism, it seems that has broken things. No program files have been changed as far as I can see.

It’s clear and obvious that Panda stopped supporting Windows XP for programme updates quite some time ago. The latest version is 22.03.05, nearly one year ago, and that was a long time ago. But to then go and break even that version via the automatic update – that’s a no-go. And in doing so put the user’s partition at risk.

Thanks, no problem! I'm still hoping this will be fixed eventually, especially as I'm a paying customer. I'm still getting messages in my event log that the Panda service has stopped unexpectedly and been restarted, but no actual crash messages. It's usable, but annoying! If nothing has happened soon, I will ring their technical support guys in the UK again and see if they know anything. I won't be wasting my time with any more online forms!

@Dave-H If you absolutely want to stick with Panda – presumably because you still have a valid licence – then I’d uninstall it completely, give everything a thorough clean, then reinstall it, but without allowing any connection to the internet. Then set the cache folder to read-only for everyone, especially for the System account, or if that doesn’t work, delete it completely. Then set all your exclusions and only then connect to the internet. No updates must be carried out locally. Perhaps it will then run stably. But to be honest, this isn’t of course a good workaround, as it unfortunately results in a loss of functionality. Personally, I’m done with Panda and would only go back if an official fix has been released or the update server has been corrected.

This absolutely confirms what I’ve already said here and what many other customers have reported across the web. At first glance, Panda Support seems great, but on closer inspection it’s a joke. For home users, it’s practically non-existent. They probably focus more on enterprise customers. Money makes the world go round.

It is not NT 6.0 incompatible code as otherwise it wouldn't work no matter which compiler was used. This is likely a compiler issue so for now GCC 15 will be more reliable. The GCC 16 compiler hasn't been changed since the previous working build so I haven't been able to isolate the root cause yet. I will continue looking into it.

@VistaLover I reversed this commit which got partial functionality but GCC 16 is still problematic for 32-bit builds. Here is a smaller build using GCC 15 for you to try. https://files.videohelp.com/u/69760/ffmpeg-8.2-2278-a09be9b91e-static-VISTAx86.7z

OK. Patient number 12.0.0.6818 from 2019 has been resuscitated and is eating again. „Oops!... I Did It Again“ ...

There are new Vista builds linked in the previous post. If you can let me know if ffplay is working for you.

New Moon, Serpent or Mypal are a nightmare without uBO. And the forum editor is a nightmare, anyways. I already again reported that some weeks ago. There have been many such reports in the past.

Custom Install of IOBit Malware Fighter 11.4.0 (easy to install ) Latest Database Version 2608 ( 2026 - 7 - 9 ) Fingerprint : 898269 I ran a smart scan Objects scanned 107.446 Threats Detected 0 as expected Time Elapsed : 20.02 minutes Very light and smooth

Back again. I'm cautiously confident that I've found another workaround for the problem with Panda Dome, and this one appears to have stuck. I was puzzled as to why the crashes, although sometimes apparently at random, could be triggered at will, at least on my machine. One thing which nearly always triggered an immediate crash, even if the system had been running for some time without any, was to click the Windows 'Start' button. This led me to think that there was some issue with Windows Explorer which was triggering the crash. One other clue was that one of the first things I noticed was that if I clicked Start, even if it didn't crash, the user-added shortcuts were a blank box, only populating after several seconds. I tried excluding Explorer from scanning, but that made no difference. I then tried excluding my whole system drive from scanning. Hey presto, no more crashes! So, by a process of elimination, I eventually narrowed it down to the folders which were triggering the crashes when they were scanned. I now have three folders excluded from scanning – Documents and Settings\[Username]\Start Menu Documents and Settings\[Username]\SendTo Documents and Settings\[Username]\Recent So far this has stopped the regular crashes, and Panda has updated without them coming back again. This is pure speculation, but what I suspect happened here is that Panda rolled out an update which broke compatibility with the Windows XP Explorer, which is quite different from that on later versions of Windows, of course. When Panda tried to scan those folders, like the 'Recent' folder being scanned when 'Documents' is clicked on the Start Menu, this triggered a crash. This is of course only a workaround, not a fix, and the problem could come back at any time, but at least on my system it seems to have fixed it for now. There is a security issue with excluding system folders from scanning, of course, but as the folders concerned only contain shortcuts, I would think it's pretty minimal. If anyone else still has a malfunctioning installation of Panda Dome installed, I would be interested to know if this works for them.

