beansmuggler

Does making the exe read-only work, or will Steam undo that and "fix" it anyways?

I hesitated to make this thread, but ultimately think the issue separate enough from the Latest Version of Software Running on XP thread (and the various Steam threads left hanging from recent history) to warrant a thread of its own since the Latest Version thread is mostly focused on productivity software and because I hate waiting half an hour downloading a game only to find that it doesn't even work. Steam lost XP support in 2019. Since then, multiple solutions have come up with varying levels of success. After trying 2 other avenues, I used the method described in this video to install Steam on XP because, while it's uncomfortably unfamiliar (they say this Steam rebuild has multiple patches, but only name one of them), it's the only way I got games to download in-client. Another method from December 2020 in the comments of this post claimed to do the same, but it didn't work for me, though this may have been because of an error I made midway. Anyways, this isn't for discussing Steam compatibility as much as it is for Steam game compatibility. Some games on XP claim to be compatible (or at least logically should be compatible) but aren't for a variety of reasons. Some games even used to be XP-compatible, but have somehow lost this after newer updates that, due to the nature of Steam, are entirely unavoidable. With this thread, I aim to create a more uniform list of what is and isn't working on XP in 2021 and beyond. So far, this is what I've found: SteamVR is not compatible. Attempts to install will only restart Steam. For all hl2-era games, your game may render itself sideways for some reason. If this happens, change your video setting to the lowest possible setting on 4:3 mode, then change it back to the resolution and aspect ratio you prefer to play at. Closing the notification you get about screen resolution from Windows is fruitless, since it comes back instantly. Attempts to change your in-game volume settings will not last after closing the game. Team Fortress 2 is not functionally compatible. The game will run, but it doesn't connect to Steam, so you lose your overlay, your inventory, the store, and really everything in the game that isn't the main menu. Starting your own server ingame crashes before reaching the team choice screen. I'm going to try one last thing (getting a Steam invite and trying to join the game through that), but otherwise I don't know of any way to make it work that wouldn't require modifications. I guess if you wanted to take the commentary tour, you could try that? Garry's Mod is not functionally compatible. After it flips your screen sideways, it gives you a bug warning in a standard MessageBox window about how to report bugs to the team. I may try some testing later with the facepunch common issues guide, but will wait on confirming things with TF2 first. Half-Life is fully compatible, even online multiplayer. Half-Life 2 is fully compatible. Portal 2, afaik, is fully compatible. Poker Night at the Inventory is fully compatible, though I don't know if it gives TF2 items due to aforementioned issues. Even though Steam overlay doesn't work with this game, you will still get achievements. Audiosurf is fully compatible, though I haven't tested the login feature. Crazy Taxi is fully compatible. Lethal League is not functionally compatible. You can hear game audio and control the menu, but the game will only display a series of scattered pixels that don't move. I haven't tested to see if resolution adjustments or menu choices will remedy this. Ultimate Custom Night, in a strange twist of fate, is fully compatible despite being released in 2018. I have other games I could test, but those are all I've covered for now. If anyone has anything else to test, or weird workarounds that could fix any incompatibility with the above, do share. Also, a game that only works when cracked doesn't count as a compatible game. You're aiming for things you can download legally with the Steam client, and nothing else.

I checked again and saw that it was just a mixed content warning, so it's a false alarm, sorry about that. In the process, though, I remembered another weird thing I've been facing. 360chrome seems to only save my browser history *sometimes*. After trying to look at my history for the past hour (I had visited my college website and was going to clear my history/cookies), I found that none of the pages I visited were present. In fact, 360chrome still seemed to believe that today is Wednesday, August 4. The last entry was at 23:59 on Aug 4, with none of the pages I visited today around midnight. It also has two entries for Aug 3 that both contain the exact same contents. When checking Aug 3, I also noticed that my last entry (Google at 23:43) had the same icon as the university website until I ran a "Clear browsing history" for the past hour and restarted the browser.

Two more things I've noticed today: 1. I think 360chrome may lack certain encryption mechanisms used by TLS 1.3 webpages, but I may just be misunderstanding the "Insecure connection" portion of the security bubble. When visiting a website I trust, it initially marked it with a green padlock (because the certificate was approved), but then became red after the page continued loading. This might just be me misunderstanding though, since the bubble also indicated that there was mixed content. I noticed another thread yesterday saying that newer versions of NoScript cause a slower, gradual website loading experience, and I use a newer NoScript version, so this may be the plugin's fault and not 360chrome's. 2. When using Discord in 360chrome, I (usually) can't see things like right-click menus, server settings, or pictures that I've clicked on to get a full view of. When I try to open those things, I notice that my cursor leaves the "Enter a message" box, but will return after I hit Esc enough times, so I think the feature to eliminate the login menu in 360chrome has somehow carried over to affect Discord. Also, when I was streaming my computer screen during a voice call, these features began to work consistently for a while. I'm not sure why it worked in that situation. I just needed to allow discordapp.net in my NoScript. Not sure why that had to be assigned to a separate domain...

