xpclient

Yes tried it. Seems to be related to some core VXD driver.

I do have a problem getting Windows 95 to shut down properly in VPC. Windows NT 4.0, 98, 98 SE, Me, 2000 - all shut down properly but 95 doesn't. It hangs even if I restart to DOS. Windows 3.0 and 3.1 have no hanging issues exiting to DOS. I've installed hotfixes that I can think of (thanks to Mdgx) and am running OEM Service Release 2.5 (4.0.950 C). Tried disabling APM too. Any one know why it doesn't cleanly shut down?

I can share the VHD if you want They're only 44 MB for Windows 3.1 (12.6 MB with 7-zip) and 22 MB for Windows 3.0 (4.27 MB 7z). Windows 3.1 works with 386 Enhanced Protected mode with the S3 Trio driver and in Standard/286 Mode with the VGA driver. Even Windows 3.0 works including its Real Mode. I just tried VPC 2007 SP1 on my Windows 7 and then tried all these VMs. Btw VPC 2007 can be installed along side Windows Virtual PC (http://nookkin.com/articles/how-tos-and-guides/run-virtual-pc-2007-and-windows-virtual-pc-on-the-same-machine.ndoc), but you can only run one at a time. Also Windows Me boots insanely fast compared to any other Windows.

I never made any such claim. I only wondered why wouldn't it be possible since I already run it and had not read that other topic. I have the following KBs installed for Virtual PC 2007 SP1: KB922897 KB958162 KB969856 Never had any issues installing any older Windows in it.

It does not? Then how come I have Windows 95 with Microsoft Plus! running on my Windows XP host running Virtual PC 2007 SP1?

Slow verclsid folder content loading? What is that issue if I may ask?

I would like to hear more about it if you can elaborate. AFAIK, XP's shared desktop heap can be increased to perform well on modern systems. I've used this Reg tweak for years. Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\SubSystems] "Debug"=hex(2):00,00 "Kmode"=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,\ 00,25,00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,77,00,\ 69,00,6e,00,33,00,32,00,6b,00,2e,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,00,00 "Optional"=hex(7):50,00,6f,00,73,00,69,00,78,00,00,00,00,00 "Posix"=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,\ 00,25,00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,70,00,\ 73,00,78,00,73,00,73,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,00,00 "Required"=hex(7):44,00,65,00,62,00,75,00,67,00,00,00,57,00,69,00,6e,00,64,00,\ 6f,00,77,00,73,00,00,00,00,00 "Windows"=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,\ 74,00,25,00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,63,\ 00,73,00,72,00,73,00,73,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,20,00,4f,00,62,00,6a,00,\ 65,00,63,00,74,00,44,00,69,00,72,00,65,00,63,00,74,00,6f,00,72,00,79,00,3d,\ 00,5c,00,57,00,69,00,6e,00,64,00,6f,00,77,00,73,00,20,00,53,00,68,00,61,00,\ 72,00,65,00,64,00,53,00,65,00,63,00,74,00,69,00,6f,00,6e,00,3d,00,31,00,30,\ 00,32,00,34,00,2c,00,31,00,32,00,32,00,38,00,38,00,2c,00,35,00,31,00,32,00,\ 20,00,57,00,69,00,6e,00,64,00,6f,00,77,00,73,00,3d,00,4f,00,6e,00,20,00,53,\ 00,75,00,62,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,54,00,79,00,70,00,65,00,\ 3d,00,57,00,69,00,6e,00,64,00,6f,00,77,00,73,00,20,00,53,00,65,00,72,00,76,\ 00,65,00,72,00,44,00,6c,00,6c,00,3d,00,62,00,61,00,73,00,65,00,73,00,72,00,\ 76,00,2c,00,31,00,20,00,53,00,65,00,72,00,76,00,65,00,72,00,44,00,6c,00,6c,\ 00,3d,00,77,00,69,00,6e,00,73,00,72,00,76,00,3a,00,55,00,73,00,65,00,72,00,\ 53,00,65,00,72,00,76,00,65,00,72,00,44,00,6c,00,6c,00,49,00,6e,00,69,00,74,\ 00,69,00,61,00,6c,00,69,00,7a,00,61,00,74,00,69,00,6f,00,6e,00,2c,00,33,00,\ 20,00,53,00,65,00,72,00,76,00,65,00,72,00,44,00,6c,00,6c,00,3d,00,77,00,69,\ 00,6e,00,73,00,72,00,76,00,3a,00,43,00,6f,00,6e,00,53,00,65,00,72,00,76,00,\ 65,00,72,00,44,00,6c,00,6c,00,49,00,6e,00,69,00,74,00,69,00,61,00,6c,00,69,\ 00,7a,00,61,00,74,00,69,00,6f,00,6e,00,2c,00,32,00,20,00,50,00,72,00,6f,00,\ 66,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,43,00,6f,00,6e,00,74,00,72,00,6f,00,6c,00,3d,00,4f,\ 00,66,00,66,00,20,00,4d,00,61,00,78,00,52,00,65,00,71,00,75,00,65,00,73,00,\ 74,00,54,00,68,00,72,00,65,00,61,00,64,00,73,00,3d,00,31,00,36,00,00,00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\SubSystems\CSRSS] "CsrSrvSharedSectionBase"=dword:7f6f0000 What bug is there in verclsid.exe? Is it an unpatched bug?

