AstroSkipper

ytBATCH for Windows XP has been updated and is now available in version 1.6. All changes I have made and the download link can be found here: Greetings, AstroSkipper

Yep. But as I already mentioned, my new code does not use this command any longer but instead yt-dlp --version respectively youtube-dl --version as a basis. All further processing, you will see in my upcoming release ytBATCH for Windows XP 1.6.

Clicking onto the vthash.exe file as described in the readme file. And it doesn't matter whether doing that from an Explorer or Total Commander window. The window is always hidden and inaccessable. Process Hacker can see its proccess, the window item is disabled, though.

I am an old member of MSFN too with 4k+ postings , and I have never given any advice without a well-founded reason. Long story short, absolutely no trust in Kaspersky and especially in their definition updates. And this will be the case forever. The reasons for that can be read in all its detail in this thread.

FYI and for the cause research, if the programme has been called, and the window is not accessible, it appears the moment you open an Explorer window, very strange.

@genieautravail Your release VT Hash Check 1.67 for Windows XP is running fine here. But one thing is not working as described in the readme file. When clicking the main executable, the window is supposed to be opened to reach its settings. The programme opens, and I can see it in the task manager but its window is inaccessable. I can only reach the settings when performing a hash check. I don't think that was the intention. Or did I miss something? And BTW, the option SSL/TLS has of course to be enabled to establish a connection to VirusTotal.

When checking for a yt-dlp update, the command yt-dlp -U always gave an error messsge but never performed an update under Windows XP. Recently, this message no longer appears, and yt-dlp is updated directly to a version that is not XP-compatible. Since this command wasn't a big hit under Windows XP anyway, I've now programmed the yt-dlp update check to be squeaky clean. In the upcoming release 1.6, a clean version check will be carried out as it is already performed by the youtube-dl update module. The direct updater has also been modified accordingly. No more youtube-dl -U or yt-dlp -U commands.

Due to a recent change in @nicolaasjan's yt-dlp release, I had to change the update module for the YouTube downloaders in my release ytBATCH for Windows XP 1.5. Additionally, I modified both config files youtube-dl.conf and yt-dlp.conf to download YouTube videos with a resolution 480p and the h264 codec at maximum combined with the audio codec mp4a for all Windows XP users on old, weak hardware like me , and to embed subtitles. These config files can of course be edited by the user to use higher codecs and resolutions at any time. ytBATCH for Windows XP 1.6 will be released soon.

First of all, thanks! About that stuff, all has been said here. There is nothing to argue anymore. The facts are crystal clear. And common sense should not be disregarded. Yes, of course! Besides all the facts, zero trust in this programme! And it doesn't matter which version. BTW, I have tested it long, long time ago. But the way this programme lived its own life was unacceptable. I only allow programmes to do what I have authorised and set up. So after a short time, I deleted everything related to this programme and deep-cleaned my partition. And from today's perspective, that was a very wise decision.

That's why I wrote: Which means that it doesn't matter at all. The actual question is: What's the point of a report on an old version without a version number of a programme that does not stand for security anyways? Everyone can answer this question for themselves. And if a manufacturer wants to pull the plug, then a few posts in some thread won't change anything. One should evaluate things in life realistically.

BTW, I wanted to write about VirusTotal in my thread "Antimalware, firewall, and other security programs for Windows XP working in 2023 and hopefully beyond" soon anyway. I'll give your mod due consideration there as well.

Thanks for your mod! I have never used this programme before. Thus, I have just installed it. What I don't like is to be forced to enter an API key at programme start (Winja doesn't do that) , but displaying the results directly in the programme without having to open the browser is great . Thanks again for restoring XP-compatibility!

