Dave-H

Ah, thank you, of course, it's because I'm using ProxHTTPSProxy! That never occurred to me, I completely forgot that I had to configure Firefox to allow for that. You're a star!

It certainly looks like something like that, but everything else is working fine! How can I check that and correct it?

Hi everyone, Happy New Year! I'm just trying out some new browser options, because I fear that my old faithful Firefox 52 ESR is getting near the end of its usability now. I've tried Arcticfoxie's version of 360Chrome, which looks promising, but as someone who has generally always used Firefox, I wanted to try some of the offerings here. I first tried the latest version of Serpent, which I was told some time ago is closest to Firefox, although it's now being discontinued I gather. I also tried the latest New Moon. They both run fine, but they both have the same problem. On virtually every website, I get this - Something is obviously fundamentally wrong somewhere, unless I'm missing something really obvious! I can override the warning on some sites (but not all) and the sites then load, but surely this shouldn't be happening?

I did think of that, but it would be a bit ridiculous if 360Chrome couldn't cope with that! I had actually already tried using its 8.3 DOS name E:\DUMPFOLD but that made no difference. Further experiments show that I can use the E:\ root as the destination, and a subfolder of E:\Dump Folder as well, e.g. E:\Dump Folder\Test. Works fine, no problem with spaces then. It seems that the only path I can't use is the one I actually want to use! I'm still wondering if it's because it's configured as the system "My Documents" folder. Perhaps 360Chrome doesn't like that for some reason. I should add that E:\ is a FAT32 formatted drive, so there definitely shouldn't be any permissions problems! Setting the download folder to E:\Dump Folder\Test Folder also works. It's only E:\Dump Folder which seems to be "unwritable"!

No, it's a separate fixed disk which is my archive storage drive, where all my pictures and videos etc. are stored. It's connected internally to the motherboard, but via an add-on SATA card. That has never made a difference before, and I can actually use the root of the drive to store downloads, but not the Dump Folder subfolder. E:\Dump Folder is actually also the "My Documents" folder, if that makes any difference. It certainly doesn't to any other programs.

Hi @NotHereToPlayGamesAKA ArcticFoxie! I've just decided again to see how your latest version 0f 360Chrome version 13.5 works with my system. After spending some time on the configuration, I'm impressed, it's working very well! No crashes or other malfunctions as yet. One puzzling thing I've come across though is the download folder setting. I don't want to use the default, which is D:\360Down (my XP is installed on drive D:), I want to use my normal temporary file store with is at E:\Dump Folder. Unfortunately, when I try to use it I just get a message saying "Path is not writable. Please Choose another folder". I am very puzzled by this, as that folder is perfectly writeable, I write to it dozens of times a day! All my research on this just points to permissions problems, but we're talking about XP here, permissions don't apply (at least when you've got simple file sharing enabled, which I have). Any idea why 360Chrome can't write to that folder when everything else can? Cheers, Dave.

The Instagram videos aren't working again for me now in Firefox 52.9 ESR. Can anyone else confirm this? Carousel videos are just a white space, single videos don't appear at all, I suspect they've just collapsed to a single line again.

Thanks, more food for thought! One thing I am now certain of after my experiments with George is that this machine will not work properly with XP in ACPI Multiprocessor mode. I'm having exactly the same problems with his clean installation as I was having with my original installation. Many USB devices are not detected in multiprocessor mode, and the AHCI driver refuses to work as well. Those problems all immediately go away if I switch to standard ACPI mode. What the actual cause is I have no idea, but I suspect it's a resources problem of some sort.

Just in case anyone was wondering why I've gone quiet for a while, it's because I'm working off-thread with George King on a Windows XP installation package for (relatively) modern machines like this. There are still a lot of issues with it, at least on my machine, but if I can get a new clean XP install that's as functional as it can be, I'll then know what the intrinsic limitations actually are, eliminating anything that's just being caused by me using an existing and already much modified installation. Where we are at the moment, I'm beginning to think that the only answer to getting all the hardware properly recognised by XP is a modified BIOS, as long as that doesn't break Windows 10! Cheers, Dave.

Sorry, I should have said. I can't see any mention of devices like that in Windows 10's Device Manager.

Been trying a few graphics drivers today. I'm sure nobody will be surprised to hear that I didn't get anywhere! I found a couple which did recognise the hardware and did install, but they all produced the "device can't start" Code 10 message.

Yes there is a touchscreen which works fine on Windows 10. I'm not holding out any hope of it ever working on XP though! Fortunately I have now managed to sort out the mouse, and it's now working on the other USB2 port where I want it. I found that in the list of generic "Human Interface Devices" listed in the Device Manager there was one that if the driver was updated manually from a list, the list included a "HID compliant mouse". I selected that and installed it, and the mouse now works! There was an equivalent entry for a "HID compliant keyboard too" which I also installed. So, we're getting there! The machine is still not performing at its best on XP as it's only using one processor core, and there is still no sound, but it's now pretty usable.

