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Why am I not surprised? Windows 10 is okay, if I disable virtually anything, but I like every other version better, particularly XP and 7. Even Windows 8 (not 8.1) is better! In stock form!! When that happens, you KNOW something's wrong, because 8 was pretty bad. Out of fairness though, 8.0 did improve over time, eventually evolving into the much better 8.1, but still.... c

It's not XP, but K-Melon 76 Pro happens to work very well in Windows 2000 with Extended Core. I'm using it to type this post, in fact c

No I mean I have the 32-bit version of "real" Firefox working. I could try the 64-bit version of "real" Firefox, but we'd probably run into the same problems as with Waterfox. I could try compatibility mode, but since there's no entry for Windows Vista x64 (which is understandable, since XP x64 predates it by at least two years), I'm not sure it'd work. c

This is good information! Perhaps I'll give this a try when I get some time. Firefox is open source, yes? I wonder what would happen if somebody took the source code for the 64-bit version and compiled it with the XP compatibility flag set. Would it just work with few/no changes to the code, or explode spectacularly with a million errors? c

An oversight you think? If I unpack the installer for 32-bit Firefox and set the main executable to the "Windows XP" compatibility mode, it works quite well, so not all is lost. It would be nice to have a natively working 64-bit version, though. c

Too bad they didn't offer it to 2000 Well, I'm sure some enterprising person can find a way to backport the patch, since 2000 and XP share a common codebase (NT 5.x), and are relatively compatible with one another (case in point: the latest HFSLIP packages for 2000 incorporate many XP-specific updates which appear to slipstream successfully into 2000's install media, and said media seems to install a properly working 2000). c p.s. Is 9x, NT 3.xx or 4 affected by this?

I saw that just now. There was only one other time that Ms released an update for an EOL'ed OS, wasn't there? Well, nevertheless, it makes me feel a bit better about XP x64! And yes, the article did mention that the initial infection needed to be initiated by a person. I just forgot to mention it, as it was very late when I wrote that post. EDIT: Note, however, that Vista was conspicuously not included in this post-EOL update. Perhaps MS should reconsider "un-EOL"-ing these Windows versions for a time, given how they are apparently still being used in significant numbers. c

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/technology/article/Global-extortion-cyberattack-hits-dozens-of-11142481.php Apparently XP was a major target, since the mainstream version (i.e., not updated with POSReady patches) is still vulnerable, and is still widely used within the affected organizations due primarily to severe budget cuts in their IT departments. As a result, I think today it can be said that, once and for all, plain XP is definitely not safe. Not even good browsing habits or firewalls could stop this, apparently. Of course, those of us who regularly apply POSReady updates to our XP systems are supposedly safe, since POSReady was patched for this particular vulnerability (those money-starved IT depts. would benefit greatly from this I think; it's technically not a supported configuration, and would thus create more headaches, but it's free compared to a complete upgrade). EDIT: XP x64, however, was not patched. Since that is based on Server 2003, I wonder how trivial it would be to backport relevant updates from Server 2008 (it's NT6 vs. 2003's NT5, but maybe they're similar enough??). Of course, if it could be done, it probably would've been done by now, so it's probably impossible.... c

I just got one of these from my local JC's computer surplus, and with some TLC, it runs quite well. I thought I'd try putting 98SE on it, because I'd read that it was possible. So, after downloading and installing the drivers, 98 installed easily. There are still three unknowns in Device Manager, though: Universal Serial Bus Controller, PCI device, and PCI Network device. I can guess that the network device is the unrecognizable Intel WiFi card, and the PCI device is probably the modem, but what of the extra USB controller? USB seems to be doing OK, so maybe it has something to do with Bluetooth (there doesn't appear to be a Bluetooth card, but maybe that's the bus it would've used had it been installed?) I'm content with it as is (98SE at 1.4 GHz!), but if I can fix these, I'll be happier c

OK, I'm getting XP up and running on a Dell Latitude D600, but with a slow, single core P4 CPU, I'm afraid that updating via WU will take days of sitting at "Checking for updates...", instead of the hours it took for my comparatively much faster D630. Any advice on how to prevent the stickage? c

I have a Nehalem/Westmere-based 2009 Mac Pro (very old, I realize) with Windows 7 on it. I shall boot it up sometime soon and check if it's affected by this new "feature". Windows 8.x is also affected by this garbage, yes? c

I'm beginning to hate Microsoft. They keep breaking things needlessly, and adding useless features that do nothing but spy on users. And this CPU-block, in particular, is absolutely arbitrary and completely unnecessary. It's just an attempt to force people to abandon it via FUD. There is no technical reason why MS can't provide updates to those systems. They're just desperate for people to "upgrade" to Windows 10. One more reason to use XP, I guess. It's seemingly unaffected by this nonsense, fortunately, so it should be good until 2019. It has it's own issues, but at least this isn't one of them. c