Here are the important lines (3579 - 3605) from the tun.c file inside the source code of OpenVPN v2.3.18: static const IP_INTERFACE_INFO * get_interface_info_list (struct gc_arena *gc) { ULONG size = 0; IP_INTERFACE_INFO *ii = NULL; DWORD status; if ((status = GetInterfaceInfo (NULL, &size)) != ERROR_INSUFFICIENT_BUFFER) { msg (M_INFO, "GetInterfaceInfo #1 failed (status=%u) : %s", (unsigned int)status, strerror_win32 (status, gc)); } else { ii = (PIP_INTERFACE_INFO) gc_malloc (size, false, gc); if ((status = GetInterfaceInfo (ii, &size)) == NO_ERROR) return ii; else { msg (M_INFO, "GetInterfaceInfo #2 failed (status=%u) : %s", (unsigned int)status, strerror_win32 (status, gc)); } } return ii; } I assume the mentioned bug won't appear there. When using this OpenVPN version, you can check the connection logs and then you will see whether there is such a bug or not.

Look at its source code, and you will definitely know!

In your quoted link, there is provided an explanation and a solution in terms of this bug. Here is a quote from this topic: When looking into the download package, this bug fix seems to have already been implemented. Your question about Windows Server 2003 has been answered there, too.

Status reports on programmes without a version number, for whatever reason, are generally useless. It either doesn't help to call it an "ancient version". The lack of information and meaning remains in any case.

I always do this with Total Commander.

I use Windows XP on my old, beloved but weak Pentium 4 computer. I therefore prefer another approach since the PowerShell reacts very slowly on this machine: -- YouTube Link Resolver for VLC with Separate Video and Audio URLs -- Place this script in VLC's lua/playlist directory function probe() -- Check if the input is a YouTube link return vlc.access == "http" or vlc.access == "https" and (string.match(vlc.path, "youtube%.com") or string.match(vlc.path, "youtu%.be")) end function parse() -- Construct the full YouTube URL local youtube_url = vlc.access .. "://" .. vlc.path -- Path to yt-dlp executable (modify as needed) local yt_dlp_path = 'yt-dlp.exe' -- Start cmd hidden and ... local cmd_hidden = 'hidecon cmd /c &' -- Construct the command to get the direct video and audio URLs local cmd = string.format( '%s %s -g "%s"', cmd_hidden, yt_dlp_path, youtube_url ) -- Execute yt-dlp to get the direct video and audio URLs local handle = io.popen(cmd) -- Read video URL (first line) local video_url = handle:read("*l") -- Read audio URL (second line) local audio_url = handle:read("*l") handle:close() -- Trim any whitespace video_url = video_url and video_url:gsub("^%s+", ""):gsub("%s+$", "") or "" audio_url = audio_url and audio_url:gsub("^%s+", ""):gsub("%s+$", "") or "" -- Log the resolved URLs vlc.msg.info("[YouTube Resolver] Original URL: " .. youtube_url) vlc.msg.info("[YouTube Resolver] Video URL: " .. video_url) if audio_url and audio_url ~= "" then vlc.msg.info("[YouTube Resolver] Audio URL: " .. audio_url) return { { path = video_url, name = vlc.path .. " (Video)", options = { -- Add audio URL as input option ":input-slave=" .. audio_url } } } else vlc.msg.warn("[YouTube Resolver] No separate audio URL found. Playing single URL with both video and audio.") return { { path = video_url, name = vlc.path .. " (Video + Audio)" } } end end The tool I use is hidecon and is very fast. You can get it here: http://code.kliu.org/misc/hidecon/