I have noticed that apps (app processes) start in the background on Windows 10 even though you have disallowed them to run in the background.

This tool only uses the WU API to list the updates, unlike the Bob 10 UI which hides everything. Nothing can magically convert update rollups to individual updates.

Windows Update MiniTool completely exposes what Microsoft tries to hide from its users: the insanely bloated update size of Windows 10 updates. This is just after a clean install of Windows 10 Anniversary Update and a subsequent "cumulative" patch in August. Every month you are going to be bombarded with huge updates that your internet connection may not be able to handle, and even if your connection can handle it, your SSD will be worn out by repeated writes of 430 MB of nothingness - 430 MB of more broken things to fix past broken things. Small, individual updates for Windows 8.1 used to be in kilobytes and collectively, 50 MB or less. Starting October, these Windows Update Abuse Services with Insanely Bloated Updates are coming to attack your 7 or 8.1 PC. On Windows 10 they are worse because you are doing something that is important to you and the wretched OS starts eating bandwidth and then CPU cycles and sometimes restarts on its own - all unacceptable things. Even the Quiet Hours period is restricted to 11 hours intentionally. Outside of that period, it will restart on its own unless you take exceptional measures to block permissions to the Scheduled Task it creates to reboot.

I am concerned about Cumulative Update Rollups too. I am hoping they won't be a huge problem on Windows 7 and 8.1. I have a p***-poor pathetically slow yet expensive internet connection. In my country, India, broadband is defined as "512 Kbps" and with a population of 1.25 billion, the bandwidth per user is super-expensive. Broadband here is slower than the cellular/LTE speeds people get in first world countries. I have a 1 Mbps connection which is considered "faster" than the average speed of 512 Kbps. So it is critically important that I am always aware of the size of updates I download, how long it's gonna take to download them, what is included in the update, what is the speed I am getting, how much of the update data has been downloaded vs synthesized from files on my PC (as per the WU delta update algorithm). Windows 10 gives me NONE of this and I am completely in the dark of what's happening behind the scenes. From my brief observation, I have concluded that something is horribly broken in WU in Windows 10 because it takes around 10-15 minutes for updates to download AND install on my 7/8.1 installations but that same PC on Windows 10 takes from a minimum of 40 minutes to sometimes hours. Given Microsoft's general incompetence with coding anything effectively without serious regressions or breaking the whole functionality, I seriously wonder if they have screwed up the servicing stack in Windows 10 again (besides the loss of control over updates). As in, by switching to cumulative updates, they may have INCREASED the actual amount of data that needs to be downloaded instead of keeping it to a minimum. There was a lot of work done in Windows XP, XPSP2 and Vista to reduce the size of updates and it seems to be UNDONE in Windows 10. Also, after the updates are downloaded 100%, Windows 10 seems to take far more time and CPU, disk and memory resources to install them compared to Windows 8.1/7. Windows 10 shows me nothing about size of updates, what % of data is downloaded, no approximation of time remaining, no indication of download speed. I just get a plain progress bar that LITERALLY takes hours to move ahead and often gets completely stuck or moves ahead at a glacially slow pace compared to 8.1/7. This leads me to believe that they have completely screwed up what they got right in Vista/7/8.1. Also, updates in Windows 10 install at the most inopportune times, when my PC is busy doing something important so they have a negative impact on the core