Country Cat

Thank you so much! Glad to finally get a clear answer on this. This is a great starting point. I will consider trying this out in the upcoming weeks and document my results here.

Greetings. Apologies if this has already been asked in some form or another, but text guides often get outdated or replaced with simpler means. Also I searched the forums beforehand and got no results. Most guides I found only use Windows 10. I was gifted an Acer C730 [GNAWTY] Chromebook a while back. I understand that Baytrail models support Windows 10 (I actually have it installed at the moment for software testing). However, I would like to downgrade to 7. If I cannot, I may have to move back to GalliumOS or some other lightweight Linux distribution. I keep finding mixed answers on various forums, but I've also seen a lot of people outright say others shouldn't because 7 is obsolete. I'm just doing it for fun, so I don't really care if it's obsolete. I just want to know if it would even be possible. If anyone here has already tested it before, what were your results? Could you document any driver issues you had? Thank you for reading.

The latest version of Panda Antivirus works on XP (somewhat, it's a bit buggy sometimes). I should mention that when I tested it I got a lot of false positives. I can't really say I'd recommend it. ClamAV supports anything from W95 and up I believe, although there's no automatic scanning. You would have to scan things manually with it.

Thank you for the warm welcome, Legacyfan. I read the patch notes and it states that it has the possibility to corrupt Windows files. Use at your own risk. I would not recommend using this without backing up any important files. Alternatively, the Fix128 patch may be easier to use. Again, I haven't tested either of these so I can't comment on how well they function.

I refuse to use Apple products whenever possible; I'm not a Google fan either but I'm unaware of any CFW that would be compatible for my phone. I've actually seen some people use virtual machines on their mobile devices to run Windows XP and lower, but never tried it myself. I think it would be nice for playing some old games on-the-go.

As sad as it is to see, I'm certain there will come a day where 7 will also no longer be able to suit my needs. It will be unfortunate, but I will most likely move to a Linux-based OS such as Mint and theme it to replicate the look and feel of XP/7. Themes and a bit of fiddling with WINE can make Linux more comfortable. I think this would be a great idea for anyone uncomfortable with W10 or W11, but are unfamiliar with navigating Linux. (Although some people have managed to get Steam working for XP beyond 2019, that too eventually broke over time. Some things just don't last forever.) Doesn't mean I wouldn't still use 7 or XP from time to time, though. I'll always have either one on a drive on-hand. There's hundreds of legacy and offline applications that are too useful to die off. @cmccaff1 mentioned this.

Very nice. I don't think I've tried Serpent before. I will have to give it a test. (Also, nice to hear you are also a fellow Android user! )

Hahaha; I personally refrain from logging into certain things on XP out of an abundance of caution, though I'm certain the majority of malware nowadays probably target more modern OS's and hardware. It's nice to hear that you still get use out of it, to the point that it's still a daily driver. XP and 7 are both my daily drivers (they get equally used almost every day, but if I had to pick one I'd have to go for 7). I must admit I didn't like 7 at first, but I've grown quite attached to it over the years. Also a lot of things that are no longer possible on XP are still possible on 7 (like installing and running Steam games, a must-have for playing with my nephew). It seems a lot of browsers are no longer supporting XP as of late. What browsers do you use? I am currently using a fork of Pale Moon called New Moon, but would appreciate hearing any other alternatives (besides MyPal, as while it's nice it does not fit my needs. Many webpages would not load properly on MyPal.)

I think I saw a user named "mockingbird" on another forum asked about a Spectre/Meltdown patch for POSReady2009 back in 2018, but I don't know if they ever found one. I'm sorry; I wish I could be of more help. Good luck on your search, and I'll be sure to let you know if I manage to find more info. Edit: Question was updated to be more general, KB4056615 seems to be the one you are searching for.

I have to say that I believe Windows XP as an OS will always be usable, even if in an emulated form. With the amount of legacy software out there, it will be worth something, whether if it's simply to run older games or programs for older hardware. In fact, I just installed it recently to a spare drive for use on older websites and for running DOS games. I use it for viewing sites like Bitview, FriendProject and RetroBook, all of which were made to emulate the 2006-2009 era of the internet. However, I wouldn't use it to login to more serious pages though (like Amazon for example).

There's a patch by Dibya that claims to allow up to 128GB of RAM to be usable, however I've never tested it myself so I can't verify whether or not it would be useful for your case. I didn't see it mentioned in the thread so far but figured it would be worth noting.