For all who don't want to use nircmd.exe from Nirsoft, I created alternative code using native PowerShell: -- YouTube Link Resolver for VLC with Separate Video and Audio URLs -- Place this script in VLC's lua/playlist directory function probe() -- Check if the input is a YouTube link return vlc.access == "http" or vlc.access == "https" and (string.match(vlc.path, "youtube%.com") or string.match(vlc.path, "youtu%.be")) end function parse() -- Construct the full YouTube URL local youtube_url = vlc.access .. "://" .. vlc.path -- Path to yt-dlp executable (modify as needed) local yt_dlp_path = 'yt-dlp.exe' -- Start cmd hidden and ... local cmd_hidden = 'PowerShell.exe -windowstyle hidden cmd /c &' -- Construct the command to get the direct video and audio URLs local cmd = string.format( '%s %s -g "%s"', cmd_hidden, yt_dlp_path, youtube_url ) -- Execute yt-dlp to get the direct video and audio URLs local handle = io.popen(cmd) -- Read video URL (first line) local video_url = handle:read("*l") -- Read audio URL (second line) local audio_url = handle:read("*l") handle:close() -- Trim any whitespace video_url = video_url and video_url:gsub("^%s+", ""):gsub("%s+$", "") or "" audio_url = audio_url and audio_url:gsub("^%s+", ""):gsub("%s+$", "") or "" -- Log the resolved URLs vlc.msg.info("[YouTube Resolver] Original URL: " .. youtube_url) vlc.msg.info("[YouTube Resolver] Video URL: " .. video_url) if audio_url and audio_url ~= "" then vlc.msg.info("[YouTube Resolver] Audio URL: " .. audio_url) return { { path = video_url, name = vlc.path .. " (Video)", options = { -- Add audio URL as input option ":input-slave=" .. audio_url } } } else vlc.msg.warn("[YouTube Resolver] No separate audio URL found. Playing single URL with both video and audio.") return { { path = video_url, name = vlc.path .. " (Video + Audio)" } } end end If directly placing the yt-dlp.exe file into the VLC main programme folder where the vlc.exe file is located, you do not need to specify the complete path of yt-dlp. The advantage is that once compiled the lua file to a luac file, you can use it in any VLC programme directory without any customization.

No. there is no problem on my machine. Without creating a portable folder inside the VLC programme folder, as written by @VistaLover, the most recent nightly from 09.04.2025 messed up my vlc folder under %APPDATA%. No more, no less. I had to clean up all VLC related things. Then I made a fresh portable setup of VLC Media Player 3.0.20. All is working fine now.

I gave the current nightly from 09.04.2025 a try. It works under Windows XP but is not stable. When watching a video on YouTube and stopping the stream with the stop button, the whole player closes. Therefore, I will stay with the official release of VLC Media Player in version 3.0.20 until a new official and stable version is released. Edit: This issue even happens when watching a local video file. Edit 2: I have tested again and found the cause of this issue. The portable version of VLC is not really portable. Every installation of the VLC Media Player uses the same vlc folder under c:\Documents and Settings. The nightly messed up this folder. Suddenly this issue was even in my original installation. As I already said, I will stay with the official release of VLC Media Player in version 3.0.20 until a new official and stable version is released. I made a fresh installation of version 3.0.20, and all is fine now.

You can place the youtube.lua file containg the posted and adapted code from above to VLC's lua/playlist directory as it is. Or, you can compile your adapted script to a luac file. It's up to you. I personally did the latter. And be aware of possible spaces in your path! Such paths must be additionally surrounded by quotation marks.

For me, the official releases are always decisive when assessing the compatibility of programmes. It's great that this problem has now been fixed in the nightly version. However, my statement was clear: Nevertheless, I will give the current nightly from 09.04.2025 a try. Therefore, thanks for the hint!

The official release of VLC Media Player in version 3.0.21 is not compatible with Windows XP, even not with service pack SP3. This has been well known for a long time. So, the last official XP-compatible version is 3.0.20. But so far this version runs very well under Windows XP. And with the new youtube.lua script, links to media files on YouTube work again.

