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My Response: Wow!!!!!! No one can accidentally do this! Especially someone who is actually developing software ... you are actually developing software?!?!?! Gh0st brings up a good question. All in all this is a very bizarre situation. We have a software developer that is working on XP KernelEx and XP SP5. Those two tasks are way, way, way beyond what I would be able to do so this developer must be very, very smart. The developer has an unfortunate situation occur which causes his HDD to format itself. He has no idea how this happens, unless he is trying to not blame his cousin or something. He also explains that this format was not a quick format, but how does he know that it wasn't a quick format? Unless he was just referring to the amount of time the format seem to take? (I forget whether the quick format is the default one or not.) Anyway, once that format completed, apparently he felt that didn't do enough damage so he formatted the HDD a second time, this time ensuring that it was a quick format, and has since then expressed concern that the quick format might have done the worst of the damage, even though jaclaz has explained that the quick format, on its own, would do the least amount of damage. Then he installed XP onto the HDD, installed drivers, updates for XP, applications, 50 GB of miscellaneous files onto the drive, elc and then started to try and recover the files that had been on the drive before this unfortunate situation occurred. He has apparently downloaded various file recovery utilities and probably installed them onto that same HDD and maybe continued to use that drive to browse the internet etc. Jaclaz, harkaz, and others have stressed that he needed to make a bit-for-bit copy, or clone, of his drive and try his recovery efforts on the copy and leave the original drive alone, but he says that he wants to try a few other software recovery methods first. He had backups of his development work, but those backups also broke somehow. Since much of the latest progress on KernelEX and SP5 seems to have happened over the last week or two, I'm not sure when these backups broke and how long he did development work without replacing his broken backups. How someone as smart as he is and so knowledgeable about the technical intricacies of computers didn't understand that almost everything he did after the mysterious initial format occurred was making his goal of recovering his files less and less possible seems improbable. I don't know which recovery software he has tried and I have no idea how he managed to find even the remnants which he says he found as quickly as he said he found them if everything he says occurred actually occurred. I have used recovery software in the past and the searching process took a great deal of time, and that was without two formats, installing on OS, etc on top of it. That was several years ago with a much less powerful system than what I assume he has, but still. I really do not want to disparage the reputation of Opticork in any way and I had very high hopes for his work on KernelEX and SP5 which seemed to be progressing surprisingly quickly, but this situation has me wondering. I hope I am wrong and I have somehow misunderstood this situation. Here's hoping for the best, a miracle recovery of his cousin's Sims 2 files, and a quick resumption of the KernelEX and SP5 projects. Cheers and Regards

I find it sadly amusing that losing somebody else's file from a game is seemingly more important than losing the software development work. That must be a heck of a cousin. Cheers and Regards

Since you can, hopefully easily, recreate your clean XP install, I might suggest the following approach. 1) Collect everything you need including the SP4 EXE, printing out the instructions harkaz referred to here, and whatever you need to create your clean XP install. 2) Completely disconnect from the network as submix8c suggests. 3) Create your clean XP install, boot to it, remember to NOT connect to any network, turn off Auto-Update, and copy the SP4 EXE to where you want it. Make sure everything seems stable. You want to be sure the XP installation is completely done and that nothing else is pending. Reboot a couple of times and wait awhile in between boots just to be safe. XP might complain that it needs to connect to the network, but ignore that and don't do it and just let us know why XP wanted to connect and if that seemed to create any real issue. Any connect issue should resolve itself after you install SP4 and connect later. 4) Follow the instructions harkaz referred to, and do NOT restart the computer. (In your case this step might not be required, but it won't hurt.) 5) Install SP4, being patient to let it get all the way through, and then reboot again. 6) Connect to your network and verify proper operation. 7) Report back on success or detail of any errors encountered. Good luck! Cheers and Regards

Yes, you definitely want to turn off Auto updates no matter which approach you want to try. OK, for the first alternative, what I referred to as (1) above, ie installing SP4 to your existing XP install, you will need to download the file WindowsXP-USP4-v3.1a-x86-ENU.exe. You can find that file by going to RyanVM, you might need to be a registered member but it's absolutely safe and they will never share your info nor send you any kind of emails. Look for the link to the cloud storage and go there to find the file or use the torrent that is listed in the first post, whichever you prefer. If you choose the torrent, you can deselect any file you don't want to download. No matter how you get it, you should double check to make sure that the file's MD5 matches what is listed in the first post of the RyanVM thread to be sure that the file was downloaded successfully. When you say that you have a clean XP install that you made for experimental purposes, I assume you mean that if something goes wrong that you can scrap it, recreate it, and start over, right? Very smart. And from what you say, this installation of XP is XP SP3, correct? Assuming that this clean XP SP3 install is on "C:" when it is loaded and running, then put WindowsXP-USP4-v3.1a-x86-ENU.exe somewhere easy to find, such as "C:\SP4\WindowsXP-USP4-v3.1a-x86-ENU.exe", but also keeping a copy of it on a different disc just in case you need to wipe C: and start over. Then, while your clean XP install is running, execute WindowsXP-USP4-v3.1a-x86-ENU.exe, either by double clicking on it or via command line whichever way you are most comfortable with. Then sit back with a snack and a cup of coffee and wait and see what happens. AFAIK, unless an error message is displayed, it should update your running XP to XP SP4. Once you have gotten this far, then we can look at updating your XP source to include SP4 for future use, but one thing at a time. Cheers and Regards