task I am doing at that moment. Now, knowing that the cumulative update rollup model is coming to 8.1/7 as well, I am shocked and worried that the size of the updates will tremendously increase. Technically, it should decrease because there is a lot of overlap/common code for multiple small updates vs one large update but it all depends on what Microsoft has coded and how efficient their delta upgrade algorithm is. We will find out soon starting next month. On Windows 10, they keep us in the dark by hiding everything behind the scenes. On the contrary, the update experience on Windows 7/8.1 should remain superior to the blind, crippled mess on Windows 10 because on these older OSes, we can still stop updating on demand, download them but not install them, install updates as per our convenience when the PC is not busy, and get an idea beforehand of how much data is going to be downloaded - all of this is missing on Windows 10. Also, Windows 7/8.1 will not get huge feature updates which reset your personalized setup like an in-place OS upgrade does. (Not that anybody wants these "features updates" given how poorly they are built and the value that they take away by breaking or removing functionality). Most current updates for Windows 7/8.1 are very small - most of them smaller than 1 MB and a few of around 4-5 MB. The IE Cumulative Update is around 50-60 MB and the .NET Framework updates are larger. The Malicious Software Removal Tool which is useless is also quite large - I can skip downloading that on Windows 7/8.1 but can't on Windows 10. Another thing Microsoft has mentioned - over time, the cumulative monthly update rollups is going to retroactively include updates released in the past so it remains to be seen what the impact of these changes is. For a machine that has not been updated, the single update could be huge but convenient. For an already up-to-date machine, if the update rollup ends up being huge, then that would be a serious regression from what we currently have. Time will tell soon but unfortunately, Microsoft is no longer the smart, efficient company that they used to be - their developers write crap and they ship broken disasters as "RTM" code. The big sad irony is that Microsoft's current CEO is from India and he is supposed to be an engineer so it's kind of an extreme shock that they deliver a system like Windows 10 with horribly broken updating. For someone with a fast internet connection like 100 Mbps, the changes in Windows 10 might have a minimal impact on his bandwidth costs although I am sure they cause a productivity loss when his personalized Windows environment gets reset and badly messed up by updates. Clearly neither the CEO nor the people he has hired for Windows development, have the ability to anticipate or understand the impact of their stupid and customer-hurting changes. UPDATE: Windows Update MiniTool for Bob 10 tells me that the size of its typical cumulative update is close to 450 MB. So this is unacceptable. From Windows 8.1's updates which used to be in KB, the size of updates has ballooned to 431 MB. Microsoft can kindly fire their CEO again and the entire Windows team or they can go to hell.

Time taken to download and install updates on Windows 7 and 8.1 this month: 10 min each. Same PC on Microsoft Bob 10 AU: Several hours. Productivity reinvented.

When I ran Virtual PC 2007 on Windows 8.1/10, the VM Console opened but as soon as I started a Virtual Machine, vmm.sys caused a BSoD. There's a good reason probably why they blocked it. There are some workarounds posted by people to install Windows Phone/Mobile 10 emulator which installs an updated version of vmm.sys, then replace the older vmm.sys and reboot. Maybe that might work. Not that I support how they killed VPC. They just expect everyone to move on to Hyper-V which is absolutely wrong. Virtual PC should be revived and updated to work with Windows 10. Unfortunately, Microsoft no longer cares, so we'll now have to use VirtualBox.

