TrevMUN

I just tested that in one of my folders that has a lot of files and subdirectories; didn't happen. XP (and XP64) have their own weird quirks, though. Like the way windows and open programs will randomly shuffle about in their arrangement. That can be an annoyance if you're trying to do a lot of cross-window operations, like dragging and dropping images from a browser to a folder, or clicking through several different windows. I haven't, no, but truthfully I can't see W2K Server having better driver support than XP64 or XP32 at this point. That's why I'm interested in Dibya's projects, trying to convert drivers for newer hardware for the XP family to use. Not necessarily that. However, once my machine has to dig into virtual memory and if I have other memory intensive programs running, the rig starts grinding when trying to tab back into to Firefox and browse around. Now, on certain sites, like Twitter ... if you are scrolling hours back on your timeline, and you attempt to click on a tweet or retweet something rather than opening it in a new tab in order to view and/or retweet it, Twitter will cause Firefox to lock up and start rapidly consuming memory, forcing me to kill the process. (Then again, Twitter's been making one awful UI choice after another in recent years.) I actually have two Mozilla-based browsers running right now with 300+ tabs open on each. They often break 1.5GB memory consumption, but don't freeze because of that.

I've only had an issue with 32-bit software not running on XP64 exactly twice, both with games. First was with Firaxis Games' Civilization 4. I never got to the bottom of why that was. Second has been with Sega's Phantasy Star Online 2, which supports (or supported, at least) XP32 but for some inexplicable reason not XP64. My suspicion is that PSO2's executables run a version check, and because XP64's version number differs from the XP32 family, Sega decided to prevent people from playing the game with that OS. You can't even install the game on an XP64 machine. If you try to copy an installation from a supported machine to an XP64 one, the game still gives you the same (in Japanese) "unsupported OS" error message. However, all other 32-bit programs I've used over the years have worked fine. 16-bit programs are another story, of course. As for why I preferred XP64, the ability to use more than 4 GB of RAM was the big draw. I wanted access to 64-bit computing without having to ditch XP for Vista; this desktop rig's been running XP64 since 2008. It was only when I came to MSFN in recent years did I ever hear about the possibility of running XP32 with more than 4 GB of RAM, whether by patch or by the RAM disk approach. Even so, I'm going to keep XP64. For my day to day purposes this OS works very well, and considering it has the least RAM consumption of all the 64-bit Windows OSes, that's worth it to me. Microsoft is already trying to put Windows 7 in an early grave, what with the attempt to lock 7 and 8 users out of security updates, and I don't like what they're doing with 10 to consider ditching XP64 for that.

jaclaz, when I brought up the RAM disk, I was actually referring to @NT Five's post a few pages ago in which he discussed the security benefits of running XP with one. As for what you've been saying, I'm already well aware that having more RAM doesn't mean that issue of running out in the long-term goes away, but frankly, I need all the RAM I can get anyway. In this day and age, 4 GB isn't really enough as it is, and I think the only reason I can get away with it is precisely because I'm using XP and thus have more RAM available (whereas the later OSes consume much more memory just to run).

I should probably clarify, @jaclaz and @98SE: my desktop rig runs XP64, so my only real concern when I go for that overhaul (since I'll be looking to take advantage of DDR4 if possible) is making sure I get hardware with drivers that support that OS. Despite XP64's reputation, that's not actually been a problem for me in the past ... but, now that Microsoft has EOL'd the XP family, it probably will be. My laptop runs XP32, and also has 4 GB of RAM. Although that particular laptop, when I bought it, was optimized for multimedia development and long battery life, I prefer to use my desktop rig where possible since that's where the muscle is. As for the RAM Disk stuff, it was a few pages ago, but @NT Five was talking about the security benefits of running XP with a RAM disk. That's what I was thinking of concerning my comments about having my desktop OS run on one with my next overhaul. Still, @98SE, what you were saying is also really interesting. I didn't think about a RAM disk acting as a workaround for granting XP access to more memory than Microsoft's limitations.

This is one reason why I need as much RAM as I can get. My desktop rig's been hurting for an overhaul for years. Between my multitasking, browsing, gaming habits, and the actual work that I do (a *lot* of multimedia, particularly video editing and 3D modeling/animation) the 4 GB I put in there from the last overhaul simply isn't cutting it anymore. My desktop's forced to use virtual memory usually within a day or two of booting up. If only I could scrape together the money on an overhaul ... This RAMDisk stuff sounds incredibly interesting and might be an ideal way of keeping an XP or XP64 machine secure. Maybe with the next overhaul I do, I'll consider setting up a fresh install using one.

