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OK, I've extracted the drivers from the installer file given above and attached it for anyone interested in taking a peek: Saffire Pro 26 Drivers.zip Dibya: I know it hasn't quite been 20 days, but how's it coming along? Any luck?? c

Good point. If it's too hard, why bother? It's just that, since XP is so similar to 2000, and it works perfectly fine with multicore, then why doesn't 2000 work? I just want to know *why*. If it's too impractical to fix, then I'll let it go. c

OK, I got past the BSoD; apparently, I need /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN in boot.ini, or else it'll crash with that error. Nothing new with the choppiness, though after installing Classic Theme Restorer and enabling hardware acceleration in Firefox, it seems to be manageable (IE is a mess, though, but that's unimportant since I hardly ever use it for anything other than Windows Update). I've looked at the system event logs, and I didn't find anything that seemed like it was related to the GPU. One notable thing, though, is that the hibernate function is gone. Everything else seems normal. It's OK for now, but I'd still like to fix it eventually. c

Windows 2000: Because I can! Dibya: I totally agree! It's fine to have a single core (since it's super fast on it's own anyway), but the other 7 are just sitting there doing nothing. jaclaz: I pretty much figured that mup.sys was a red herring, since replacing it didn't do any good. c

OK, here is what I have so far regarding installation of Windows 2000 Pro on an Early 2008 Mac Pro: Using nLite and HFSLIP2000 on a Windows XP installation, I slipstreamed all the updates I could find into an untouched RTM Windows 2000 i386 folder. Then, I copied XP's NTDETECT.COM file into \i386, to allow the disk to boot on the Mac Pro. I preformatted the target hard drive in Windows so I don't have to wait ages for Windows 2000 setup to do it. When booting, I punched F5 to select "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) Computer" so it'll boot. I'm trying to ascertain why the multiprocessor kernel won't boot; see below. Once Windows is up and running, I install any relevant drivers and BlackWingCat's Extended Core and Extended Kernel to gain full PAE support and to allow some XP apps to run. Done! Everything is working well in this configuration, except it seems to only be running off one core of one CPU (which I feel is a big waste of CPU power, since I have two quad-core CPUs installed for a total of 8 cores). No big deal, but little things like this really bother me! To that end, I've figured out which HAL's belong to which Kernels and added a bunch of boot.ini entries in an attempt to test each configuration, using /KERNEL and /HAL arguments to override the default selections (which are known to boot properly). So far, I've determined that both the ACPI Multiprocessor and ACPI Uniprocessor HAL+Kernel sets get as far as loading "mup.sys" before hanging. I've tried checking the boot logs and system event logs, but it never boots far enough for anything to be written, so the logs (as far as I can tell) are useless. It seems to me, based on my very limited testing, like it might be hanging on one or more of the initial drivers that get loaded just before the bootscreen shows up. Any ideas what they could be, and possible replacements? It seems the HAL and kernel themselves ARE loading properly, so perhaps they aren't the problem? Ideas (even speculation!) would be very helpful! c

Event logs? I did that, and it seemed to help *slightly*, but it's still problematic. I'll give that a try... after I figure out why I got a BSoD which reads "PAGE FAULT IN NON-PAGED AREA". (I can still use the standard unpatched kernel, so I'll go ahead and do this anyway w/o the PAE patch). c

OK, I've instead reinstalled XP on a *different* Mac Pro I just bought (an Early 2009, also with 32 GB of RAM), and so far, so good. I extracted PatchPAE3.exe from the fix128 installer, and then patched the relevant files (ntkrnlpa.exe and hal.dll) manually bypassing the Russian GUI. And it worked! Sorta.... I can see and use all 32 GB's of my RAM, but now, for some strange reason, video is very sluggish and choppy, as if the drivers aren't loaded (yet they are, as the video card is properly listed in Device Manager with no errors). Just for fun, I thought maybe I'd try installing the 32-bit Windows 7 driver from the Microsoft Update Catalog, as maybe there is a bug in the XP version of the driver that was subsequently fixed in the 7 version. If it doesn't work, I can always roll back to the current (apparently broken) XP driver. I'll try also looking for the official AMD/ATI drivers to see if that helps. In the meantime, any thoughts as to why this would happen, and/or possible solutions? c

