whydoihavetosignupforattachments

Just perform the fix I mentioned yesterday. This should prevent the broken security enhancements from being applied to the system when clean installing XP SP4. Alternatively, tell me whether I should just post fixed setup files here or make a YouTube video detailing all of this.

If you do a clean install with an installation source that has SP4 slipstreamed, this might be one of the easiest fixes. (alternatively you could disable the sp4sec feature in an unattended installation file, but I have not tested this yet.) Extract sysoc.in_ and comment out the line containing text similar to: sp4sec=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,xpfixit.inf,hide,7 in sysoc.inf with a semicolon in front of the line. Then, delete sysoc.in_. Another fix would be to edit xpfixit.inf to omit all lines starting with "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\". I do not know how to fix a live install of SP4 or the service pack installer to circumvent this issue though. P.S.: I am quite shocked that it took much of a decade (8 years!) for people to notice that publicly, because when I investigated this a year ago, I was not able to find anything. Edit 2: FYI, in WindowsXP-USP4-v3.1b-NODOTNET-x86-ENU.exe/i386/update/update.inf (might vary for the normal version), line 4033 (under the [ProcessesToRun] INF section) the installation of the "SP4 Security enhancement is triggered", as far as live SP4 installation is concerned. Perhaps one could edit xpfixit.inf before starting the live installation of SP4?

I would like to add my own observations regarding Service Pack 4 issues and possible fixes (in the unlikely case that somebody or harkaz ends up fixing them) in this post. While using the "Service Pack 4 Security Enhancements" (xpfixit.inf) in my own Windows XP build, I discovered that after installing Office 2007/2010 in German, the Explorer would crash upon right-clicking any file of unknown type. Upon further investigation, I found out that removing all lines responsible for changing anything in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT from xpfixit.inf fixes that problem. (including a niche issue whereby installing SP4+MCE, then installing Office XP/2003 before applying a Office Service Pack would result in Media Center HTML-based apps (including MCE's integrated help pages) breaking) Perhaps this is related to the issue above. Slipstreaming SP4 into a Windows XP MCE installation source renders the installer unable to accept any product keys. I have no idea how to fix this. .NET Framework 4.0 will not be installed or displayed in the optional components menu when installing XP MCE with SP4 slipstreamed. I am aware that this was done deliberately to circumvent an issue whereby ehrec.exe would be pinned at 100% when updating the Electronic Programme Guide, described in the following thread on Microsoft Connect (archived) : https://web.archive.org/web/20110926114611/https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/594777/net-4-and-mce2005-epg-download (note: ehrec.exe probably uses up 100% of a processor core, so the users in the mentioned thread likely had dual core processors, resulting in a 50% processor load) A similar issue arose when I installed MCE 2005 and .NET Framework 4.0 before running the audio test in Media Center Setup that would also hang ehrec.exe and pin it at 100% processor load on one core/processor thread. Inspired by the following article I realised that placing a mscoree.dll (Microsoft .NET Framework Core Execution Engine Library?) with version 1.1.4322 from the .NET Framework 1.1 installer into the \Windows\ehome folder fixed that issue. Here is the mentioned article: https://kevinchalet.com/2018/10/07/highway-to-dll-hell/ P.S.: The .NET problem of the person above looks like an incomplete or corrupted .NET Framework install to my eyes, but I cannot say what went wrong there. Perhaps you have to wait longer between SP4 installation and reboot?