I'm not even mad. I'm impressed. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/five-inmates-built-two-pcs-and-hacked-a-prison-from-within/ Five Inmates Built Two PCs and Hacked a Prison From Within By Catalin Cimpanu April 12, 2017 Five inmates from the Marion Correctional Institution (MCI) built two computers from spare parts, hid them in the ceiling of a training room closet, and used them to hack into the prison's network. Their actions were discovered in July 2015, when the prison's IT staff switched internal proxy servers from Microsoft to WebSense (now part of Forcepoint). These servers, designed to monitor and report suspicious traffic, immediately started reporting issues. Prison IT staff started receiving weird alerts In the beginning, MCI admins received reports that the user account, belonging to a prison contractor, was exceeding daily traffic quotas. While other employees had also surpassed their daily traffic threshold, the problem was that these reports were coming in the days when that employee was off duty. Things got weirder a few days later when admins received reports that the same employee was attempting to avoid the traffic monitoring proxies. At this point, the prison's IT staff decided to investigate further. Their suspicion that something was wrong was confirmed moments later when they traced back the traffic to a computer with the name "-lab9-", a name inconsistent with the prison's internal computer naming scheme. Computers hid in a closet's ceiling The prison staff started an investigation and tracked suspicious network traffic to port 16 of a switch located in the prison's P3 training room. When they got to the switch, IT staffers followed the network cable plugged into port 16 to a nearby closet, and up into the ceiling. Removing the ceiling tiles, prison employees found two fully-working computers, placed on two pieces of plywood. Inmates used parts from prison's recycling program According to a report released yesterday by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction's (ODRC), the agency says it identified the five prisoners who built the PCs. The five inmates managed to build their two PCs because they were part of the prison's Green Initiative program where they worked in trash management and electronics recycling. More at the link. I wonder if they would have been caught (or if it would have taken them longer to get caught) had they used a more consistent name for their pruno-PCs.

Holy wow, Dibya, you are knocking it out of the park with these. I wish I could do something to help, but at this juncture all I can really do is cheer you on. Recently, I saw on the Beta Forums your thread discussing some of your projects to keep XP relevant. It cheesed me off to see people on those forums, a forum dedicated to preserving and enjoying older/beta versions of operating systems, screech at you for having the audacity to continue using XP. I don't understand what drives people to such irrational hatred; it's not just Microsoft's FUD campaign, I think, because I'm starting to see the same sneering and condescension toward people using 7 or 8. I've had an interest in overhauling my desktop rig (which uses XP64) since I first started coming here. I don't have the money to justify such an overhaul yet, though, but I'll gladly volunteer to help test out drivers when I can!

What other modifications did you make to your XP install, Dibya? Maybe the results can be replicated if there's some prerequisite tweaks to be made.

Curses. I was kind of hoping you found a workaround or something, haha. I'd like to be able to use that built-in VPN ... I'm hardly an expert on the subject, but I think the reason they and other software companies are dropping XP support despite the OS still having a considerable amount of users has to do with APIs. This is an issue that never occurred to me until a year or two ago, when I first found out that this issue is what keeps XP users from playing XCOM: Enemy Unknown without doing some tinkering under the hood. That's in spite of XCOM using DirectX 9; up until then I thought the reason game companies stopped supporting XP was because Microsoft purposely withheld new DX releases from XP users. More recently, it was explained to me at Chromium's bugtracker that Google dropped XP support because it can't use APIs that Microsoft put into the newer OSes. Windows 7 and 8 probably still use all the APIs that 10 does, at least for now; despite being less popular than XP, 8 has some protection from software companies dropping it like a rock by dint of coming after 7. 7 currently enjoys a reputation of being "the new XP" in terms of performance/popularity, so Microsoft will have to get rid of 7 before software developers stop supporting 8. That's probably coming sooner than we think; Microsoft's already trying to prevent 7 and 8 users from getting updates if they're using Kaby Lake/Bristol Ridge/Quaalcomm 8996 CPUs or newer.

Are you sure the latest version supports Windows XP? While I was looking into free VPN solutions due to recent developments in Congress, I tried checking out Opera's latest browser. Their installer flashes a message about "downloading an XP compatible version" but then immediately closes. News around the net also says that Opera officially removed support for Vista and XP with version 36 (annoying, as it's version 38 that has the built-in VPN). Is there some finagling you have to do in order to get it to install?

