AstroSkipper

@Dave-H If your plan doesn't work, consider my strategy then. The steps are necessary for further steps I wanted to perform. And I don't know whether they work with an old Chrome as default. The Internet Explorer is automatically set as default browser by Windows XP if no other has been set by the user.

You can make any other browser, which has already properly been installed in your system, the default, of course. Important is to get rid of everything related to Thorium. When done, check if the old Chromium correctly works as your temporary, default browser.

@Dave-H The strategy I would like to recommend to you is to set the browser settings in your Windows XP installation back to Internet Explorer as default browser. Open the Internet Explorer options and set it as your default browser! After doing so, remove all entries related to Thorium using Registry Workshop! Search for Thorium and ThorLoad! The reason for this strategy is that I assume something browser related has been messed up. It is difficult to find the error as there are many registry keys in terms of registering a browser and its corresponding extensions. Revert everything you tried to make Thorium as your default browser! I have seen you are using the SSE4 release. Does it work properly in your system? Maybe, you could give the SSE3 release a try only to see if it is working better than the SSE4 one. Just an idea, of course! You know the higher is not always the better. In any case, be careful when purging your registry! Perform a registry backup first! Everything else after that. What do you think about this approach?

Can you describe the quoted issue more detailed? You can't open internal pages or the setting page in Thorium? Did I understand you correctly?

You are not thick. If at all, a little forgetful. We had the problem back then in the beta test of my ProxHTTPSProxy package. I called the problem the "space bug". Search my proxy thread for "space bug"! Normally, if a space is inside a path, the string needs quotation marks when it comes to coding. Especially when using command line commands or programming batch files. Maybe, this loader allows such spaces when defining variables. Personally, I have no spaces in my user folder for Thorium. So, I have no problems with that. Long story short. Just remove the quotation marks in the line where the $Profile$ variable is defined! But what about my questions? So, I have checked this, and you are right. No quotation marks are necessary for defining a variable if it contains spaces. A bit strange, though. I wouldn't have thought so.

Open these four registry keys with your registry editor and post here via the export feature of Registry Workshop (I know you are using the same tool as I do. I need to know the exact strings in form of an exported key for better comparison ) what have been set for them in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\http, HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\https, HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ThoriumHTM\shell\open\command and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\StartMenuInternet\Thorium\shell\open\command. Use the code feature of the forum editor for pasting the exported keys!

You are not thick. If at all, a little forgetful. We had the problem back then in the beta test of my ProxHTTPSProxy package. I called the problem the "space bug". Search my proxy thread for "space bug"! Normally, if a space is inside a path, the string needs quotation marks when it comes to coding. Especially when using command line commands or programming batch files. Maybe, this loader allows such spaces when defining variables. Personally, I have no spaces in my user folder for Thorium. So, I have no problems with that. Long story short. Just remove the quotation marks in the line where the $Profile$ variable is defined! But what about my questions?

@Dave-H This is what you seem to be using in the loader INI file at the moment: Edit: There is a space in the string of your user data folder but the syntax of this INI file seems to allow that. BTW, I asked you: You can first try this code if wanted: [Setup] AppName=Thorium [FileToRun] PathToExe=.\Chrome\Application\$AppName$.exe Parameters=--user-data-dir="$Profile$" --no-proxy-server /high-dpi-support=1 /force-device-scale-factor=1 --disable-component-update --use-angle=d3d9 --ignore-gpu-blocklist --single-argument [Environment] Profile=.\Chrome\User Data Edit: You defined the environment variable $Profile$, which you didn't use at all, though. Generally, a better approach is to use a string without spaces as, for example, @Dixel suggested: The string ..\data creates this folder in the root folder. If you want to create it relative to the folder where the loader is located, you have to replace that by .\data or in your case by .\chrome\data. But all that is not the solution for opening a link in your browser from a document successfully. For this issue, you have to check all registry values that you've set for the Thorium browser. All of them should point to your loader. Check all file type associations in terms of browsers such as .htm, .html and so on! You can do that from the Control Panel via the app "Folder options". Did you use the two REG files inside the programme folder for registering Thorium? Can you open a link from a PDF file in Thorium by left-clicking?

I totally agree. I assume you will still stay for a while with Malwarebytes Premium 3.5.1. Do you already have any preferences for what kind of antimalware programme you want to use under Windows XP afterwards?

And one thing should be made clear. The way Malwarebytes treats customers of older versions is beyond good and evil. To stop updating virus definitions without prior notice and simply present customers with a fait accompli, as seems to be the norm with this company, is a no-go. And being customer of Malwarebytes also means you have to pull any information out of these guys' noses every time such things happen. That's not how you win customers , that's how you lose them .

If you only check the Office 2010 option, you won't find updates for Office 2007 (v12.xxxx.xxxx). I said: So, look into the folder client\ofc\glb when only updates were enabled for Office 2007!

Thanks for reporting! Even if this is bad news. What is your last version of the definition updates you received via automatic update? My latest version is 1.0.39678 which was also mentioned in the thread you linked to.

The service LanguageTool https://languagetool.org/ doesn't work anymore in Mypal 68 (and, for example, in New Moon 28, either). An entered or pasted text is no longer analysed for errors. However, I don't know when this started.

As far as I know, Office 2010 was originally compatible with Windows XP but later updates seemed to have been somehow incompatible. But maybe, someone knows more as I have installed Office 2010 under Windows 7 only.

Thanks for the hint! I took a quick look at this. Looks interesting.

