glnz

dencorso - for what it's worth, I installed KB2926765 on my XP Pro SP3 (32-bit) a few months ago when I started using the POS hack. No bad effects. But I have only Office 2003 with the 2007 compatibility pack. (I'm REALLY behind the times.)

AnX - Which are the TWO broken updates? We've been chatting a few posts above about KB3013455, which we've all NOT installed or UNinstalled. But what is the second one?

bluebolt - agreed, and look at that article http://www.zdnet.com/article/february-2015-patch-tuesday/?tag=nl.e589&s_cid=e589&ttag=e589&ftag=TREc64629f for a discussion of a security issue in Server 2003 that MS is NOT fixing. Does our POS hack normally get those Server 2003 updates, and does XP need them for security? Anyway, without KB3013455, the other updates from this past week are playing nice on my XP. Thanks to all who commented here, I still haven't found any other thread that deals intelligently with the POS hack.

Hey everyone - other than KB3013455, are the updates cool on XP ? That little yellow shield is BUGGING me, man, and I just want to get it OVER WITH, you know?

bluebolt - there's more info here, including maybe a way to undo the font-related protection. https://technet.microsoft.com/library/security/MS15-010 If you do the undo, let us know the result.

By the way, there's a good Ed Bott article on today's updates that indicates that maybe our hack isn't going to bring us everything we need. See http://www.zdnet.com/article/february-2015-patch-tuesday/?tag=nl.e589&s_cid=e589&ttag=e589&ftag=TREc64629f

bluebolt - almost same here. XP Pro SP3, same updates, Word 2003 with the 2007 compatibility pack and its updates. But just now a test document did not show problems when it printed. (Did you mean Word 2003?)

The MS KB article says "After you install security update 3013455, you may notice some text quality degradation .... only occurs on systems that are running Windows Vista SP2 or Windows Server 2003 SP2." And that they are researching and will post more info. Pretty bad if it affects Word and other programs.

Bluebolt - how does one uninstall that update? I've never uninstalled an XP update. Thanks. EDIT - I am uninstalling using the typical Add-Remove Programs and checking the box to show updates. The wizard says it might affect three other updates, but I am uninstalling anyway and will then recheck updates. Thanks.

Ponch - Just so I understand: A] - X - is the same as http://xdot.tk/ ? B] I can use - X - (http://xdot.tk/) only to make an nLite slipstream XP install disk? Can I use - X - differently? That is, could I re-do the XP Mode installation using the initial XP Mode download from MS and then use - X - only to do the updates? How would I use - X - that way - what would I do? C] If I can do B], then will Belarc Advisor say I am missing lots of Hotfixes? Thanks. Really - this is exactly what I want to learn to start because I will then learn to do this on VMWare or VirtualBox.

See next.

submix - thanks so much for your continued interest! Your links are very interesting to a newb tourist such as myself. As a minor detail - and I do mean minor - wsusoffline's app does create a separate user account in at least certain cases, it was indeed running on my machine (it appears in the wsus log file after "user:" until I kept manually interrupting it and then again at the end when I finally let it finish), and in my case it did delete itself after the end of all the updates. Just fyi - see these links, one of which is my own post: http://forums.wsusoffline.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4803&p=15276#p15274 http://forums.wsusoffline.net/search.php?keywords=WOUTempAdmin http://forums.wsusoffline.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4486&p=14769&hilit=WOUTempAdmin#p14769 http://forums.wsusoffline.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4415&hilit=WOUTempAdmin&start=30 And, yes, my Opti 7010 does support hardware virtualization. I wanted to start my education in virtualization with XP Mode because it seemed easiest to download and learn how to use (and with an authorized copy of XP that passed the MS genuine validation step) and I knew it would try to use the HAV (I hope). (Another FYI - I was dismayed after I first got the Opti 7010 that the MS havdetection tool said that HAV was NOT available, but I eventually found out that my Avast Free antivirus was monopolizing use of HAV until I disabled "Enable hardware-assisted virtualization" in Avast, after which the MS havdetection tool said I DO have HAV available.) Well, right now, with only a single user in my XP Mode, the default XPMuser, there is no longer any CTRL ALT DEL log in window even though I am back to the oririginal settings and the account DOES have a password. Right now XP Mode boots to its desktop without a hitch. OK, but strange I cannot control this. I will check your links next weekend. Many thanks, and feel free to post more. I'm like a 10-year old with a science kit.

bphlpt (and do you pronounce that bffl-pt or be-fflpt? do you remember Don Martin?) -- Thanks. I saw the ryanvm.net post that they call SP4, which is very interesting. My problem is that everyone - even their dogs and fish - know what to do with the downloads, but I don't. After I save the download, what do I do with it? How to I get it to update the XP VM? Is it an .exe that I just run inside the XP VM? How pre-updated does the XP VM have to be first? (I haven't downloaded anything yet.) It's a "show me please". Thanks for your patience!! submix - I defintely appreciate your posting your link to the other thread rather than this forum deleting one of my posts. I actually made progress using the method in the other thread, but this thread is about a different method, and so I'd like to try to catch up to the crowd here as well. This is indeed a great forum - sorry I didn't appreciate it before.