I would have expected a snarky, low-hanging fruit response like yours if I had posed my question on Technet or any other forum. Not here. If there's nothing that can be done about it, there's nothing that can be done about it, but I was interested in finding out the potential risks and solutions involved with this vulnerability. EDIT: So I've been talking to some other people I know who are more knowledgeable on these subjects than I am. I showed them the Technet article, and what they've had to say was rather informative. For posterity, if anyone else stumbles on this thread and had similar concerns, I'm relaying what they told me. From reading Technet's article, the people I've spoken to are not even sure whether XP has the SMBv1 vulnerability. "Any code execution vulnerability would have to be in the implementation [of the data exchange protocol]," one of them told me, so if this vulnerability happened because of a change in the way it's implemented in Vista or later, then XP and older OSes wouldn't even be affected. That's not a guarantee, of course, and this discussion happened before @XPPOS2009 replied to this thread showing that a patch for 2009POSReady does indeed exist. From what I've been told, non-server versions of Windows have at least two ports from which they communicate via SMP. However, vulnerable or not, they think a decent router or similar protection would keep this vulnerability from being exploited. "Same reason most XP boxes aren't owned outright when they're on the internet," in the words of one. "The call would have to be coming from inside the house." So I guess this is only really an issue for networks which have SMBv1-using machines. Not necessarily a problem for home users or hobbyists.

Interesting. I suppose the reason why people, Technet included, don't mention POSReady2009 got the patch is part of the FUD surrounding Microsoft EOL'ing XP. Though, what should XP64 users do about this?

Hey folks, I found out today that Microsoft announced a vulnerability that affects Microsoft Server Message Block 1.0 (SMBv1) and will not patch it for any OS older than Vista. I've not been aware of SMB until today, and I've been trying to find out more about it to understand how this vulnerability affects XP users. Does this remote code execution vulnerability affect everyone? Or is it only a problem for servers? Microsoft offers ways to enable and disable various versions of SMB, but there appears to be no such information for XP users; I figured even if the XP family only uses SMBv1, there'd at least be a guide on how to disable it if it's unnecessary. If SMB is more integral to XP than that, though, I wonder if we're facing a real problem here.

Hey guys, I haven't read the entire 26 pages of this thread, but I was looking at the context of the discussion here with respect to that WineD3D compatibility layer. Dibya, what errors do you get when attempting to run the DX10/11 SDK examples? I don't know what all WineD3D does to provide XP32 and XP64 with DX10/11 compatibility, but just floating an idea out there: it may be an API issue. I never thought about this being a problem before until I encountered such a problem with X-COM: Enemy Unknown. Though that game uses DX9, Firaxis also used API calls that Windows XP doesn't have by default (though they are available). Rather than address the problem, Firaxis just decided to not support XP and ship the game anyway. An XSEED Games employee posted a guide on how to get X-COM to run on XP systems by having the game use a modified DLL with the required APIs. So, maybe WineD3D does work, but the examples are using API calls not present in XP. Unless the program is supposed to provide workarounds for that as well?

"If it ain't broke don't fix it," indeed! Considering the telemetry issues with Windows 10, I don't think we'd want something like that running a nuclear control messaging system, backup or not. I've been thinking recently with some of the news that's come out of the technology sector, particularly the Vault 7 leaks. After a certain point, does using old technology provide a layer of security of its own? I'd assume that most cybercrime or espionage is going to be focused on poking holes in the systems that see the most use, so as time goes on, knowledge of and access to methods to crack older systems fades away. Granted, security through obscurity alone is a bad idea ...

Last night I checked out AskVG as tomw suggested and followed his master guide for tweaking XP's performance. I'm glad for it, because there were a number of things I hadn't tried before, and I've noticed a significant improvement! The system still isn't as responsive as my more modern laptop (Etesia) or my desktop (Palouser), but that may just be because I've gotten used to XP running on hardware from 2008 and later that I've forgotten what it was like to use it on older hardware that is closer to minimum system requirements. However, the old laptop is taking MUCH less time to boot to desktop now, and it doesn't seem like it wants to heat up as badly just from the process of doing so. I'm grateful for the help!