I already modified the 360Loader.ini. I changed the name of both files to ThoriumLoader.exe and ThoriumLoader.ini and replaced the Icon Group of the ThoriumLoader.exe by the one from the thorium.exe. This modified loader works well to call up Thorium. And due to its separate ini file, the command line flags set by the user can be easily changed at any time. Here is a screenshot taken from my current "Open with" context menu in Windows XP: Everything I have written so far proves that Thorium can successfully take up and load a link via a command line call, initiated from the registry, when using a loader such as ThoriumLoader. Cheers, AstroSkipper

[Setup] AppName=Thorium [FileToRun] PathToExe=.\Chrome\Application\$AppName$.exe Parameters=--user-data-dir="$Profile$" --no-proxy-server /high-dpi-support=1 /force-device-scale-factor=1 --disable-component-update --use-angle=d3d9 --ignore-gpu-blocklist --single-argument [Environment] Profile=".\Chrome\User Data" This is what I actually meant. PS: Think of the Space Bug! Can you still remember?

Do not remove the [Environment] section! Simply set there your current profile path and replace the path D:\Program Files\Thorium\Chrome\User Data under the [FileToRun] section by your enviroment variable $Profile$.

That's very simple. Perform a right-click on a link to be opened, click on the item "Select a programme" from the "Open with" context menu and point to your 360Loader! When done, an entry is automatically created and stored in the registry under the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Applications\360Loader.exe key. From now on, you have an entry in the "Open with" context menu for taking up links by the 360Loader.

You're welcome. BTW, why do you define an enviroment variable $Profile$ when you don't intend to use it?

Are you able to open a link in Thorium via the system context menu "Open with" with your modified 360Loader? I ask you this as taking up a link via the system context menu "Open with" would be the transfer of a link via a command line command that is initiated from the registry. And you said this wouldn't work in your Windows XP system. Right?

I think the problem is the way you usually call up the Thorium browser, or the way you open links in this browser. If you start the browser by applying the THORIUM_PORTABLE.bat file, a link to be opened cannot be transferred to this starter batch file via command line. Even if it is compiled to an exe file. I have tested that. If you start the browser by applying the thorium.exe file, a link can be transferred via command line but then all your flags inside the THORIUM_PORTABLE.bat file will be of course ignored. So, you have to add to those registry settings, where the thorium.exe file is called up, all your command line flags from the THORIUM_PORTABLE.bat file. This problem doesn't exist when calling up 360Chrome. You can successfully start this browser with a website transferred to its starter app 360Loader.exe via command line as a parameter. Try this: 360Loader.exe www.google.de And you will see, it works. And now try this: thorium.exe www.google.de You'll see, it works, too, but all your settings are not applied. However, when you try this: THORIUM_PORTABLE.bat www.google.de then you'll notice that it doesn't work. The browser will be called up but the Google website won't be opened. But when trying this: thorium.exe --user-data-dir="PathToYourUserProfile" --your-flags --single-argument www.google.de You'll see it works. The string PathToYourUserProfile has to be replaced by the complete path to your user profile and the string --your-flags by all your command line flags from the THORIUM_PORTABLE.bat file. The --single-argument flag is the one from the registry settings. Have a look at the files HKCR.reg and HKLM.reg inside the Thorium folder!

Getting a BOSD without a minidump is very rare. Do you really have the creation of minidumps enabled in your system? If so, maybe, the crash was so fast that the minidump couldn't be saved. But that's just an assumption. Besides this issue, we shouldn't forget that Thorium is still under development. I'm not surprised at all that BSODs happen, I'm literally expecting them. That's why Thorium wouldn't become a default browser in my Windows XP system at the moment. There are better alternatives for this purpose.

@Cixert Here are the sizes and number of files more detailed which were downloaded in my WSUS download sessions including the updates I manually added as their download failed: Windows XP x86: Size and number of files in the folder client\cpp: 87.6 MB and 12 files Size and number of files in the folder client\dotnet: 286 MB and 3 files Size and number of files in the folder client\dotnet\x86-glb: 673 MB and 95 files Size and number of files in the folder client\msse\x86-glb: 115 MB and 4 files Size and number of files in the folder client\wddefs\x86-glb: 55.4 MB and 1 file Size and number of files in the folder client\win\deu: 33.1 MB and 19 files Size and number of files in the folder client\win\glb: 115 MB and 4 files Size and number of files in the folder client\wxp\deu: 725 MB and 310 files Size and number of files in the folder client\wxp\glb: 10.0 MB and 3 files Office 2007: Size and number of files in the folder client\o2k7\deu: 430 MB and 3 files Size and number of files in the folder client\o2k7\glb: 31.9 MB and 2 files Size and number of files in the folder client\ofc\deu: 81.8 MB and 7 files Size and number of files in the folder client\ofc\glb: 5.08 GB and 572 files Office 2010: Size and number of files in the folder client\o2k10\deu: 628 MB and 1 file Size and number of files in the folder client\o2k10\glb: 101 MB and 1 file Size and number of files in the folder client\ofc\deu: 19.7 MB and 1 file Size and number of files in the folder client\ofc\glb: 5.00 GB and 200 files @Cixert Please copy this list, replace my values with yours for easier comparison and post it here! BTW, I have always enabled the option for the download of Service Packs. That's probably the reason for the different size of the folder client\wxp compared to yours. And it should be mentioned that Office 2010 is not XP-compatible as this topic here is located in the Windows XP subforum. That's why I downloaded Office 2010 updates with WSUS Offline Update 11.9.6 instead of WSUS Offline Update 9.2.6, BTW. In any case, it is only included here for reasons of comparison regarding downloading updates with WSUS Offline Update in 2024. Greetings, AstroSkipper

The downloads depends on the weather. That's what my grandmother would have said if she were still alive. You are simply great.