LOL! Just to bore you all with the history, the reason I have these machines is that I like to have a physically small and light unit that I can carry around easily when I'm away. Those 10.5" screen models all fit nicely in my shoulder bag! The problem with most of those small netbooks/notebooks is they were very quickly superseded by tablets, so they were never really developed into anything more than very basic computers. Almost all of them are very underpowered for anything other than very basic use. The first two Asus EeePCs I had were at least proper miniature Intel based laptop computers, with easily changeable external batteries and things like disk activity lights. The second one could be upgraded to 4GB of memory, which helped it a lot, as did fitting an SSD of course. They were designed for Windows 7, and didn't have high enough resolution screens for Windows 8/8.1 to work properly. I managed to upgrade to Windows 8 and then 8.1, but a lot of the apps wouldn't work, they just crashed the graphics driver, and those that did work needed a registry hack to fool them into thinking it was a 768 screen instead of a 600 screen, but they looked blurry and distorted. No hope of getting Windows 10 to work. That's why I then went for the third Asus machine, the AMD based one. That had a touch screen and supported Windows 8.1 and 10. It was fixed memory (fortunately 4GB was fitted) but was really crawling slow. The problem was the rubbish processor. Eventually I got so annoyed with it every time I tried to use it, that I looked again for an alternative which was the right size, and still had a conventional HDD or SSD so I could transplant my drive yet again, and came across the Lenovo Flex 10. I'm actually very pleased with it, it performs a huge amount better on Windows 10 than the last Asus machine did, and the other two performed on Windows 8.1. It's missing some things that the Asus machines had, like an Ethernet port and SD card slot, and only two USB ports instead of three, but I can live with that. The touchpad is dreadful, even worse than the ones on the Asus machines, and they were bad enough, but as long as I can use a mouse that's fine. I do think this machine will be my last as far as small netbooks go, which is why I'm anxious to get everything I can out of it! Cheers, Dave.

@Dietmar Just a thought. You said you never got a graphics driver to work on the Flex 10 with XP. Did you ever try the Intel 3600 driver? That seems to be a basic generic Intel graphics driver. I got that to work on the two Asus EeePCs I had with Atom processors. It was quite basic, no hardware acceleration for instance, but it would drive the HDMI port, and was much better than the Microsoft basic driver. I couldn't use it on my last Asus notebook as that was AMD based, but I'm hopeful that it might work on the Flex 10 as that is Intel. That's the last thing though after i've got everything else working as much as possible!

Thanks @Dietmar! Good to hear from somebody who has first hand experience of this! If you have a version of the BIOS that will solve this that's brilliant. Do remember that I want to dual boot with Windows 10 though. If your modified BIOS version will make Windows 10 unusable that's no good for me I'm afraid. I'm puzzled that you say that the original BIOS prevented Windows 8 from running on the machine, because surely it was originally designed for Windows 8?

OK, I've found the problem with the mouse! The machine has two physical USB ports, one of which is USB2 only, the other is also USB3 capable. I've now discovered that the mouse works in the USB3 port, but not in the USB2 port (which is one one I want to use it with of course!) When I finally tried plugging the dongle into the USB3 port, it found all the drivers and works fine. It does appear as a keyboard as well as a mouse, but that's not unexpected from what I've read. I installed the drivers manually, I didn't let them install automatically, and on one driver there was the choice to load a mouse or a generic device. I chose the mouse, and it then completed the drivers and worked. Unfortunately I can see no way of forcing that when it's plugged into the other port, as it doesn't appear in the mouse section of Device Manager. I've tested with other devices, and all the other devices work correctly whichever port they're plugged into, so this is a bit of a mystery! At least I can now use the mouse, although it's not ideal as it's a waste of the USB3 port as it's not a USB3 device. I have tried all the versions of acpi.sys in the Integrator folder. None of the earlier ones worked, just producing various flavours of BSOD, but the last few do all work. None give any more functionality though. I'm now using the latest one. There are no less that 13 devices recorded in the System Event Log as having no IRQs available in the BIOS. I guess the sound hardware must be one of them as there's no trace of it anywhere. Another oddity is that I have the last XP version of Malwarebytes Premium installed on the machine, and this has suddenly started malfunctioning too. I'm positive that it was working a couple of days ago, so I don't know what's happened there either. The Exploit Protection isn't switched on, and won't switch on. There are two identical errors in the System Event Log which say that the Anti-Exploit service failed start "A device attached to the system is not functioning." So, yet another ACPI-related problem?

Not Bluetooth, it's just the usual cheap wireless USB dongle. It worked fine in XP on the previous three (!) netbooks I've had, and is fine on Windows 10 now of course. There are no setting relevant to keyboard or mouse in the BIOS setup, apart from one to set the mode of the F keys (to set whether you have to press the "Fn" button with them or not.) I don't have a wireless keyboard I'm afraid.

