bluebolt

Have you had the chance to review posts 650-656 on this thread? That starts on page 26 of this topic. Hopefully there's some useful information there, sorry I can't be of more help.

Hard to miss this one: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9248614/Windows_XP_hack_resurrects_patches_for_retired_OS

I've now completed an OS re-install on my frontline Z77 machine in order to change it over to AHCI mode. Fernando was nice enough to make a W2K Pro AHCI driver, which has worked well, so I took the opportunity to use it here, and to post one last CrystalMark result. I'm running USP5.1 and the most recent UUR (20140103) by tomasz86. The hardware is listed at the end. My only firm conclusion is that real-world results, using one's own applications, are probably the best test. Although newer computer processors may be superior clock-for-clock, Sandy Bridge "K" in a Z77 mainboard arguably stands as the ultimate in 4-core desktop performance. As the manufacturing process continues to shrink, from 32nm (Sandy Bridge) to 22nm (Ivy Bridge and Haswell) to 14nm (Broadwell), a CPU's thermal limit remains too dominant a factor, in terms of overclocking, for the new technology to be put down by the newer. Unfortunately, each succeeding generation of hardware also poses tougher problems for those of us who run Windows 2000 Professional. For now, unless someone makes a v11.2 AHCI driver for the 7-Series, I think I've taken my favorite platform as far as I will. To paraphrase the lyric, I got 99 problems and (this) ain't one. So it's on to the neXt 99 problems. _______________________________________________________________ Central Processing Unit: Intel i7-2700K Sandy Bridge (3.5GHz) CPU @ 5.0GHz OS Drive: Intel DC S3700 Taylorsville SATA III 100GB SSD (Intel Controller) [4GB Pagefile] Secondary Drive: Intel 330 Series Maple Crest SATA III 180GB SSD [4GB Pagefile] Motherboard: Biostar TZ77MXE Z77 Micro-ATX UEFI Motherboard Memory: G.SKILL DDR3 1333/10600 4x1GB 8-8-8-21 SDRAM GPU: nvidia GeForce 630 2GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Video Card

I’m not really competant to guide you here, but perhaps I can offer some (hopefully) useful information, and you can do with it what you will… In terms of finding information on BWC’s site, BlackWingCat has posted that: You can find the important files on my blog with the following keyword on Google. BM site:jp blackwingcat + what you want for ex) BM site:jp blackwingcat nvidia Use Google Translate with the Google browser (Google Translate using other browsers may be problematic at the present for BWC's site). _______________________________________________ I can’t say what’s best for you, but I notice that tomasz86 seemed to make a specific point of NOT using the Game version of BWC’s kernel. BWC’s kernel is included in UURollup. Windows2000-UURollup-v11-d20140103-x86-ENU.7z is the latest Daily, and I think the version included there is v23l. If I’m not mistaken, the extended core is included as well. (See the topic Unofficial SP 5.2 for Microsoft Windows 2000).

I'm an average computer user (2K Pro and XP), and have had a particularly distasteful month setting up Windows 7 machines for a couple of family members. I just discovered this topic and read through it entirely. I had a flashback to my childhood, when my Dad took me to see the Harlem Globetrotters play. To all, bravo.

I have finally solved the problem I described in Post #21, and now have Windows 2000 Professional successfully installed on the Haswell platform, and operating in ACPI Multiprocessor PC mode. Long story short, the installation was freezing at the “Setup is starting Windows 2000” screen because Windows 2000 incorrectly identified the Serial Port, apparently as a floppy drive, even though there is no floppy drive connected and no FDD connector on the motherboard (Windows XP installation had no such problem). So in the end all I had to do was disable “Serial Port (COM)” in the BIOS. After that the OS installed smoothly, although there was still the little problem of no USB function that has been characteristic of W2K installations on at least the last four generations of Intel motherboards, requiring initial use of a PS/2 keyboard and Device Manager to point the system to the standard USB drivers. I should also mention that Windows XP installed easily on Haswell, and I was able to use nLite to integrate Fernando’s Series 8 AHCI Universal driver v11.2 for true SATA mode. Anyone planning this type of installation should secure a copy of Intel’s previous chipset device software (v.1.1.54.0 aka v. 9.3.2.1020), which is the last one to support 2K Pro or XP. That, and choose a motherboard with LAN and audio hardware for which W2K drivers are available (e.g. Realtek). Then all that’s needed is a video card, which has the added benefit of freeing up about ½ GB of RAM compared to integrated graphics, and you’re good to go with Windows 2000 Professional on Intel’s latest cutting-edge hardware.