@Roffen, Which of the following would you rather do? (1) Install SP4 to your current, existing, working, live XP install (2) Create a new XP install source that already includes SP4 You can do either, but if you tell us which one you would prefer to do, we'll try to give you the easiest way to do it. (1) should be the easiest, assuming you have a relatively standard existing XP install, since it should require the least amount of time and no extra tools, But I think you had some trouble when you tried this earlier. For (1) or (2) above, since you have had some problems installing SP4 when you tried this earlier, you should also tell us: For (1) What version of XP is installed and what source did you use to install this version of XP, ie which SP level, retail or OEM, or any other details you can think of. Is there anything special or unique about your existing XP install? For (2) What is the exact version of the existing XP source that you have and wish to use? Also, if you want to do (2), tell us whether you want to create a DVD or use a USB stick to install from. Have you created a slipstreamed XP install source before, such as XP SP3? It will also be helpful to know if you are going to need any additional drivers in order to get things installed. I'll assume since you are at least a little familiar with installing those drivers in your existing XP install that those shouldn't be a problem, since their installation should be done the exact same way for SP4. But if you can identify those drivers for us and confirm how you plan to install them, it might help to head off any misunderstanding. Cheers and Regards

@Roffen, just to cover all bases, would you please describe the HDD you are trying to install to, (size and how it is formatted and by what method), ie: Probably not the problem, but... Cheers and Regards

SP4 includes the POSReady and other "Request only" updates that many folks have not installed to their XP SP3 installations along with some "security enhancements that address issues not fixed by Microsoft Updates". If you take a look in the SP4 COMPONENTS_REFERENCE.PDF, which you can find in the SP4 Cloud Download location you can find here, you can see the complete list of everything that is included in SP4. Cheers and Regards

No. SP4 should behave exactly like an official MS XP SP. You can install/apply it to your live XP system, (of XP SP1 or later), all by itself with nothing else required, just like any official MS SP. Also, just like any official MS SP, you can integrate/slipstream SP4 to any official XP source, either by using the /integrate switch, or using RVMi (RyanVM Integrator v1.6) or nLite v1.4.9.1 or later versions of either [current direct link to nLite v1.4.9.3 with instructions], whichever way you are more comfortable with. If you choose to integrate SP4 to your install source be sure to do that while on either XP or 2003 and not on any version of Vista or later so you don't run into this problem. Doing an internet search for - how to sliptream XP SP - should get you many different tutorials if you need help. Good luck! Cheers and Regards

For those, like me, that couldn't see the image: Cheers and Regards

I'm guessing you have a warez version of Aero Glass that was packed with additional stuff. You will have to get help where you got that version, you won't find any help here. If you think your version is legit, please provide the link where you got it along with the screenshot that shows the App Installer offering to install Opera or whatever, Cheers and Regards

Hmm, just because you can't download it... I wonder if you got your hands on it, would it install anyway? Then the next wonder would be if it is an installer issue, if you could get around that could it be forced? Maybe not, but still... Hey, at least you shouldn't be harassed to update to Windows 10, since your system won't even run Windows 8.1. Cheers and Regards

That's true with more browsers than just versions of IE. That even happens with me with Chrome on Windows 7 on some sites. The reason, AFAIK, is due to the poor design of the Web page, more than the fault of the browser or the OS. Cheers and Regards

How exactly did you come to that conclusion? LOL Don't encourage him. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and he is more of a minimalist, which is perfectly fine if you don't need any of the features and improvements, such as safety and compatibility, which SP4 provides. Cheers and Regards