Because MFT search while excellent for file names (I use "Everything" myself), does not index file contents of even plain text files or binary document formats. But you're right, in most cases, "Everything" style file-name only search is enough and faster.

For me the entire OS - every major and minor change is a regression. Cortana is worse than the old menu search, the Taskbar changes are awful, Explorer changes are bad, and there doesn't seem to be any major technical improvement that Windows 8.1 doesn't have. I can't find any positives at all - nothing that is really a big improvement. Probably only the RemoteFX vGPU in Client Hyper-V - but then Client Hyper-V remains crippled overall compared to what Windows Server gives you. The Cast To functionality in Windows 10 is genuinely improved over 8.1 and actually works with a wide range of DLNA and Miracast receiver devices, TVs etc. The Spotlight feature of showing random new beautiful images from Bing on the Lockscreen is very nice but then 8.1 has Lockscreen Slideshow. Or you can just use a nice Photos screensaver which would work on Windows 7 as well. The problems with Windows 10 are far too serious. We have a broken OS updating mechanism now that abuses your internet bandwidth, changes things on your PC however it wants, whenever it wants, downloads unwanted crap from the Store, shows annoying nags. Action Center is just one more headache to manage and clear all the notifications after reading them. Lots of stuff happening behind the scenes which I cannot control. Even if I can control updates somewhat by setting my Wifi to metered, I have no idea how big they are, what exactly are they going to change because many of the changes are undocumented, and so many of my customized tweaks get reset. I don't want to be bothered by large updates frequently so Windows as a Service is a complete deal-breaker. And then the UI which is still a disaster. For me, Windows 10 is a very strong case of negatives overwhemlingly outweighing any positives.

And have you heard about Encrypted apps in Bob 10? http://winaero.com/blog/windows-10-will-get-encrypted-app-installs/ So you won't even be able to access the app's files. This is all done in the name of protecting the developer because .NET apps can be easily decompiled. Why not protect the source by obfuscating but not deny access to the compiled binaries?

If anyone uses Microsoft Windows Bob 10 , they might find this guide useful: Manage connections from Windows operating system components to Microsoft services It covers the official s*** that tries to phone home to provide "enhanced services" half of which you may have no use for.

This has worked for me for a clean install: Fix Windows Update stuck on Checking for Updates: http://winaero.com/blog/fix-windows-update-stuck-on-checking-for-updates/

It's worse than just a target for advertising and a source for data. Your productivity and certain things which were assets to you for your business or home use are gone.

In my quest to find what technical improvements Bob 10 has, I found out it has: RemoteFX support for RDP in client OS too (Bob 10, not Server 2016). And the RemoteFX vGPU can be used in Client Hyper-V VM guests on Bob 10.

Well according to the developer of NovaBench, the tests include floating point and integer operations, MD5 hashes to test CPU performance, RAM speed (MB/s), 3D graphics speed (FPS), Drive write speed (MB/s) and partition capacity because NovaBench was designed to benchmark not purely performance but value as well! Partition size is definitely not an indicator of performance, although for SSDs, larger SSDs perform much better than smaller ones. The developer is planning to remove the disk partition size from the disk rating score so comparisons across Windows versions are more valid. I suggested him to include read speed test instead. We really need a simple, free, lightweight, fast utility for quickly benchmarking Windows performance and get consistent results which can be compared across Windows versions. Most of the benchmarking apps are heavyweight, full-featured commercial apps (e.g. SiSoft Sandra) or specialized to test only 1 performance area of the Windows OS (3D Mark, Passmark) etc. Now ignoring the flawed disk rating of NovaBench, the write speeds on my PC were as follows: Windows 8.1: 98-109 MB/s, 7: 88-94 MB/s, 10: 98-100 MB/s.