Just tried using it ... ComboFix won't run; it thinks XP64 is 2K. I noticed that ComboFix automatically cleans up malware it detects. I'm more interested in finding out what program put that blank registry key in my system, or at least what program is using it. Given everything we've uncovered so far in this thread (such as the BSoDs being related to the device drivers), my hunch is that it might be the culprit, and that (based on the timing of everything) it might have been Renegade-X's doing. MBAM's scan didn't flag the registry key as evidence of malware, and neither did their beta anti-rootkit utility. EDIT: Oh, while I'm at it, I looked up what exactly Spyware.OnlineGames is, since MBAM found two instances of it in my fonts folder ... That's a relief. That means all four instances of malware that MBAM found weren't really that serious ... and in fact I bet they all came from the same source. Malwarebytes had classified one of the two other hits as being from OpenCandy, and I know I wound up getting THAT on my system due to trying to install a newer version of Daemon Tools Lite rather than the one I'd been using before. Though I do wonder why Malwarebytes doesn't use the PUP prefix for Spyware.Onlinegames that it did for the other two hits it found.

Task Manager is typically my first choice when trying to figure out why my OS is behaving strangely, yeah. I also have Process Explorer, but not on the old laptop. I may move it over there if I can't consistently keep track of what's causing the old laptop to melt down so much. However, I can say that through Task Manager I did catch one of the errant processes a few days ago: mscorsvw.exe. From what I looked into it has to do with Microsoft .NET. Thanks! I'll give those a looksee and report back on if they have any impact. Fair point. I'll have to make time to crack the laptop open and blow out any excess dust. Dried-up thermal pads, however, are beyond my ability to either diagnose or repair by myself ... Not really. I've chiefly been using this old laptop as a "last resort." About all it can handle is web browsing, instant messaging, and note taking in class. Back in 2009 I was desperate enough to try and play a game on it--Phantasy Star Universe, specifically--but it could only manage 3 to 5 FPS. So not worth it. The one that's BSoDing, Palouser, is my desktop and workstation. Palouser is where I do almost all of my PC gaming. A few times in the past I've used Etesia (that's the other laptop, the more modern one--a Lenovo Thinkpad Edge 431 to be exact) for gaming, but only old 90's/early 00's era stuff. Etesia wasn't built to be a gaming laptop.

I should point out, it was my idea to get Avast and Spybot and I've had them for several years. Bitdefender was recommended two me by several people. One of them is an IT guy, the other is an avid MMO gamer who had used several different antivirus programs. Both of them recommended Bitdefender over Avast because Bitdefender can do a better job than Avast while consuming less system resources. They spoke both from personal experience and through reviews by test labs like AV-TEST. That's the main reason why I'm planning to switch Avast out for Bitdefender. As for SpyBot, I like having it around purely for its Immunization technology, and the way it modifies the HOSTS file to head off any unwitting attempts to contact known malicious servers/sites. However, given the fact I had no idea SpyBot had received a whole new version for a year or two, and that some of the sites I've been looking at have given very unfavorable reviews of SpyBot, I'm starting to wonder if it's worth having on my system. MBAM's free version was highly recommended as a "second line of defense" seeing that it has no active protection unless you pay for it. The free version, though, was recommended as something to run a scan with on a semi-regular basis to make sure nothing slips through the active scanner's cracks (and if it does, to get rid of it). It seems to be very well loved by IT professionals from what I saw on sites like AV-TEST. I tried installing that, and it wouldn't work. But I did come across Malwarebytes' Anti-Rootkit BETA, and I'm giving that a spin just to see if it agrees with SpyBot's findings or not. EDIT: Well, crap. BitDefender's free version does not support XP64, only XP32. In fact, the most recent version of BitDefender to support XP64 is their professional 2011 version. Glad I found out about this before I uninstalled Avast. EDIT EDIT: Malwarebytes' Anti Rootkit BETA doesn't pick up any rootkits hidden in the devices or drive sectors. It won't finish scanning the file system, though, it keeps hanging up on History.IE5\desktop.ini in nVidia's UpdatusUser account. EDIT EDIT EDIT: I went ahead and installed Malwarebytes for a second-line defense. It caught some "Potentially Unwanted" stuff I got rid of and two cases of something called Spyware.OnlineGames, both in hidden DLLs located in Windows' Fonts folder. Strange. I got rid of those too, then did another system scan after the restart. MBAM says the system is clean now.

Alright. Though, right now I'd like to at least focus on the laptop performance, since I can more readily fix that than I can the dust issue. Or the thermal pad issue, for that matter, if they've dried up (and I imagine they would have at this point). When the laptop's original hard drive died, XP was installed fresh on the system using the laptop's recovery disks. In the past I had tried to make the install run lean by attempting to disable some services, but it hasn't really helped much.