What I'm saying is that everything does work, except the ACPI multiprocessor PC. The installation is complete, and I'm running in AHCI SATA mode using BWC's 8.9c driver. The only driver I don't have is the video driver, which is the one I don't need.

I installed Windows 2000 Professional using a Biostar Hi-Fi Z87X motherboard and an Intel i7-4770K Haswell processor (Series 8 / C220). I used tomasz86’s most recent HFSLIP package with BWC’s 8.9c AHCI driver integrated. With one glaring exception, the installation proceeds much like it does on the Z77 motherboard. The initial problem with W2K on Haswell: installation stalls at the “Setup is starting Windows 2000” screen. To get past this, I started over and hit F5 rather than F6 when prompted for a third-party driver. This provides a choice of computer types, but choosing “ACPI Multiprocessor PC” does nothing to correct the stall, so I’m forced to choose the “Standard PC” HAL instead. This leaves me running on one core instead of four cores. The rest of the OS and driver installation is just about exactly like the Z77. I tried using Device Manager to change the “Standard PC” driver to “ACPI Multiprocessor PC” after the fact, but this produced a BSOD upon reboot.

Congratulations on the new job, if that's appropriate, although I have to admit I hoped your recent silence was because you were working on USP5.2; I'm selfish like that Seriously, though, best wishes with that new schedule (sounds like a prayer may be in order), and here's hoping we still get to hear from you...at least once in a while.

Just checked Windows Update using Windows 2000; no problem here.

I previously tested using BWC’s AHCI driver version 8.9b. Now version 8.9c is available, so I decided to re-test, and the results show a definite improvement on my system. As before, the first thing I tried was to rip a DVD disc to the HDD, and found, once again, that it took twice as long as IDE mode. I used Device Manager to uninstall the DVD drive, as before; but this time, when I re-booted the DVD drive re-installed properly. I decided to rip the DVD again, and it ripped twice as fast – in other words, about the same as IDE mode. So driver version 8.9c seems to have fixed the optical drive problem (at least after a reinstallation). Good news there. Next I ran the following tests: These comparisons involve very few variables. I made two separate OS discs: one with the AHCI driver (integrated using nLite), the other without the AHCI driver. The only different installation setting was, of course, to the BIOS SATA mode (AHCI or IDE). I installed the OS on the exact same hardware, in the same way, deleting the old partition and creating a fresh partition of the same size in each instance. I used a WD Black 2.5” 7200 RPM HDD to save wear and tear on my SSD, and did not overclock. At some point I would like to try these tests again using an SSD, since the main performance advantage ascribed to AHCI is Native Command Queuing (NCQ), which may be nullified when using a solid-state drive.

Intel's latest Chipset Device Software (2/25/2014) just went up, and it looks like they've dropped support not only for Windows 2000, but Windows XP as well.

I've now installed all my software, which went fine in AHCI mode, no hangups or glitches at all there. The first thing I tried was to rip a DVD disc to the HDD, and found it took twice as long as IDE mode. My initial thought was that I had neglected to set the controllers to DMA mode for the optical drive, but apparently that concept doesn't apply to AHCI, so there was no option for doing so. I uninstalled the optical drive and rebooted to let the system reinstall it, but it couldn't; the specific drive model is listed correctly in Device Manager, but there is a yellow exclamation mark over it, although this same drive installed fine during the OS installation in AHCI mode. I uninstalled the AHCI controller and rebooted, but this produced the same result.

