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[WIP] Windows Vista Extended Kernel


win32

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15 minutes ago, asdf2345 said:

Thought I replied to this, it still crashes quite a bunch.

So none of the instability was induced by a OS version bias. Now I just need an ntoskrnl version to tie to the dumps that you have posted previously and hopefully I can look into those.

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5 minutes ago, win32 said:

So none of the instability was induced by a OS version bias. Now I just need an ntoskrnl version to tie to the dumps that you have posted previously and hopefully I can look into those.

Most are from RTM SP2, but I'm pretty sure I posted some dumps from the 2017 EOS point, and the 2020 EOS point.

I'll try to get some more with the custom kernel tomorrow.

 

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5 hours ago, greenhillmaniac said:

Will this custom kernel allow the installation of newer Windows 7 drivers on Vista?

Yes. Hoping there are no issues that may arise once the appropriate functions are added.

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7 minutes ago, tamarindojuice said:

This and a fix or maybe an improvement for Haswell+ CPUs should drive vista to a completely new level of usability on modern hardware.

Well, it appears that MS got around to improving Haswell, though there are still some issues.

I haven't been able to test it due to issues with Windows Update on my Kaby Lake though.

Now I'm thinking; do I rebase the extended kernel on the September 2020 versions of files, thus abandoning the April 2017 versions? Or do I still work on LoadLibraryExW from build 6519 since that is flawless, while this one is not (mind you, the UAC permission issues may lie elsewhere).

 

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51 minutes ago, win32 said:

Well, it appears that MS got around to improving Haswell, though there are still some issues.

I haven't been able to test it due to issues with Windows Update on my Kaby Lake though.

Now I'm thinking; do I rebase the extended kernel on the September 2020 versions of files, thus abandoning the April 2017 versions? Or do I still work on LoadLibraryExW from build 6519 since that is flawless, while this one is not (mind you, the UAC permission issues may lie elsewhere).

 

The issues still exist , the stability is just a bit better , it would have a 65% successful boot compared to 50% of before august

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1 hour ago, tamarindojuice said:

I can't wait! This and a fix or maybe an improvement for Haswell+ CPUs should drive vista to a completely new level of usability on modern hardware.

Well, with the extended kernel, up to AMD 15.100 drivers work without any modification (Well, you would need to modify the .inf, but other than that, nothing is needed). The AMD 15.6 CCC is missing some powerprof.dll functions, but works anyways. Maybe with the new ntoskrnl, I could try the 16.2.1 drivers, or those modded 16.101 drivers.

I think someone would need to mod 372.70 drivers to work better with Vista, because I think the issue is not missing functions. @win32 seems to be the best person to attempt such a thing, unless @blackwingcat decides to try and fix them, but that's highly unlikely.

I think I'd rather see the Oct 2nd Steam tricked into running the Windows 7 CEF without issue, or Discord working on Vista before I see the Haswell+ or Ryzen issues fixed.

Since Chromium 73 stable and newer don't work on Vista, I think you'd need to modify a older copy of Discord, which Discord still hosts.

https://dl.discordapp.net/apps/win/0.0.305/DiscordSetup.exe

This is the last(?) copy of Discord that has a Chromium 69 CEF, and should be the easiest to get working on Vista. If you bypass the shortcut, and run Discord directly, it'll update to the latest version of 305, and run.

Edit: There might be a Chromium 72 Discord Development build, but I'm not sifting through thousands of versions of Discord Development.

Edited by asdf2345
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32 minutes ago, asdf2345 said:

Since Chromium 73 stable and newer don't work on Vista, I think you'd need to modify a older copy of Discord, which Discord still hosts.

We don't need to go back that far for Electron apps. Visual Studio Code 1.46 works and it's based on Chromium 78. If Discord and Steam were x64 native, they'd probably work.

We need to get into ntdll (both x86 and x64) for later Chromiums to work. And now that ntoskrnl modification is starting, ntdll modification should be coming soon.

And yes, based on recent comments, the current path will be maintained.

 

Edited by win32
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5 minutes ago, win32 said:

We don't need to go back that far for Electron apps. Visual Studio Code 1.46 works and it's based on Chromium 78. If Discord and Steam were x64 native, they'd probably work.

We need to get into ntdll (both x86 and x64) for later Chromiums to work. And now that ntoskrnl modification is starting, ntdll modification should be coming soon.

And yes, based on recent comments, the current path will be maintained.

 

I think it would have been easier for you to get those older versions of Chromium x86 working.

Steam mostly works, we just need to trick it into loading the Windows 7 x64 CEF.

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3 hours ago, asdf2345 said:

I think someone would need to mod 372.70 drivers to work better with Vista, because I think the issue is not missing functions. @win32 seems to be the best person to attempt such a thing, unless @blackwingcat decides to try and fix them, but that's highly unlikely.

I just remembered someone else that might be able to help with this, @Dibya.

Mainly thinking about this post

@Dibya might be able to fix the 372.70 drivers, and maybe even port much newer AMD drivers to Vista.

Also, @Dibya might be able to help with the extended kernel

 

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On 8/18/2020 at 2:46 AM, win32 said:

15.7.1 misses ntoskrnl function sprintf_s. And the 16.x series adds RtlDowncaseUnicodeChar.

Does the current ntkrnlmp have those functions, or is it currently a version modded ntoskrnl?

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3 minutes ago, asdf2345 said:

Does the current ntkrnlmp have those functions, or is it currently a version modded ntoskrnl?

It's just version modded, along with some other changes to prepare for the eventual modifications.

sprintf_s is going to be hard to add, as it's over 5000 bytes when counting its dependent functions/subroutines, which are new to Windows 7. But RtlDowncaseUnicodeChar isn't, and it will be replicated in ntdll.

What could also be done is driver-level modding where the first kernel mode driver that calls sprintf_s is compared with the last one that does not call it (for NVIDIA, that's the difference between 372.70 and 372.90 btw). Then in the newer driver, we patch around the call or try to replicate the old behaviour. And hope there are no bugchecks.

BWC did something like that, but it did eventually have its caveats (ATi HD5000-7000 series apparently can't do full motion video on win2k).

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I've got a suggestion. When the extended Kernel will have more functions, create batch or exe files which would replace the original files because some people can't use programs like cf explorer. It for example don't work fine with Screen Readers.

Moreover, I think that Windows 7 will need also an extended kernel because there are programs which will drop it such as chrome.

Good luck with this project!

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