herbalist

I applied the fix to version 2.40.4522. So far, everything seems to be working. Confirmed. That sequence does not exist in the XP versions of that file that I have.

I don't know if it's the same for XP-home as it is for XP-Pro. Online activation for XP-Pro worked for me just 2 weeks ago when I activated a couple of copies on VPC. It could very well happen that the activation servers will be shut down in the near future in order to force users to new equipment. I strongly suggest making an image of the system immediately after activation.

On mine, the version is 2.40.4522 As far as I know, it works fine. It contains the same hex string, but at 2A050. This version came from the 98 unofficial service pack, sesp21a-en.exe

They got pretty extreme about it with 98 too, just in a different way. With 98, it seemed their biggest weapon was deliberately introduced and artificial incompatibility. With XP, it's extreme rhetoric regarding insecurity, hacker heaven, etc. Maybe that because it'll be easier to make newer software work on XP than it is to make it run on 98. IMO, XP is the last version of Windows that a user can really control. On XP, all of the logging/babysitting features can be disabled. With some effort, all of the open ports can be closed. As far as I'm aware, it's impossible to close all of the ports on Vista and newer systems. It's also impossible to prevent them from calling home without using a separate device between them and the internet. AFAIC, the current operating systems are little more than bloated spyware coated in eye candy.

If I had to guess, XP will be maintained (unofficially) longer and better than 98 was. It has a lot bigger user base. Although it's different than Win 7, 8, 10, etc, it's not as different as the 9X systems. 98 supplied the proof that an OS can be maintained past Microsofts so-called "end of life" and be made better than anything they ever did for it. 98 was used to establish the methods and create the tools, tools I expect should see a lot more development on XP. 9X and its users proved that "end of support" is not end of life. I will migrate to XP if I'm forced to, but I'll need better hardware to get the same amount of work out of it. I tried using XP to run the Tor relay on this PC. It rarely lasted a full day. With the same hardware running Lite98SE with the modifications I've found here, it would last 2 weeks or better before needing a reboot. AFAIC, XP can be made reasonably secure with a lot of stripping and service disabling, but it's always felt like I had to fight the OS to get what I wanted from it, or more accurately, to get rid of everything that I don't want. With 98, it did what I wanted and only what I wanted, then stayed out of the way. I wish MS would get off of this twisted "computing experience" concept of theirs. Ones computing experience shouldn't be influenced by the OS. People don't use operating systems. They use programs that run on that operating system. Microsoft don't seem to know the difference between an interface and an obstacle.

I don't install or try out much new software, but haven't run into any software that's failed to run on 98 due to a lack of multi-core support. For me, it's almost always compatibility issues that KernelEx can't fix, such as: Any version of SeaMonkey past 2.0.14 Any version of Tor past 0.2.3.25 Current modifications to Proxomitron that address filtering HTTPS Any applications that rely on the current versions of OpenSSL such as ProxHTTPSProxy. For me, there's no single show stopper. There's a growing number of incompatibilities that I can't compensate for. I didn't regard using an older browser as a security/privacy risk as long as Proxomitron was filtering the content. With Proxomitron unable to filter the current HTTPS, the browser is exposed and is becoming increasingly unsafe to use. With Tor, it won't be long before version 0.2.3.25 won't be allowed to serve as a relay or exit and may not be accepted as a client. When that happens, I either have to: 1, Install linux and learn to secure it well enough to serve as an exit, 2, Shut the exit node down. Slowly the decision is being made for me.

Where did I say zero?

They may run on 98 but do they work the same way on 98? I'd suspect that they're designed to take advantage of multi-threading/cores when it's available in a way they understand. As I understand it, it would take a complete rebuilding of 98 to accomplish that. By the time that happened, it wouldn't be 98 any more. I'd like to see the ability on 98 to assign a processor to an application, like giving Tor or VPC its own processor without having to completely rewrite or recompile the application. Then again, the current versions of both don't run on 98, even with KernelEx.

Even if it were possible, it wouldn't serve much purpose. Most of the applications that could benefit from it won't run on 98 anyway.

I don't know how version 3.32 of the service pack compares to version 2.1a, which is what I used. When I built my 98 unit, I installed the chipset drivers first and saved KernelEX until last. I seem to recall that KernelEX behaves somewhat differently on units with older processor types than it does on a P4. Unless you need access to an NTFS drive for the updates, I'd save that for later, after the OS itself is complete and stable.

I'll pass on this one. The download is almost as big as my current XP install and will replace too much of what I've stripped out.

Forgive me if I missed it. I see you mentioned including several versions of net framework and have also mentioned uninstallers for them. Are the net framework versions optional installs? If not, could they be made optional? For those who don't use or want it, it makes more sense than installing, then removing it.

Thanks. Real life is leaving me almost no time. Hoping to get back to things this winter.

Is this possibly a regional problem? I just created 2 new virtual XP-Pro systems. Both were activated online, one in the normal fashion, the other via Tor. No problems with either one.