BlackWingCat released a new AHCI SATA driver version 8.9 dated 02/23/2014, purportedly workable with Windows 2000 on the Z77 platform (7 Series / C216 chipset). I decided to conduct a prelimary test to see if it worked using an Intel Sandy Bridge i7-2700K CPU on a Biostar TZ77A motherboard, and the results look promising. The problem before, when integrating the XP driver, has been the error “iastor.sys is corrupted,” which stops the show early in the installation process, and leaves IDE mode as the only available option. While I’m still uncertain just how great a performance improvement there is running “true” SATA mode (compared to IDE), this has nonetheless remained a W2K grail of sorts for me. Today I installed Windows 2000 Professional using the USP5.1 HFSLIP package tomasz86 provides, which includes UURollup v11d20130226; this is the best kernel extension option I have for the installation process (after installation I updated to 11d-20140103). I suppose there will still be problems to work through, as this was a cursory test, but the result looks a lot better to me than a blue screen that simply says “The iastor.sys is corrupted.” Thank you, BlackWingCat.

I looked into it when Haswell first came out, only to find that no motherboard manufacturer offered any drivers whatsoever for Windows XP, much less Windows 2000 (aside from Intel's own chipset device software).

I'm not finding the new UUR daily on Google Drive.

Thanks for this explanation, tomasz86; I wondered why the HFSLIP package wasn’t routinely updated right along with the daily release of UURollup. I’m really looking forward to your USP5.2, and am hoping it can be integrated using nLite just like an official service pack. Thank you for continuing to work on Windows 2000, even as you include Windows XP. I will continue to use both.

I just went through this SFC.DLL problem a couple of weeks ago when I installed Avast; it was warning me about that file at every bootup, but was unable to uninstall it. However, I noticed a setting in Avast that allowed me to create an exception for that file, which I did. It worked perfectly and eliminated the nag.

Another favorite of mine is SpywareBlaster. One neat thing about Windows 2000 is the compactness of the installation, and it’s nice to have software consistent with that trait. SpywareBlaster is free yet provides active protection, an unusual feature for freeware.

Nice job, AnX, this is good to know. It’s been a while since I set up a Windows 2000 computer for surfing the web, but I definitely plan to do so in the near future, and it sounds like Avast! is just about the only game in town for anti-virus.

I’m talking about the Intel Series HD Graphic Driver that BWC has made available for Windows 2000 with the i7 CPU. The link is here: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fw2k.flxsrv.org%2Fdrivers.htm ...and from there I click the "Intel Series / HD Graphic Driver" link. The filename of the most recent version is w2k_145111.exe (dated 2013/4/08). The filename of the previous version is w2k_145110.exe (which worked for me before). I decided to start with a fresh OS installation (USP5.1/HFSLIP with INF integrated, followed by .NET Frameworks 1.0 to 4.0). When I ran the new driver (145111) the computer again went into a reboot loop. So I began again with another fresh OS installation. This time I installed the driver that had worked before (145110), and the installation went fine. Apparently the new driver has some sort of problem, at least in terms of my setup.

The 32CPU worked fine, thank you, showing 8 CPUs in Task Manager, which became 4 CPUs with hyper-threading disabled. The top four lines in the CrystalMark results are at least 10% higher with HT disabled. On a separate note, unfortunately I tried to update the BWC HD driver, because I noticed there was a new version (win2k_145111). I uninstalled the previous version (win2k_145110), rebooted and ran the new one. The grand result was that I wrecked my video driver. Now I cant even get 145110 to install; the installation process aborts and the system reboots. Ive tried uninstalling all unknown devices in safe mode, but the driver still wont install now.

Okay, tomasz86, I will do that. I only asked because I couldn’t locate KB979683-v2 in either UURollup-v11 or within any of the UnofficialSP5 HFSLIP folders; it’s probably just in a form I don’t recognize. I will use your 32CPU.cmd.

Would it work as well if I just ran the KB979683-v2 executable? And just for future reference, could I add this exe to one of the UnofficialSP5 HFSLIP folders? Thank you for the advice on CrystalMark, I’ve been trying to figure out which version of that to use, as I continue to tune this setup. I will definitely test that with and without HT.

These pictures prompted my question. Sorry if I’ve missed the obvious; it wouldn’t be the first time. I do have hyper-threading enabled in the BIOS.