Ponch - Thanks again for info. The WSUS link you gave me deleted its own temporary account when the XP updates were done - a superb app! Many thanks. But this business of log-ins on XP Mode is baffling. Right now, I'm back to all my XP Mode original settings, which had previously required CTRL ALT DEL with password (no matter what I did) -- and now don't, for no reason. Well, that's why I'm experimenting, to find the potholes before I do anything important.

This is really strange. I was going to complain that I WANTED to disable CTRL+ALT+DEL to log in to XP Mode with Integrated Features on but COULD NOT get it to go away. But now it's gone, I don't know why, and I cannot get it back! (Yesterday-today was my first install of XP Mode and my first experience with virtualization, so I'm a noob.) I tried four things to DISABLE CTRL ALT DEL, and they didn't work - CTRL ALT DEL was ALWAYS required with password. And changing the XP Mode User Account to "no password required" just made it impossible to log in until I disabled Integrated Features and undid the change. I tried the steps at these places - no luck: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308226 (the two manual steps) http://www.keylemon.com/support/wikeylemon/doku.php?id=en:knowledgebase:ctrlaltdel http://windowsitpro.com/systems-management/how-can-i-enabledisable-ctrl-alt-del-enter-logon-information So then I manually undid those steps. BUT NOW CTR ALT DEL IS NOT REQUIRED! How did that happen? I UNdid the steps above, so it should be required now. What's going on? Is XP Mode always like this?

Ponch and submix - very good! Many thanks to you both! Ponch - your link finished very nicely !!

submix - very interesting. Is "the MS Key from the XP-Mode VHD's Registry" the same key that Belarc Advisor is showing me (with Belarc run INSIDE the XP Mode)? What means "hook"? There are four OEMBIOS.xxx files: .bin, .dat., .sig and .CAT. (They forgot .dog.) IF I were to do an nLite as you suggest, would I try to incorporate them into the nLite-created XP install CD? By the way, Ponch's method has been working well and went pretty fast. When it finished and I re-checked with Windows Update, it showed only 28 more updates - pretty good! The only funny thing is that Ponch's method created a new user account that (a) I stopped using after the first few installs because the reboots required me to enter user and password (so continued in my user) and ( B) I will now have to delete. But please think about my three questions - thanks!

Ponch - thanks for the lead - looks good. Also, the site has a link to an Eli the Computer Guy youtube demo, so it's really clear. Just started, so I don't know how well it will work, but seems solid. If you have any tricks to using this better, please leave a note. It's pulling the update files in now in the CMD window. To save the full download (for example if I decide later to redo the entire XP Mode install from scratch if I screw it up this first time), I suppose I just need to save the wsusoffline921 folder somewhere, as it will all be in the "client" subfolder. Will be interesting to see whether (when it installs the updates) it will sense that I already have SP3 and just start from there, and whether afterwards Windows Update will know that all the updates have in fact been installed. After totally finished installing the updates, I will do the POS 2009 hack to bring those updates in as well (as I am doing on my old standalone XP machine). Happy to receive suggestions from all. This forum IS the right place!!

Today, Jan. 15, 2015, I installed XP Mode in my Win 7 Pro 64-bit machine - my first ever try at virtualization. Is there a way to use nlite to install ONLY the XP updates after SP3 into my already-running XP Mode (and so that Windows Update in the XP Mode agrees that they have been installed and doesn't try to re-download them)? See http://xdot.tk/ as one source for those compiled updates, but how can I inject them into my already-running XP Mode? See also http://www.ryanvm.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=25 I'm a real noob at this, but I know you experts have the answer! Thanks.

Once again, this forum is amazing. Just today, Jan 31, 2015, I installed XP Mode in Windows 7 - my first try ever at virtualization. As all you experts here know a hundred times better than I, it's XP SP3. So exactly what steps do I take to get and run all the post-SP3 updates better and faster than just running Windows Update in XP Mode for three weeks (AND so that the Windows Update in XP Mode knows that they've been installed)? I know it's this thread, but I'm not sure exactly what to do. What do I download, how do I paste it into XP Mode, and then what buttons do I push to run the downloads super-fast (with Windows Update happy afterwards)? Yup, I'm such a noob I'm like a tourist with a plastic map. Thanks for your patience and gentle kindness!