I'm using v13. Disabling all extensions and disabling my firewalls proved ineffective. In Firefox, Ecosia loads fine while the browserleaks page is mixed, so I think that Ecosia and Discord are the only sites that are not working properly in my 360chrome installation, while the browserleaks website is responsible for its own problems. Also @ArcticFoxie thank you for your posts on HTTPS Everywhere, I will try to find an alternative solution that is more trustworthy if it tracks you like you said.

I am using the 360chrome version provided in this thread on XP with uBlock Origin and NoScript. I tried the "--ignore-certificate-errors", but the issue persists. I also forgot to mention in my post that 360chrome seems to default to http:// instead of https:// on all URLs. Would this be fixed with a flag?

Thank you for your help (and sorry for the late response). I haven't gotten around to it yet, but I aim to finish the CHOICE tool at some point when I start using 98 again.

I'm having the same issue. Getting certificate/TLS issues for sites like Discord and Ecosia, and rootcert issues for an SSL test site mentioned on this board. I'm pretty sure my certs were already up-to-date, but I ran the updater from Windows Legacy Update listed here just in case. Regardless, the issue persists. (I do thank you for including Ecosia though, to whoever made this contribution! )

Would 360 have the right audio codecs to support Discord voice chat in-browser? I've tried every available browser, but none do, and I want to be sure ahead of time before I begin installation

AFAIK, the only site that still uses it is Newgrounds, which runs it in its own emulator. For anything else, you use either Flashpoint or Adobe's own debug player.

Thank you, I may try using lower power settings for the CHOICE tool. It's working fine so far. I have it ask for HEADPHONES, SPEAKER, or NONE. Based on the user's choice, it copies the appropriate HDAICOUT.HDA to C:\WINDOWS. I don't have any problems with CHOICE, but if you know a way to detect which HDAICOUT.HDA is present in C:\WINDOWS, that would be helpful. I looked at CF, but I don't think I can use it in an IF statement.

I just reinstalled from fresh using their rule of Starting from SP2 > get SP3 > Get SP4 with no .NET > get post-SP4 > install .NET from Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel and I don't have any 1.1 and 4.0 listen in my list of programs, even though the installer shows a check mark beside 1.1 and 4.0. I have a freezing-after-login issue when a certain program is installed on this computer, but I'm trying to make sure that it's not because of SP4 taking from 1.1 and 4.0.

Very understandable. Should I change the other Widget values? As for the other things, commenting $00A70100 and $00D70100 would result in a black screen, and changing $00D70720 back to $00D70740 did not make a difference. The choice tool is a very good idea, so I will have to try that! Thank you for your assistance

This one seems to work! I have audio from the headphones with speakers muted. If I unplug them while Welcom98 plays, the speakers don't unmute, but the audio will continue after the headphones are plugged back in. If I boot into 98 without headphones plugged in, I get a black screen.

Unfortunately, it was still muted both times.

Sorry for the late response! I made the changes, but the audio seems to be silent for both speaker and headphones. HDAICIN.TXT HDALOG.TXT

Is there any way to test for when you have all possible updates installed? I just finished the post-SP4 update and I really can't tell if I'm done. I feel like I even have less .NET 4 updates than I did before after finishing the step to uninstall and reinstall them... plus I feel like I remember many a time where, after installing SP3, my system would still get some updates from SP2 and earlier from Windows Update as well

Applied the commenting to HDAICOUT. By the way, did you mean two semicolons like ;;this, or just one per line like ;this? I did the latter. First boot had a white error box on desktop, but that's only because I forgot to turn my processor settings back to their lowest values for 98, haha The second attempt (with proper BIOS settings) worked well, and I heard sound from both the speaker and the headphones. I went into the Windows\Media folder and played The Microsoft Sound, which played smoothly from both the speakers and the headphones, but my computer froze right before the sound could finish playing. After shutting down and booting back up, I was stuck on a black screen. Going into Safe Mode and then Normal mode fixed it. I tried the Welcom98 song and it played to completion. The speaker played music with no audible pops when I unplugged and replugged the headphones during play. HDAICIN.TXT

Yes, the headphone and microphone jacks were empty

Right here! It wouldn't boot properly until I entered Safe Mode first, but it worked out. My volume's quiet because I didn't want to disturb someone in the room who's napping haha HDAICIN.TXT HDALOG.TXT

Anyone been able to get updates for WiseVector StopX on XP? It fails when I try to update, and so far seems to detect harmless programs as malware, including things I've downloaded from this site. EDIT: I got the beta 3.00 version, but the problem persists. EDIT 2: The 3.01 beta seems to fix these problems.

I'm fine with it as it is, but I'm more than willing to cooperate if it would help the overall project.

Commenting these out seems to crash the driver on each boot with an incomplete white-block error message before the desktop can finish loading, with no popping unless VolumeWidget is set to $14. Uninstalling and reinstalling fixed the issue.

No, on $14 it only plays audio at max volume regardless of WAVEOUT settings.

Oh, I thought you meant that setting VolumeWidget to $14 would allow me to set the speaker volume to 0 in WAVEOUT while still being at max volume on my headphones.