I found an app called NovaBench that does a quick test of CPU speed, RAM speed, disk write speed and GPU rendering speed similar to Windows Experience Index. I ran it with identical setup on my Windows 7/8.1/10 on the same PC. 8.1 came ahead followed by 7 and 10 was slowest. But I think these scores can't be accepted because there is little to no explanation given behind how NovaBench calculates the score and how much weightage is given to each score. Edit: Scores removed because as Jaclaz points out in the next post, how NovaBench assigns those points is not clear. The benchmark weightage for disk drive was not purely indicative of performance. Edit 2: Actually, digging deeper into their scores, I found out that all the scores except the disk scores are fair for comparison purposes. The disk score takes into account the partition size which is #FAIL. Size is definitely not an indicator of performance, although for SSDs, larger SSDs perform better. You could still compare the write speed though.

They readjusted WEI in every release so it's not directly comparable. @Noel I am glad too. Yes I couldn't believe it myself. There was a time when I loathed everything after XP. I had given Vista a thorough run and tried my best to migrate to it. I won a laptop as 1st prize in 2006 in a Microsoft Virtual TechDays contest. Came with Vista. Was awful. Went back to XP. Then when everyone was on Windows 7 and was praising how great it was, I used to hate it because it took away the Classic menu, ruined the Taskbar and had many Explorer regressions which they wouldn't fix because of their "our way or the highway attitude". I think while arguing about some minor feature about Explorer, you too told me a couple of times in Microsoft's forums that it was time to embrace change and that I was clinging to the past or something similar. I was fully aware of how much technically Windows 7 was better than XP for the most part. I like to learn, read and write about Windows a lot. Wrote 70% of Wikipedia's series of articles on Windows and its new or removed features. But I objected to the way Microsoft started to behave after XP - they seem to have started believing that they can never do anything wrong, and flat out refuse to fix things. It was only after Classic Shell, 7+ Taskbar Tweaker etc and other tools got created to make up for the user experience deficiencies of Win7 that I warmed up to it. Microsoft did the same mistakes again with Windows 8 - lots of broken features, no proper continuity, omission of things which worked on 7 and forcing people to embrace a fresh start even if it was not justified at all. Being obsessive about the UI, I never believed certain things about Windows 8 could be fixed if ever. But they can indeed be fixed and I was just as surprised how much the system could be molded to make it behave I wanted. When I got a new PC last year there was nothing holding me back performance wise from not moving to a newer version of Windows *if it was indeed better* for the most part. They always remove many useful features while trying to add something of value so you always have to make huge compromises but the community did all the hard work again. I realized that most regressions in Windows 8 were again fixed by the community and Microsoft had done nothing really to fix it. I think if we can't modify the system and are forced to use it as it is, then I will go back to Windows XP. But because Windows 7 and 8.1 can be re-configured and heavily tweaked plus they will remain that way for as long as drivers exist, it is worth taking advantage of the genuine improvements Microsoft did make to 8.1 and try to fix the regressions ourselves, rather than straight out rejecting everything they have done. With Windows 10, unfortunately I am finding nothing of value at all. And I am finding it extremely hard to fix anything and have it remain like that. It's wild and out of control. I have never seen software that treats its users so condescendingly. Seeing how awful it is, I think investing in 8.1, not 7 makes more sense for me at this time. I do keep Windows 7 and 10 installed, just to keep a check on how better or worse they are. There aren't 1:1 feature replacements for every feature 7 has in 8.1 but it's close with third party apps.

I would like to add one more point. Windows 8.1 has superior virtual machine performance as a guest OS vs Windows 7 or 10. Although on real hardware on my new fast PC with an SSD and cutting edge CPU, all 3 OSes are fast. But Windows 7 (with WDDM drivers) is not so great, have to use it without Aero in a VM for fast performance. And Windows 10 performs abysmally in the VM. The VM app is VirtualBox running on 8.1 host with all optimizations enabled for max. performance. Windows 8.1 inside the VM performs extremely well, almost near-native performance.

Probably use of managed/.NET code so pervasively in Windows 10 causes it to run so slow in a VM.