I know, and I've tried before, but not to the point of disassembling the laptop to do it. Also, the overheating had been a thing even when the laptop had been previously cleaned out and left in a case, protected from dust. It doesn't even need to be doing anything graphically intensive, just something with a high CPU load. That can be really flabbergasting. I can deal with the heat buildup, though, if the laptop could be made more responsive.

Hey guys, I've got this old laptop that used to be my father's which I've been using as a "last resort" when I need to use a computer and neither my XP64 Professional desktop (Palouser) or my more modern, mobile computing XP32 Home laptop (Etesia) are available for whatever reason. This older laptop is a Hewett-Packard Pavillion ze5700us. 2004-vintage, I think? Here's the specs on it: Intel Celeron 2.80 ghz CPU1 GB of RAM (originally 512 MB)ATI RADEON IGP 345M GPUWestern Digital Scorpio Blue WD1600BEVE HDD 160GB (replaced original dead drive)Native resolution is 1024 x 768Windows XP Home 32-bit ("Made for XP" it says)I had to resort to this both last Fall (when my Asus Eee PC died and I needed to buy a new laptop, hence Etesia) and for a few weeks since the start of this semester (when Etesia was not yet back from an RMA). In the past I had to use it for much of 2009 when Palouser was knocked out by hard drive problems (and then a really ill-timed thunderstorm). Thing is, using this laptop is a royal pain. It's not very mobile; putting aside the fact it's seven pounds, it also only has a battery life of 30 minutes or so (which means any notes I take in class tend to be very unfinished no matter how conservative I am about power usage). More than that, something causes the machine to overheat very, very easily. It can be running idle and yet its fans will be cranked up, the case hot to the touch in some areas. I have a feeling this machine isn't really suited to run Windows XP despite the fact it was labeled as being built specifically to run it. But perhaps it's an issue of XP not running lean enough, or something making the laptop overheat so profusely. The laptop tends to chug as well; at first I suspected it was because, like my other machines, it had Avast on it (friends have told me that their rigs boot much much faster once they ditch Avast for BitDefender). But even trying to make the switch from Avast to BitDefender and MalwareBytes proved to be a royal pain! I'm a believer that no piece of working electronics should go to waste, though, and as much as I gripe about using the laptop I'm at least glad to have it when no other option is available. So I'd like to ask you guys your thoughts; what can I do to make this laptop run more smoothly? Should I install a less demanding OS? Are there things I can do in XP to make it more responsive?

Hey guys, It's been a while and not much has happened since I last posted here. I haven't had the time to try running that driver verifier, though now that I've got my laptop back I'll give it a shot soon. There was something interesting I wanted to bring up though, and I wonder if it may be related to what caused all the BSoDs. Recently I checked out the latest version of SpyBot 2.4 (I had been using Avast and SpyBot for protection, but I've been advised to switch to using BitDefender and MalwareBytes, which I plan to do in the near future) and ran its rootkit scanner, which explicitly states it doesn't find rootkits but any sort of tricks rootkit programs use, whether or not they're really rootkits. It flagged two entries, one of which was a folder for one of my MMORPGs that had "no admin in ACL," and the other is a registry key in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\DeviceClasses\. {0F3AAD10-A046-B8A8-F08A-227A6E0471C4}<0x00>, having something to do with Common Dialogs. SpyBot flagged this because of a "zero char in key." I talked to an IT friend about this, who told me the MMORPG folder was a security settings thing, and that the registry key the other one is possibly suspicious, or just badly designed registry key. Because it's blank, it's either a useless key in the Device Drivers section, or a tricksy method of doing something. He pointed out to me that many anti-cheat mechanisms for games and some forms of DRM try to install themselves as device drivers so they can run with kernel-level permissions, not just rootkits. Which makes me wonder, is there a way I can track down how this registry key was created, and what programs may be using it? The fact this was found in the Device Drivers section of the registry seems like it might have something to do with what's been going on ...

Alrighty. Got the disk image and chkdsk ran alright. I was looking through the log generated by chkdsk. It did some things to a few files which look like they had something to do with 3DS Max when I googled them, but what had me curious was the totals listed at the end. "0 KB in bad sectors." Does this mean chkdsk would report bad sectors as a matter of course, regardless of whether or not you ran it as /r? (I THINK chkdsk ran as /f.)

Will do. I'm glad I talked to you guys before plunging right into it! After I finish imaging and run /chkdsk, I hope the hard drive holds out long enough for me to get my laptop back from RMA. I had to send it out Friday after the monitor and touchpad broke. Talk about horrible timing ...