Well, I've got it working more or less! The only problem is, it doesn't seem to see all 8 cores on my Mac Pro (it will only work in uniprocessor mode). All attempts to run the multiprocessor kernel have failed (it hangs just before the bootscreen). Any ideas on how to fix this? It's probably due to some sort of architectural peculiarity unique to this series of Apple machines. I should probably document more clearly exactly what I did so it can be repeated? c

Hi, I want to slipstream some recent POSReady updates into my XP install DVD, and, of course, they don't work. I checked out trying to modify the updates myself, but I can't figure out how. That being said, does someone have an archive of the latest updates (as of July 2016) pre-modified for installation onto/slipstreaming into standard XP? The specific updates I'm interested in are: KB2926765 KB3124280 KB3126041 KB3126587 KB3126593 KB3139914 KB3139940 KB3140709 KB3140735 KB3145739 KB3146963 KB3149090 KB3153171 KB3153199 KB3153731 KB3156013 KB3161561 KB3161664 KB3161949 KB3162835 KB3164033 KB3164035 Thanks! C

OK, after messing with drivers and stuff, I am not getting a BSoD I can't get around (it happens in safe mode too), so I'm going to have to reinstall. Oh, well. As long as I don't reformat again, it should be fairly quick. c

I am trying! So far, I've gotten to the "Starting Windows" progress bar, but it hangs just before the bootscreen. I suspect it is related to a bad HAL, so I'm trying again with a different one. I'll post any updates as they come. c EDITS: Update#1 - I'm scrapping the VMware Fusion idea, so I slipstreamed USP5.1 (to enable LBA48 during setup) and copied XP-SP3's NTDETECT.COM (to enable it to boot on the Mac Pro) into the install CD, so hopefully that'll work (so far, I've managed to boot the installer, which is promising, though it seems to be hanging at "Setup is starting Windows 2000"). Update #2 - OK, well I have discovered that selecting "ACPI Multiprocessor PC" causes setup to hang. Selecting "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC" (as directed here) allowed setup to proceed, so it appears to be the only workable option. So, after clearing that up, setup has now been able to start successfully and is now (slowly) formatting the hard disk!* *XP's initial textmode setup has "Quick Format" options that are much faster. Is there any way I can get those in 2000's setup? Update #3 - We have liftoff! The *ridiculously* long formatting process has completed, and it has successfully booted into the GUI portion of setup!!! Yay!!! Update #4 - SUCCESS!! I have Windows 2000 Advanced Server fully installed and booted on my Mac Pro! Now to find at least some of the drivers necessary to get it somewhat usable. Anyone know if there was ever a Win2k-compatible driver for the AMD Radeon HD 5770?

Good point. However, all Intel-based Macs use EFI firmware with BIOS emulation, so I'd expect the Mac Pro to behave more or less identically to the Mini where booting is concerned. Once booted, however, the differences in the hardware come into play, and that is the uncharted territory I'm attempting to figure out here. And you're right again, in that if it were so simple, it would've been done hundreds of times, with lots of documentation to back it up. On the other hand, 2000 was old news by 2007, and many users at that time preferred to use XP (XP was still current and readily available at the time, whereas 2000 was no longer available at retail (as far as I know) and was nearing EOL). c

Hmm, well, I'll try it anyway and see. I've got nothing to lose. You think 2000 would autodetect and correct for the different hardware? c

Hmm, OK. I have VMware Fusion installed on my Mac, so I'm gonna try to link it to a real disk and install 2000 that way. Theoretically, it *ought* to work, and then I can use something like Winclone to put the whole thing on an internal disk or something. If it fails, I'll try what you suggest. EDIT: So far, 2000 within the VMware Fusion environment is happily installing on my external Firewire drive, so that's promising. c