And it is not Android related. Here is a screenshot taken from New Moon 28 on my beloved, old Windows XP computer:

Ok. You can't see my username but I can as of today. If I open another browser where I'm not logged into my account, I can't see my username, either. So something must have changed.

Steve: I did as instructed and it worked (naturally). Right now my folder has 25h2 as part of the name. when I change it to 26h2 in the fall I guess I'll have to do the same procedure? regards...

For example, this page here:

Not working for me. My setting was 'Hidden" for years. But as of today, I can suddenly see my username. That has never happened before.

@Dave-H As you haven’t said anything about the suggestion I put forward so far, I’d like to know whether that’s an option for you, or whether limiting the online updates isn’t an option. You can always restore the cache folder once Panda support gets back to you, though I don’t really expect that to happen.

@AstroSkipper I mean RAM. I got 8 GBs. MY xp reads around 3 GBs. There is something that my system does not like about it. I have not put any effort to find out what is causing that. Could it be that my xp is 32bits ?

What kind of memory are you referring to? RAM or hard disk/SSD memory? 🤔 On my old P4 machine, Vir.IT eXplorer Lite is the antimalware programme that uses the least RAM of all. Avast, on the other hand, was a monster. 🦖😜

There's a thread in the Vista forum about getting certain versions of VMware Workstation and Player to work beyond the official supported versions. https://msfn.org/board/topic/180052-tutorial-how-to-install-vmware-workstation-11-or-12-in-vista/ Workstation 10 and Player 6 are the last versions officially supported on XP, 2003, and Vista. Early versions of Workstation 11 (and Player 7) won't install on XP/2003/Vista but when inspected the maximum requirement of any of the .sys drivers is NT 6.1 which corresponds to Vista SP1. In previous VMware versions there were additional, separate driver files for XP-based Windows versions (32-bit and 64-bit). Notably the vmx86_64 driver was shared by 64-bit XP/2003 and later versions of Windows, so there weren't separate versions. In VMware 11 it looks like no additional dependencies have been added to the vmx86_64 driver. Its minimum OS requirement has been bumped up from 5.2 to 6.0, but with the lack of new dependencies I'm guessing it would still work in XP if that limitation in the header were removed. Depending on how much the other drivers have changed, there's a small possibility that where the VMware 11 drivers are truly incompatible with XP/2003 64-bit the VMware 10.x 64-bit drivers may be able to replace them. I checked a couple of other drivers (but not all of them) and again noticed no change in dependencies for the Vista-compatible 10.x drivers vs. the Vista-compatible 11.x drivers. This is a good sign, but doesn't necessarily reflect whether the 11.x drivers are providing any new, critical functionality that wouldn't be present if the Vista-compatible 11.x drivers that the 11.x installers include are replaced by XP-compatible 10.x drivers. For example, if critical new functionality related to networking is absent inside the 10.x drivers the Workstation/Player software could potentially run but only if networking is always disabled. As far as the many DLL files that VMware 11 is bundled with, they all still seem to be built targeting NT 5.2 at most, but I'm not certain that I checked 100% of them. I plan to look into this a lot more in the future, but I don't have time now and this will likely get put off for months or longer. If anyone else wants to mess around with this I figured I'd share what I observed so far.

It remains free but after the period of 60 days, the removal of malware is no longer possible. If you need this feature, you have to buy a license. That's ok for me. I personally do not need this feature.

About panda acting up, same as before, but now crappier: service crashes and even on occasions with no service crashes now sistem also becomes very slow while clicking through start menu, e.g. recent documents. Even doing regular tasks, opening e.g. Task Manager I had to wait around 1 minute before it would open. And get this: panda decided it's king of the system somehow and Diskeeper that I use could not even save fragmentation prevented statistics for the current day. The next day it showed as "---------" (none). Unglaublich! Anyhow, applying their panda-b-gone uninstaller things are finally making sense. P.S.: Regarding this about IOBit Malware fighter Its drivers have win7x86 path, and it just makes AppData/Local/Low directories in XP as if it owns the place. Not applicable. Yes, Comodo can be good, though their HIPS system can be quite heavy (but that is with Comodo Firewall). I used both (AV & FW) in the past. Might test it again... They are advertising all over the place "It's Free" and then when wanting to download, you get hit with the remark "for 60 days" when there is a comparison drawn between the two releases. Disgusting!

