Dave-H

Ah, that explains it! I tried a manual search for updates and that didn't work either, so I just downloaded the installer for 4.2.1 and installed it manually. It seems fine. A bit odd to not have triggered the automatic update detection when the new version is already being offered as the current version to new users!

Thanks bphlpt for that very detailed analysis! You (and den) are absolutely right of course. My system is so complex, and has been through so many changes over the years, that there are a myriad of possible reasons why standby doesn't work in XP. It didn't even work with my previous motherboard, long before I installed Windows 8.1 and made it triple boot. It was originally dual Windows 98 and Windows 2000, and there was no standby mode available even then. Your suggested option, a new clean install, is a very good one and probably the only way of knowing for sure whether the problem is intrinsic or whether it's due to something installed and running on the system. That would be no small undertaking though, so I don't think I will do it just to perhaps, and it is only perhaps, get back a facility that I've actually lived without for many years anyway! It was just something that in a bored moment I thought I would investigate, hoping (obviously wrongly) that I would just find some magic registry tweak or something that would bring it to life. I found a couple of MS knowledge Base references relating to Windows 2000 which said that the standby modes do not work by design with multi-processor systems, or if terminal services are enabled in Windows 2000. That's almost certainly why I didn't have them on Windows 2000, but I assume those limitations didn't carry over to XP. I will continue investigating! Cheers, and thanks again, Dave.

Strange, I have Classic Shell installed on two Windows 8.1 machines, and on neither of them has it prompted me for an update. Brilliant program, one of those that's so good that you can't believe that it's actually free! It's the only thing that makes Windows 8/8.1 usable as far as I'm concerned. I'll apply the update manually.

I checked the registry entries on the XP machine I have where the power saving modes do work, but couldn't find anything conclusive that was fundamentally different from the machine where they don't work. Does anyone know exactly where the entries relevant to the power saving modes are stored?

All five of the updates offered on both my machines have installed apparently with no issues (one was for the Office 2007 compatibility pack). Interesting that there are apparently .NET updates that weren't offered. There were certainly updates for the frameworks on Windows 8.1. I'm wondering whether to seek them out and install them manually on XP or not.

The details of the cards are in my signature. The ATI X-850 is using Catalyst 10.2 on XP, the Nvidia 210 is using the GeForce 340.52 driver. Both are the most recent 32 bit XP drivers for their respective cards. I nearly always used ATI cards on my previous AGP motherboard, updating the drivers every time new ones came out. As I said, the power saving options have never worked for me on XP, even then.

Thanks, many of my references have said that the graphics driver is the number one suspect in this sort of problem. I don't see why installing an earlier version would fix it though, surely a later version is more likely to support the power saving modes than an earlier one? The situation is complicated for me as I have two physical graphics cards installed at the moment! I should say at this point that my system has been through many configuration changes over the years, and the power saving modes have never worked with any hardware or software configuration in XP, either with the present motherboard or its predecessor, regardless of what graphics card was fitted.

Hi den! I already tried powercfg /hibernate on with no result. powercfg /query gives this - Name Ashfield CourtNumerical ID 8Turn off monitor (AC) After 120 minsTurn off monitor (DC) After 5 minsTurn off hard disks (AC) NeverTurn off hard disks (DC) After 10 minsSystem standby (AC) Not SupportedSystem standby (DC) Not SupportedSystem hibernates (AC) Not SupportedSystem hibernates (DC) Not SupportedProcessor Throttle (AC) Not SupportedProcessor Throttle (DC) Not SupportedI do also have a netbook with Windows XP on it which does support all these modes, so I'm going to do some comparisons of the relevant registry entries. I can't believe that just transplanting the registry entries over will bring it to life on the first machine, but you never know!

I've seen that happen too, and it looks like Google search results in Chinese (or Japanese) characters to me. I've also for a long time seen some websites in Opera 12.02 apparently display some elements in what looks like Greek lettering, that happened even with the original versions of KernelEx. If that happens you can get rid of it by zooming the page. It only happens at certain zoom settings, unfortunately always including 100%!

Thanks guys! Actually I do have the Intel chipset drivers installed. They are the most recent I could find, version 9.4.0.1026, which is later than the link points to, which is 8.3.1.1009. I did try installing the earlier version, but it made no difference. I then decided to do something I've never actually done before, and uninstall all the system devices in Device Manager and let them re-install. As the system is actually originally an upgrade from Windows 2000 I thought that maybe there were things hanging around from that. Sadly after a lot of messing around reinstalling most of the hardware drivers after doing that, it's still exactly the same as before, no power saving modes! Device Manager does say it's an ACPI system, with the "Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System" driver correctly installed, so this is all still a bit of a mystery. The system BIOS only appears to support ACPI S1 and S3 sleep modes, and you can select either or both. I have both selected. I believe that hibernate is S4 mode, so I wouldn't expect that to work necessarily (although it does on Windows 8.1) but standby is S3 I think, so that surely should be available and working.