Be sure to also check out the Video DownloadHelper extension as well. Getting copies of YouTube videos used to be easy, but have become more and more problematic. I don't have an extension on any of my browsers that are consistently reliable. For YouTube and videos on Facebook etc, you can try this link - https://en.savefrom.net/9-how-to-download-facebook-video.html. Go to that page and paste the link to your YouTube video in the box and click the (>) on the right. Most of the time it will then give you links to download the video in multiple formats. But, for example, it doesn't work on the above link that started this thread. Bottom line, I haven't found one single method that always works, so you probably need to collect multiple methods. Usually, at least one of them will work, but it's hit or miss. Cheers and Regards

Hey Den, as you know I love, love, love this thread! But when I need to check another computer, or even the latest MS offerings to see if they are trying to slip one of the "bad" updates through, I find it easier to have an alphabetized list specific to the OS to check from such as: Windows 7 SP1 Windows 8.x KB2952664 KB2976978 xKB2977759 KB2999226 xKB2990214 KB3022345 xKB2999226 KB3035583 xKB3021917 KB3044374 xxKB3022345 KB3046480 xKB3035583 KB3050267 xxKB3046480 KB3065988 xxKB3050265 KB3068708 xKB3065987 KB3075249 xKB3068708 KB3075853 xxKB3075249 KB3080149 xKB3075851 KB3083325 xxKB3080149 KB3083711 xxKB3081954 KB3102812 xxKB3083324 KB3112336 xxKB3083710 KB3123862 xKB3102810 KB3135449 xxKB3112343KB3123862 x == Windows 8.xKB3135445 xx == Windows 8.1 which I think is current as of today. Might you consider providing such a format in the summary section of the first post as a convenience? Thanks for the consideration, my friend. Cheers and Regards

In the future, you can figure that out by simply looking at the web page source code which all browsers can do, AFAIK. As to downloading the video, I don't use XP these days, but FWIW, I use Comodo Dragon, a Chrome variant, as my primary browser. One of the extensions that is available for it is Comodo Media Grabber. It doesn't always work, but it does in this case. When it works, not only can you download the video in question, sometimes in a variety of formats, but it allows you to inspect the webpage element and find the actual video link. In this case, it only found the one 8 minute video, and it's direct link is - http://wtol.videodownload.worldnow.com/WTOL_20160205132910217AB.mp4. Video DownloadHelper is another extension available for Chrome variants which in this case finds the same video link. Whether those extensions or similar ones are available for your browser of choice you'll have to check and see. Cheers and Regards

Sorry, I meant DOSNET.inf. My fault. Thanks for pointing out my mistake. The above post has been corrected. But I still think .org, or .orig meant original. Cheers and Regards

I'm betting that file is actually DOSNET.orig, ie someone/something "updated" the DOSNET.inf file and renamed the original version for safe keeping. Just a thought. Cheers and Regards EDIT: corrected .dll to .inf

@Roffen, I don't know if this could have been part of your problem, but you might want to try what harkaz suggests here - http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/171171-introducing-unofficial-windows-xp-sp4/page-8#entry1117542. Cheers and Regards

AFAIK, SP4 was designed to be able to be installed on a 'live' system, and not just on a 'new' XP. So unless it ended in some kind of error message it should have worked. Cheers and Regards

You should actually be looking for v3.1a. [i forget, but you might need to be registered there to see and get to where you need to go. But don't worry, many of us here are members there as well, and RyanVM will never use or share your registration info, nor will you get any emails or anything else from RyanVM.] You can find it here - http://www.ryanvm.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10321. Look for "Windows XP Unofficial SP4 Download Locations:", and you will see both a cloud location and a torrent. Take your pick, but the torrent has a very, very slightly, essentially insignificant, updated documentation file as detailed here - http://www.ryanvm.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=140826#140826. So use whichever one is quicker and more convenient for you. Cheers and Regards

I've never had to do that, so I don't know. There is an XP SP4 MUI Pack available, see here - http://www.ryanvm.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=140755#140755. Would that help? There is an instructional YouTube video, (use SP4 instead of SP3 as mentioned in the video). If it would help, it is now also included in the torrent that was added to the first post of that thread. Good luck! Cheers and Regards

In case anyone else has the same problem, you solved it how? Cheers and Regards

Hey Larry! Long time no see. I hope you are well, my friend. Cheers and Regards

[ OT ] Use this tip http://www.mdgx.com/newtip22.htm#FCMST I noticed that Windows 7 is mentioned at that link. Jumper's behavior is the default behavior for Windows 7 as well. If you want a shortcut on your desktop to one of your drives you can simply click on the drive and drag it to your desktop and a shortcut will be created. Right-click and drag to see other options. I don't remember what the behavior is for Win9x/ME in this situation. In any case, I've never seen that popup, which would definitely be very annoying, and getting rid of it is the purpose of this thread, so my comments are slightly Off-Topic. [ /OT ] Cheers and Regards