Release: WDMHDA Alpha-022 https://github.com/andrew-hoffman/WDMHDA/rele … s/tag/Alpha-022 Changes: Fix choppy playback/silence if stream is paused and resumed near the end of the audio buffer add Mute for the main output (doesn't work on all codecs yet) Fix CORB/RIRB on NForce chipsets Send a power-up command to all Power Widgets on the codec just in case that is needed. Reduced max audio buffer size to 128k again, too much buffer can cause significant lag I should also mention that sdz on VOGONS has released a standalone OPL3 emulator for Win9x which works well in combination with WDMHDA: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=111787

Have you updated your uBlock Origin filters? A week ago some new filters have been added to uBlock filters – Ads: /shadow/*adshield$domain=mail.yahoo.com /ybar/mail.yahoo.com/_t/aHR0c*$xhr,3p,domain=mail.yahoo.com

... 12.5 is for XP no doubt. However I already threw it off my box because it's too cut-down. This statement is not really true. Although IOBit Malware Fighter Pro 12.5 can still be installed strangely enough under Windows XP, it says that this version is not compatible with Windows XP, if the user tries to enable real-time malware protection with IObit & Bitdefender engines or advanced protection against ransomware. It also advises to install IOBit Malware Fighter Pro 11.4 as the last XP-compatible version. And so, after all, this is what applies:

I already downloaded it yesterday. But I haven't tested it yet.

https://startisback.com/StartAllBack_setup.exe

It was a very old version long time ago. I don't remember what version number it exactly was. But what about 12.2.2 advertised by COMODO? 😜

Can you please provide this sourceforge link? I thought according to their website that 12.x versions, where x>0, were no longer compatible with Windows XP.

You’re welcome! It’s rare for me to be this blunt. But what I went through last night was hell. My entire partition was at risk. The BSOD had wiped out various files. Fortunately, most of them were related to Panda. It was a miracle that I was even able to boot the partition at all. And the fact that Panda could be uninstalled despite the damage was another one. Incidentally, the whole drama started straight after the nightly automatic update that Panda had carried out yet again. I’m a bit reluctant to make recommendations these days, but I can tell you what I did a few days ago, in a moment of foresight. It’s really just a coincidence, but take a look at number 7 on the list you posted. That’s what I recently installed: VirIT eXplorer Lite. Here’s my post: https://msfn.org/board/topic/184730-antimalware-firewall-and-other-security-programs-for-windows-xp-working-in-2023-and-hopefully-beyond/page/101/#findComment-1288687 This antimalware programme is very nice. It is fully compatible with Windows XP, even in the latest version!!! The Lite version is free of charge. If you want to have more protection, you have to buy a license for the Pro version. The programme interface isn’t modern; it’s got a bit of a retro feel to it. That’s what programmes looked like in the 1990s: extremely colourful, with lots of bright colours and plenty of colourful buttons. Personally, I think it’s brilliant. It reminds me of those days. VirIT eXplorer Lite requires very little RAM and CPU power. The virus definitions are downloaded locally to the computer and are therefore available offline. That’s the only reason why the programme folder takes up just over 500 MB. And support is available and active. The intrusion detection shield, called VirIT Lite Monitor, had flagged processhacker.exe as malicious and issued a warning every time the computer started up. I then uploaded the file to VirIT or, to be more precise, to C.R.A.M., along with a message. A day later, the warning had disappeared, as they’d complied with my request to whitelist it. I’m completely satisfied with VirIT eXplorer Lite at the moment. Another reassuring point is that this is a programme developed in Europe – specifically in Italy. I will soon be writing a detailed article about VirIT eXplorer Lite/Pro. Old screenshot of my VirIT Lite Monitor with false positive: New screenshot with Process Hacker 2 whitelisted by C.R.A.M.: Cheers, AstroSkipper

You have to download the last XP-compatible version 11.4.0. Here is the original website with this version: https://web.archive.org/web/20240830175125/https://www.iobit.com/de/malware-fighter.php Download link: https://www.filepuma.com/de/download/iobit_malware_fighter_free_11.4.0.1360-40845/download/ Please test this version to find out how it works and whether it still receives definition updates or not!

And that's one more reason to avoid Avast, at least on Windows XP. I’ve had so much trouble with Avast in the past that I’ll probably never use it again, even on other operating systems. Even though I’m not a fan of Avast, it’s quite possible that the lack of an internet connection is the reason why your attempt failed. Try again with an active internet connection!

My screenshot is a PNG file. The text can be well read, and therefore the sceenshot is ok. It’s not about winning a rendering prize. And as for Mypal 78 on Windows 10, it makes absolutely no sense to use that browser there. There are plenty of up-to-date browsers available for Windows 10. Mypal 78 was designed for older operating systems such as Windows XP. On those systems, more modern browsers are urgently needed – particularly on low-spec computers where, for example, Supermium isn’t an option.