Thanks, I will give that a try once I've done a few more tests with the machine as it is, and done a new ISO backup. I'm working through the alternative versions or acpi.sys in the Integrator, so far none of the others have worked at all, all producing BSODs or one sort or another. If the one I'm using proves to be the best, I'd still like to do a full new install just to see what final result it produces. It may well be that it will never be possible to get all the hardware installed properly with XP, but that's the only way to know for sure. I'm really in awe of the XP Integral Edition BTW, what an amazing piece of work by its creator! My main annoyance now with the machine as it is is that I can't get my wireless mouse to work. It's appearing as a keyboard, but not as a mouse! I gather that the dongles used by these devices do often appear as a keyboard as well as a mouse, as they can be used for either, but mine's appearing only as a keyboard. As the touchpad on the machine, even with the correct driver, is physically one of the worst pieces of crap I've ever used on a computer, I really need that mouse working!

OK, I've now restored the ISO backup of the machine, so it's back to booting and running fast in AHCI mode. However it's not using the Multiprocessor HAL, so it's only using one core of the processor, and there are some other issues too. I'm not too worried about the missing core, it's fast enough for my purposes, but there are a large number of errors in the Windows System log saying there are no IRQs available for a large number of devices. I guess this is an ACPI problem still. I guess this is why the sound hardware has gone AWOL, as well as some other things. I'm now going to experiment with the different versions of acpi.sys from the Integrator, to see if any of them give more functionality.

OK, I've made the ISO, with the options 1, 3, 4, and 5 as specified by @Damnation, and burnt it to a CD. When I boot from it, it loads everything, and when it gets to "Setup is Starting Windows" it produces the "Inaccessible Boot Device " 7B BSOD. It does that with the BIOS set to ACHI and Compatible mode. I've tried pressing F6 to load a mass storage driver, and I'm getting this. If I press "S" it wants a driver from a floppy disk (!) Needless to say, that's not an option! Pressing "Enter" just produces the BSOD again of course. So, what now?

Thanks @Damnationand @Rod Steel. I had overlooked the fact that I had a modified ISO to install which will hopefully work where the standard install CD won't! I will certainly now give it a try. I wasn't wilfully ignoring the original advice to do that I promise, I just wanted to explore all other options first, which I have now exhausted I think! If this installs and works OK, that will prove that it is possible for XP to work fully on the machine. I'll then have to decide whether to just use that installation or to try again to get my existing installation to work, which surely must be possible if the modified ISO works. Lenovo certainly haven't made some things easy. The first thing I found on the machine when I tried to put the network card from my previous machine into the Flex 10 as it's much better than the one already in it, was that Lenovo won't allow you to use any network card that they haven't whitelisted in the BIOS, so the machine wouldn't even start up with the replacement card in it! Why manufacturers feel the need to do things like that is a great mystery to me, what does it matter to them what network card you use once the machine is out of warranty? Anyway, I will try with the modified ISO and report that. Thank you all for your patience with me! Cheers, Dave.

OK, I tried doing a new install from a Windows XP SP3 setup CD. It loaded and then gave a stop A5 BSOD. Looking here it seems as if this is possibly an insurmountable problem. Of course the machine is fully ACPI compliant, as the Windows 10 installation indicates, but Windows XP setup is apparently not recognising it as being so, and I guess there's nothing that can be done about that. I suppose the hardware is just too new for Windows XP setup to be able to recognise. I could install it with the standard HAL, but that would be really restrictive, and I'm not confident that it would be possible to update the HAL after the installation, at least no more than I have been able to do up until now with the existing installation. I guess I've been lucky to get it working with any sort of ACPI HAL, and the Multiprocessor one just won't work. What do you guys reckon? Cut my losses and be content with the partially working installation I've got on the ISO?

That's actually a very good idea! If I don't get anywhere with the experiments I'm doing now, that would make perfect sense as I've got nothing to lose by trying a new install to see what result that produces on this hardware.

Well I'm not having any luck so far. Fortunately I took an ISO backup of the whole machine before i changed the HAL, so hopefully I can at least roll back to that condition. I've tried removing all the devices that would let me remove them, and telling the system find and install them again, where it can. This has made no difference. I think what I will try next is to set the machine back to being a non-multiprocessor ACPI PC just using the Device Manager, to see if that will roll it back properly and whether things come good with the drivers. I am beginning to wonder whether it will actually work as an ACPI Multiprocessor PC, although that's what Windows 10 says that it is!

Yes, there are 24 instances found. Mostly in the CriticalDeviceDatabase sections of the three ControlSets. There are also entries in the HKLM\System\<ControlSet>\Enum\PCI\ sections. I'm having doubts about the ACPI system now, the AHCI driver seemed to work fine with the previous HAL, and I'm wondering if I'm now using the wrong one, or my method of updating it was faulty and it hasn't actually updated properly.