Indeed. Most of the drivers Apple provided, though, seem to have combined XP/W2k drivers, so I suspect they'll work equally as well on both OSes. I've installed XP many times on this particular machine, so that works 100%. By generic image, though, do you mean something like installing it on a regular PC, removing the hard drive from that PC, and cloning it onto a drive in the Mac? That could work. The only issue is MBR vs. GPT (I highly doubt 2000 understands GPT, as even XP is iffy with it). The Mac will boot from MBR-only disks though (except I won't be able to choose the disk via the Startup Disk preference pane; no big deal there), so it should be fine. c

jaclaz: Thanks! That's exactly what I wanted to know!! Since the documented process of replacing the NTDETECT.COM file seems generic enough, the process of installing it on the Mac Pro should be identical to that of the Mini (though I'm not sure what setup will do if it finds a pair of quad core processors instead of a single dual core one; I suspect it'll work fine, as multiple physical processors were a thing when 2000 was released (I might want to try advanced server or something like that, though, as it has proper PAE support so I can use all 32 GB's of my RAM)). I shall give it a try at some point today and report back any news.... c

Hi, I'm just wondering if anyone has done this successfully, since I would like to experiment with it. c

OK, I just thought I'd bring this up again, as I noticed something strange. On this same computer (2008 Mac Pro), the same thing happened under Windows 7 with 100% official updates (the mouse cursor froze). However, it recovered after I left it in standby for a few minutes. This suggests that it may be a hardware issue of some kind. I wonder if XP would've done the same? If/when I get around to reinstalling it, I'll have to give that a try. Thanks, c

I have a link in the first post, but here it is again for convenience: Saffire MixControl 3.4 The driver itself is hidden inside the installer somehow, but it's there. I hope you can get something working, and I'll gladly test anything that you come up with as you go! c

Yes, I realize that it is "officially" unsupported on XP! The point of this topic was to see if it is at all possible to hack the drivers (or XP itself) such that it works on the unsupported system. People here have done so many wondrous things with XP (4+ GB on XP 32-bit, XP USP4, etc.) that I thought maybe *someone* had an idea as to how my audio interface could be made to work. Of course, if it's absolutely impossible to modify an existing driver (necessitating the reverse engineering of all the protocols used in the noncompatible driver and writing an XP-compatible one from scratch), then I'll just accept that and either 1) not use my interface under XP, or 2) go find the legacy version of the interface that is natively XP-compatible. c

Hi, I would like to do some audio recording under XP, but it would seem that my interface is only compatible with Windows 7 and up. The drivers don't have any checks to see what OS they're on, so they blindly install on XP (I do get the "driver not signed" dialog, though), which of course causes everything to freeze quite hard. That being said, I'm wondering how easy it would be to modify the driver such that it wouldn't crash, and if not the driver, maybe update/hack/patch XP somehow? The driver is contained within saffire-mixcontrol-3.4.exe and can be downloaded here for the curious. Thanks, c

OK. That makes more sense. I'll try it and see. Any idea what the checkboxes mean? c

OK, I got the fix128, but I can't figure out how to use it since its UI is in Russian (which I can't understand) Also, the problem seems to be affecting Firewire as well, so maybe it's just some sort of incompatibility with a recent update? I'll try reinstalling standard XP with SP3 and only official updates to establish a baseline, then I'll add stuff from there. Thanks for the help! c

There's also the problem that more and more, wireless routers, access points, and smartphone hotspots are only supporting WPA2 and dropping WPA and WEP compatibility. Fortunately, having an open (unsecured) network is still an option for the most part, but that does of course negate the whole point of this discussion. c

Hmm, I will give it a try... once I figure out how to get it! There's a link on a Russian forum, but I need to join it to be able to download. EDIT: I decided to just register and download the thing. I'll try applying it shortly. c