Well I suppose that's good to know if I want to upgrade my rather underpowered 32 bit netbook to Windows 10!

I accepted both those updates, on my 64 bit Windows 8.1 installation and my 32 bit one, before I read this thread. Frankly I'm a bit surprised at the implication that Windows 10 will be offered as a free upgrade to Windows 8.1, as 8.1 was offered for Windows 8. Of course the reason for that was because 8.1 addressed fundamental deficiencies in Windows 8, but surely that's not the case with Windows 10, or is it?! Also, I thought that the received wisdom was that Windows 10 is going to be 64 bit only, so why offer the updates on 32 bit machines?

Has no-one any suggestions on this at all? Surely I'm not the only one who's come up against this problem?!

I have noticed that I'm no longer automatically offered updates for Adobe Reader on XP. When I went to the download site to look for a later version XP is no longer listed as an OS option for the latest versions. However when I downloaded and installed the Windows 7 version, it worked fine!

Java 8 Update 40 is working fine on XP here, including in web browsers, with the single exception of Opera 12.17, which is a problem with Opera, not Java. This can be worked around by substituting the plugin with the last Java 7 plugin that works in the old versions of Opera, which is the one from Java 7 update 67. IE8 works fine fully with the Java 8 Update 40 ActiveX here.

I've been trying to get the standby mode working on my 32 bit XP SP3 installation. At the moment it's greyed out. Windows 8.1 x64 on the same system works fine, including hibernate mode, so I'm puzzled why it won't work on XP with exactly the same hardware. I've done research on this of course, but so far have drawn a blank. The system BIOS has ACPI modes S1 and S3 available, and you can select either or both. I have both selected. Device Manger reports the system as an ACPI Multiprocessor PC, which is correct. All the hardware that has a Power Management tab in Device Manager has "allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" checked, and "Allow this device to bring the computer out of standby" un-checked. The Power Options applet in Control Panel only has thee tabs, "Power Schemes", Advanced, and "UPS". The Advanced tab has no options except to show or hide the taskbar icon or determine what the power button does. My XP netbook where standby does work has many more options available. Running powercfg /availablesleepstates gives this - The following sleep states are not available on this system: Standby (S1) Standby (S2) Standby (S3) Hibernate So basically, no power saving modes available at all! I did play around with the dumppo.exe program, thinking that this might be able to force the modes on, but no joy. Anyone any idea why this should be? As I said, it all works fine on Windows 8.1 on the same hardware. Drivers are said to be the usual culprit for this, but all my devices have the latest driver available for them, and none are older that 2008, when they surely would have been designed to support standby modes! The drivers are of course all very different on Windows 8.1, not least because it's a 64 bit system. Any suggestions welcome. Cheers, Dave.

Thanks den!

Good news! So, should I replace muweb.dll with the "right" version again, or leave it as it is with the earlier version which will hopefully be insurance against future failures? Any security implications leaving the older version?

Thanks jaclaz! I'll check it out and let you know if I find any issues. It's been really fascinating doing this with you, and thanks for all your perseverance and patience with me at times! Cheers, Dave.

Thanks jaclaz! I'll check it out and let you know if I find any issues. It's been really fascinating doing this with you, and thanks for all your perseverance and patience with me at times! Cheers, Dave.

Thanks jaclaz, but that link just seems to go the the first post on this thread, or am I missing something?

Well, I've tried again today, and would you believe it, I now can't fault it, the label is switching correctly all the time! Yesterday, it quite consistently wasn't. Just one of those anomalies that make you love computers I guess, but it doesn't look as if there really is any problem after all.

Yes, that's great! One thing I have noticed is that often the display of the label on the drive in Explorer doesn't update, and still shows the old label even after switching, although the drive works fine with the new configuration. Refreshing the display doesn't seem to fix it, only removing and replacing the drive fixes it. I guess that's a Windows thing that can't be fixed.

Yes, that's better, especially as it now tells you the volume label it's going to assign to the drive, which will tell people why the drive ends up labelled as it is! Just one last suggestion, when it prints "Bootsector is the "other" XX one" I think it would be better if it printed "Bootsector is the "wrong" XX one". I think that would be clearer, and would agree with what it prints if you run the switcher when it's not actually needed, when it prints "Bootsector is the "right" XX one".

That's fine jaclaz! Works when double clicked and when right clicked and run as an administrator. Also works fine from a desktop shortcut, non-elevated or elevated. I've only checked on 8.1, but I have no reason to think that it won't be fine on XP too. There's still a short pause on my system after "Mounting volume to drive letter J: ... OK, done:", but I really wouldn't worry about it! Great work, now get that final release out and get on to your next thing! Cheers, Dave.