I have a nitpick: This thread's title seems weird... It says this thread was updated this coming November? It's from the future! I'm fairly confident it is supposed to be 11/04/16. c

I think the old/standard Windows 10 UI is rather ugly, and this Neon junk doesn't make it much better. I didn't like Aero very much when it debuted in Windows Vista, but over the years, I've grown to like it somewhat more (I still prefer the Classic Theme). Incidentally, Windows 10 with AeroGlass is actually quite decent. It's notably more buggy than in Windows 8.x (at least in my experience), but it's manageable. c

This does not seem to affect older machines with, say, Core2Duo, Core2Quad, 6th-gen and older i3/i5/i7's, and their AMD equivalents. Is that true? If it does affect those, then that stinks. This kinda makes me not want to get newer hardware, though. Certainly nothing Kaby Lake or newer. I only have Windows 10 in a VM so I can say I have it. I'm never going to use it as my primary OS. c

Really? Last I knew, WU was at v6, and 2000 worked fine with that (basically the same as XP). And just yesterday, I opened up WU on my XP machine, and it works fine, albeit slowly. I agree, however, that Microsoft seems intent on erasing any evidence of the existence of anything older than Windows 10 nowadays, which is too bad. They may be EOL, but they're still perfectly usable with some work. c

Yeah, my CompSci instructor jeers at me for using 8.1! I finally installed a sandboxed Windows 10 VM to appease him I don't care if people disagree that I'm running outdated operating systems (although 8.1 is anything but old); If it works and does what I need, so be it. I will only upgrade if I either see a quantifiable and/or beneficial improvement (and, with Windows 10, I haven't, and probably never will), or I am forced because of new hardware (when my current hardware dies/becomes too old to be useful, I'll be stuck with Windows 10 and macOS 10.12+, and I'm not looking forward to it). There is the matter of safety, but I feel that at least 75% of that is FUD 50% of the time, and with that, I figure that with good browsing habits and a well configured firewall, it shouldn't be too big a problem. c

I'm trying to figure out why the system tray icons are distorted and smaller than usual. Does anyone know why? c

They are indeed. A carefully tweaked Windows 8.1 doesn't look too bad, though, and is mostly 7-like. I used to hate it, but after excising all the Metro junk, I have warmed up to it considerably. I still prefer either XP or 7 as my main OS, though, as I just like them better overall. c

Here is my highly tweaked Windows 10 VM: I ran the Re-Tweaker script, the blackbird script (which overlaps with the Re-Tweaker some wrt privacy settings), installed Winaero Tweaker, 7+ Taskbar Tweaker, Aero Glass 8+, OldNewExplorer, and of course, Classic Start Menu, and it is *almost* the same as 8.1. Some minor annoyances, though: The system tray icons are weird and distorted, and the Quick Launch (I'm amazed that it's still in there, after all these years) icons are weirdly spaced. The titlebars are too big, but if I make them much smaller, the caption and icon get cut off a bit on top. It's a bit clunkier and slower overall than 8.1 on the same hardware, with the same RAM and CPU allocations. All in all, though, it's surprisingly not too bad. I'd never run it on real hardware, though, so it stays in the VM. c

That actually looks okay! How did you do it?? c

OK, I have my Windows 10 VM set up, running version 1607. I want to keep it that way, and I want to try your Re-Tweaker. Where can I get it? c

Nothing's easy with Windows 10, it seems. I hope you get this sorted out. c

And much of it is allegedly sponsored, quite curiously, by the Russians. Coincidence?? Anyway, I've been trying for a WEEK to download Windows 10 to put in a VM (as it seems like I'll have to succumb to it eventually, I figured I'd be a bit preemptive and install it in its own little sandbox so I can play with it; this IN NO WAY means that I'll be using it as my main OS! I'm sticking with 2k, XP, Vista, 7, and to a small extent, 8.1 for as long as I can), but using this software called SecureDownloadManager is a waste of time! It works OK for other things, but with the Windows 10 download, it will go up as high as 55% complete, then it'll mysteriously pause itself, and when I go to resume, it says an error has occurred. When I restart the download, it loses about half of it's progress! I'm never going to get to 100% at this rate!! I do have a valid license key (which I acquired for free through my school), so I'm thinking I'd be better ff downloading the ISO from bit torrent. At least that doesn't crash and do the 1 step forward, 10,000 steps backward trick. c

Very concisely stated! c