To all: Because I'm a noob, I have attached (in a Word .doc) a list of all my Microsoft Updates AFTER the April 8, 2014 Patch Tuesday. Am I missing anything? My machine is Win XP Pro SP3 on a Dell Optiplex 755 Desktop with 4GB RAM and an Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 @ 3.00GHz. FYI - The only thing I did to get the POS-hack updates was to add this registry entry: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\WPA\PosReady] "Installed"=dword:00000001 Thanks. Updates to my XP Pro SP3 machine AFTER April 8 2014 through Jan 17 2015.doc

Dave-H - thanks for your fast reply. No reason to think these are more problematic than before. But I'm a noob out of my depth here and would rather be safe than sorry. If your XP machine melts down next few hours, or if it rings like a cash register and your CD drawer opens to give change, please let us know. Ha - thanks.

Excellent thread - finally an intelligent discussion of the POS XP hack. Well, I'm still a noob, barely understand the above, and I'll re-read this later, but I have an immediate question for very smart people here: The POS 2009 WU and MU updates from yesterday's patch Tuesday (Jan 13, 2015) - are they OK as updates on my old XP Pro SP3 (32-bit) with IE 8? So far, through patch Tuesday in Dec 2014, the simple registry hack updates have been OK on my XP machine, but is anyone having problems with yesterday's (Jan 2015)? Many thanks. (PS - My XP SP3 machine is a Dell Optiplex 755 with 4GB RAM. My personal email is still there on Outlook Express 6 until I can manage to move it to my new mostly unusued dual boot Win Pro 64-bit and Win 8.1 Pro 64-bit machine Dell optiplex 7010 MT with 8GB RAM. So the registry hack to keep XP updated is important to me.)

First, before making the registry change below, you should download and install Microsoft's updated Windows Installer 4.5 (KB942288-v3) from THIS LINK for Windows XP 32-bit, which is what we assume you have. (The MS article that explains this updated installer is HERE.) Next, copy the text given by @Sebijk (below) to notepad and save it as POSReady.txt Make sure what you copy starts with the "Windows..." line and has two blank lines after the line that ends in "00000001" Rename the file POSReady.txt to POSReady.reg, right-click on it, select "Merge", then "Yes". Reboot the system. =================######================= Direct Links to WU/MU (just in case...): for Windows Update http://update.microsoft.com/windowsupdate for Microsoft Update http://update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate =================######================= NOW, sometimes Microsoft Update (MU) takes a long time to get anywhere - sometimes a LONG LONG time. Sometimes even longer than that. When MU takes ages to find anything, stop it, install by hand the Office 2007 Comparability Pack and all Office 2003 updates (they usually don't require rebooting), then the latest IE8 update, then reboot. After that, MU will find all remaining relevant updates fast. If using Windows Update (WU) instead, then the latest IE8 update and a reboot should be enough. Moreover, as both Office 2003 and 2007 are now EoS, the latest IE8 update and a reboot may be enough for both MU and WU. See: <link> , <link> , <link> , and <link> . =================######================= THEN, after you've installed the initial truck-load of updates for POS since 2014, if you want to skip ahead and enable TLS 1.1 and 1.2 in your Internet Options - Advanced, go to this < LINK > and follow Heinoganda's instructions. And then you might UNcheck TLS 1.0. But please promise to come back here and slowly and carefully read every page of this thread and take notes because there'll be a test later and it's only 568 pages at this point. =================######================= 'Nuff said!

jaclaz - thanks. a) However, without something like nLite (which I've never used), how would I integrate the drivers? b) Also, when you write "Dell source", do you mean the Dell OS reinstall disk that came with my PC or some other source? Finally, new Qs for everyone: I'm not knowledgeable about the MS keys and COAs. According to Belarc Advisor, the Win XP Pro on my Dell Optiplex 755 is as follows (and of course I've changed the numbers before posting here): Microsoft - Windows XP Professional 56874-OEM-0087541-00566 (Key: HGF56-67ERT-34I90-876TR-ZZZSW) [footnote e] e. This is the manufacturer's factory installed product key rather than yours. You can change it to your product key here http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=45668 for Windows 1) First, notice both the "OEM" in the first set of numbers and the footnote. If I try to do a Repair with my final XP Pro CD (nLite or other), will the indicated Key (starting with HGF56) work, or must I first ask Dell or MS for a new key? 2) Second, the sticker on the top of the Dell Optiplex 755 mentions Vista and has a different key. When I bought this Optiplex 755, I asked Dell NOT to install Vista but to give me XP, and Dell complied. (And Dell also sent me a Vista install CD which I've never touched.) So, the label on the top of the Dell gives the key for the Vista that was NOT installed. Does this mean I'll have a problem when I insert the above HGF56... key for XP during the Repair process? Thanks.