I don't know if it has already been noticed, VLC Media Player 3.0.20 has not been able to play YouTube video links under Windows XP for months. Due to YouTube's permanent changes, the youtube.luac file from 08.06.2024 is outdated. An updated youtube.luac or youtube.lua version has not yet been published. So, I did a research and found an alternative version of the youtube.lua which makes use of the downloader yt-dlp. The Lua script project is called yt-dlp4vlc and was developed by FalloNero. Here is a link to his GitHub page: https://github.com/FalloNero/yt-dlp4vlc. I have already tested this Lua script, and it works fine. The script calls up yt-dlp.exe and transfers the parsed link to VLC. Unfortunately, there is one small drawback. The Lua programming language does not have a command to minimise or to hide a console window. Under Windows, a console window is opened and only closed when the parsed link has been successfully transferred to VLC. I don't like that, so I modified the Lua code in this script. This is the code of the original Lua script: -- YouTube Link Resolver for VLC with Separate Video and Audio URLs -- Place this script in VLC's lua/playlist directory function probe() -- Check if the input is a YouTube link return vlc.access == "http" or vlc.access == "https" and (string.match(vlc.path, "youtube%.com") or string.match(vlc.path, "youtu%.be")) end function parse() -- Construct the full YouTube URL local youtube_url = vlc.access .. "://" .. vlc.path -- Path to yt-dlp executable (modify as needed) local yt_dlp_path = "C:\\YT-DLP\\yt-dlp.exe" -- Construct the command to get the direct video and audio URLs local cmd = string.format( '%s -g "%s"', yt_dlp_path, youtube_url ) -- Execute yt-dlp to get the direct video and audio URLs local handle = io.popen(cmd) -- Read video URL (first line) local video_url = handle:read("*l") -- Read audio URL (second line) local audio_url = handle:read("*l") handle:close() -- Trim any whitespace video_url = video_url and video_url:gsub("^%s+", ""):gsub("%s+$", "") or "" audio_url = audio_url and audio_url:gsub("^%s+", ""):gsub("%s+$", "") or "" -- Log the resolved URLs vlc.msg.info("[YouTube Resolver] Original URL: " .. youtube_url) vlc.msg.info("[YouTube Resolver] Video URL: " .. video_url) if audio_url and audio_url ~= "" then vlc.msg.info("[YouTube Resolver] Audio URL: " .. audio_url) return { { path = video_url, name = vlc.path .. " (Video)", options = { -- Add audio URL as input option ":input-slave=" .. audio_url } } } else vlc.msg.warn("[YouTube Resolver] No separate audio URL found. Playing single URL with both video and audio.") return { { path = video_url, name = vlc.path .. " (Video + Audio)" } } end end And here is the code of the Lua script modified by me:: -- YouTube Link Resolver for VLC with Separate Video and Audio URLs -- Place this script in VLC's lua/playlist directory function probe() -- Check if the input is a YouTube link return vlc.access == "http" or vlc.access == "https" and (string.match(vlc.path, "youtube%.com") or string.match(vlc.path, "youtu%.be")) end function parse() -- Construct the full YouTube URL local youtube_url = vlc.access .. "://" .. vlc.path -- Path to yt-dlp executable (modify as needed) local yt_dlp_path = "c:\\Programme\\VideoLAN\\VLC\\yt-dlp.exe" -- Hide window and ... (modify as needed) local cmd_hide = 'c:\\Programme\\VideoLAN\\VLC\\nircmd.exe win hide stitle "Lua" &' -- Start cmd, title the window and ... local cmd_title = 'cmd /c title Lua &' -- Construct the command to get the direct video and audio URLs local cmd = string.format( '%s %s %s -g "%s"', cmd_title, cmd_hide, yt_dlp_path, youtube_url ) -- Execute yt-dlp to get the direct video and audio URLs local handle = io.popen(cmd) -- Read video URL (first line) local video_url = handle:read("*l") -- Read audio URL (second line) local audio_url = handle:read("*l") handle:close() -- Trim any whitespace video_url = video_url and video_url:gsub("^%s+", ""):gsub("%s+$", "") or "" audio_url = audio_url and audio_url:gsub("^%s+", ""):gsub("%s+$", "") or "" -- Log the resolved URLs vlc.msg.info("[YouTube Resolver] Original URL: " .. youtube_url) vlc.msg.info("[YouTube Resolver] Video URL: " .. video_url) if audio_url and audio_url ~= "" then vlc.msg.info("[YouTube Resolver] Audio URL: " .. audio_url) return { { path = video_url, name = vlc.path .. " (Video)", options = { -- Add audio URL as input option ":input-slave=" .. audio_url } } } else vlc.msg.warn("[YouTube Resolver] No separate audio URL found. Playing single URL with both video and audio.") return { { path = video_url, name = vlc.path .. " (Video + Audio)" } } end end For hiding the console window, I have used nircmd. The script has to be adapted to the location of both files yt-dlp.exe and nircmd.exe. The advantage of this script is that from now on, the interaction of YouTube and VLC no longer depends on an updated youtube.lua script which is only carried out at very irregular intervals, but on the downloader yt-dlp.exe maintained by @nicolaasjan. Long story short, VLC Media Player 3.0.20 is again able to play YouTube videos from their links. And now even without an annoying console window. Cheers, AstroSkipper