Yes, we need tests and results under Windows XP. Although I never liked IOBit Malware Fighter, we have to consider all possible and still working options in these days. It's no longer time to be picky.

Here are a few words about my plan C. More than 3 years ago, my good old friend @D.Draker had recommended the anti-malware programme Vir.IT eXplorer. I still had it on my internal list, but as there were no further tests or information available, I couldn’t report on it. At that time, it also seemed to have some temporary issues with VB100 certification, but these had long since been resolved. I was also worried that support for Windows XP had long since been discontinued, as it is no longer listed as an OS on the website. So I downloaded the very latest version 9.5.981.0 and was delighted to discover that the programme is still compatible with Windows XP. For some days, I have been testing Vir.IT eXplorer Lite. More on this coming soon.

For experimenting with Avast, you should avoid the last XP-compatible version. As far as I can remember, is a previous version associated with fewer problems. I have to look in my archive for the exact version number. As far as I can remember, there were repeated reports on the Avast forums that avast! Free Antivirus 18.5.2342 runs much better than the latest XP-compatible avast! Free Antivirus 18.8.4084.0.

Any other way to get this download? I am not a member of that group. Why is this not available at the Feodor2 / Mypal68 website? That's where I got version 78.0.2 released in March. I've gone through pages at the site and not really sure what I am supposed to be looking for ... feodor2 or Mypal68. ...

Well it's very strange you couldn't extract them all . Perhaps something wrong with the extractor ? I've just looked up for the most unneeded (their offsets) in your latest resources file from 2205 , those are fully working extensions inside this file : 1 - mhjfbmdgcfjbbpaeojofohoefgiehjai PDF Viewer OFFSET 13022 2 - fjajfjhkeibgmiggdfehjplbhmfkialk CryptoTokenExtension OFFSET 15624 3 - gfdkimpbcpahaombhbimeihdjnejgicl Feedback to Gurgle (!) OFFSET 13882 4 - Chrome Web Store Cloud Print OFFSET 11562 5 - ahjtciijnoiaklcomgnblndopackapon Identity API Scope Approval UI at OFFSET 326728

No , but you can always check yourself . It's a 5 min. job to cut these out of the res. file. The browser unpacks these hidden extensions each time you launch it.

I do have these blocked , chrome often sends requests there . RESERVED for adding more. It's those IPs from that article. 172.217.0.0 - 172.217.30.255 May interfere with the store , I block it anyway. 216.58.192.0 - 216.58.222.255 Didn't notice any "good" blocked sites. Safe to block . 216.137.32.0 - 216.156.255.255. Safe to block . Do not forget : Google continues to send data from EU websites to the US - despite two Court of Justice rulings. Austrian Data Protection Authority could fine Google up to €6 billion. ""Google has to hand over all data under US law. It's grotesque that they argue to have fences and signs - US survillance laws are also applicable behind fences. Standard encryption doesn't help either, as Google is required to hand over encryption keys too. In 2019 alone, they gave the US government data on foreigners more than 201,000 times." – Max Schrems, Honorary Chairman of noyb.eu" https://noyb.eu/en/austrian-dpa-has-option-fine-google-eu6-billion

@ArcticFoxie , @XPerceniolSpeaking of Gurgle IPs, I tend to think 2206 is more "gurgle friendly" , it talks to gurgle more often compared to 1106. I guess it's quite safe to use it for now . But do block those IPs , trind to find them . I still have this list somewhere , can't find right now. Also , I would recommend blocking ALL inbound traffic for 360chrome.exe on all ports with yout firewall. And block outbound for UDP port 5353 and IP 224.0.0.251 – multicast IPv4 address , mDNS multicasts a UDP packet to it. (at least with 1106)

@XPerceniol , thank you for the kind words ! There was an article (I think called "how to force internet suck less" or smth like that) , it had a ton of gurgle/yackoo IPs which are safe to block {they are useless for us} and will not interfere with casual browsing , but it got deleted ! These were the IPs for tracking , the same IPs that every chrome connects to at the start , including 360chrome , the same IPs that chromium browsers use for key logging.

No , I've never said that "I do not like" , I said it is too bright and colourful for my big monitor. I just prefer dimm lights and colours , esp. if I sit at the monitor for quite some time (prolonged periods). Also , I said you're a good modder. (a compliment , actually ! ) , English is you first language , right ? lol