Jump to content

[WIP] Windows Vista Extended Kernel


win32

Recommended Posts

On 5/27/2021 at 5:42 PM, winvispixp said:

I have an iso of win 2008 sp2

I can test to see what updates I can get for net framework 4.6.1 if someone wants

I think you can still get it for free directly from M$ (at least that's how I got mine)

I know this took a while but..

Installed server 2008 sp2 in a vm and updated it but i don't get any netframework 4.6 updates (i don't have esu patches because I don't know how to get them)

Link to comment
Share on other sites


29 minutes ago, winvispixp said:

I know this took a while but..

Installed server 2008 sp2 in a vm and updated it but i don't get any netframework 4.6 updates

Was Microsoft update selected rather than Windows only, and was .NET 4.6.0 manually installed first? (It wouldn’t deliver updates for 4.6.1 because that version did not officially support 2008 SP2 or Vista.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Extended Kernel project is still active, but the amount of time I have to work on it has dropped to new lows for various reasons.

In fact, I was investigating the Firefox 89 font rendering breakage, and was planning on upgrading win32k to fix it (and upgrading win32k will help with gdi32 and DX components; plus, something in win32k bugchecks me when I close Waterfox G3 sometimes). But I am only near real Vista hardware for 2 out of every 14 days through late August.

One side note: I have finally found something that surpasses Vista in performance on my HP Z600 workstation, while being from its lineage. 21996.1's averaged benchmarked results (in Cinebench R11.5) are slightly better than 2008 with 2019-04 updates and extended kernel, and perceived performance is identical or even better than Vista, which in turn is better than 7/1809. So some efforts may be redirected to that from Vista.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, win32 said:

The Extended Kernel project is still active, but the amount of time I have to work on it has dropped to new lows for various reasons.

In fact, I was investigating the Firefox 89 font rendering breakage, and was planning on upgrading win32k to fix it (and upgrading win32k will help with gdi32 and DX components; plus, something in win32k bugchecks me when I close Waterfox G3 sometimes). But I am only near real Vista hardware for 2 out of every 14 days through late August.

One side note: I have finally found something that surpasses Vista in performance on my HP Z600 workstation, while being from its lineage. 21996.1's averaged benchmarked results (in Cinebench R11.5) are slightly better than 2008 with 2019-04 updates and extended kernel, and perceived performance is identical or even better than Vista, which in turn is better than 7/1809. So some efforts may be redirected to that from Vista.

As long as you can get 7 drivers to work on Vista, I'll be happy! The one good Vista laptop that I was using for the Extended Kernel broke due to my stupidity. Started to make a weird noise and one of the hinges was wonky, so I took it all apart to investigate, but broke the laptop completely. Luckily, I have one other laptop from 2010 that can run this.

Also, has anyone investigated running Windows Vista in UEFI mode on newer laptops? I take it it in order to get it to work, we would need to disable the Basic Display Driver (which would result in the loss of safe mode and Blue Screen of Deaths until the Basic Adapter is reenabled after installation) and slipstream a compatible Windows 7 exclusive graphics driver into the ISO. From what I have heard from people trying to get Windows 7 working on certain models of the Acer Spin 5 (which is exclusively UEFI and has no Legacy mode) is that when using a 7 ISO formatted in UEFI mode, it freezes due to the Basic Display Adapter not supporting the revisions made to UEFI since Windows 8's release (It should be noted Windows 8 and later do not encounter this issue) and thus requires the Basic Display Adapter to be disabled and a graphics driver to be slipstreamed. Since 7 suffers from this, I take it Vista will too. I only ask this as under UEFI, you can have more than 4 partitions, and I want to setup a multi-boot of Windows Vista, 7, 8.1, 10, and 11 on my Acer Aspire A315-21 (when the Extended Kernel is improved to feature 7 driver support of course).

I should also note that this problem is not caused by a specific USB creation tool such as Rufus. I also don't think much can be done about modern UEFI and Vista support until the 7 driver support debuts, but maybe there is somewhere we can start research. And I also think that getting the Basic Display Adapter back after Vista installation should be a priority as well. Without that, you lose two key features: Safe Mode and BSOD's (without those, we wouldn't be able to properly report it to @win32). Technically, Safe Mode still loads and BSOD's still get shown, you just can't see them as they will display a black screen. You could rely on a third party program that writes the content of the BSOD to a text file and be just fine, however, if you need safe mode, you are sol.

Not sure if sharing this link is allowed, but if anyone wants more info on this issue, you can view the whole overview of it here http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/guide-how-to-install-windows-7-x64-on-acer-spin-5-laptop.829379/ (This is for Windows 7, but can most likely be converted to Vista).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Jakob99 said:

 

Also, has anyone investigated running Windows Vista in UEFI mode on newer laptops?

Yes, while i do have UEFI-CSM as an alternative i did try native uefi for Vista and 7, one would need a VGA emulator like UefiSeven for UEFI class 3 or something like that or you could replace the bootmgr.efi file and maybe even bootmgfw.efi and replace it with windows 10's, anyhow while it works on 7 vista just gets stuck on a black screen, it just doesnt boot at all, i even tried with windows 8.0's files and it still didnt work. :( 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, burd said:

Yes, while i do have UEFI-CSM as an alternative i did try native uefi for Vista and 7, one would need a VGA emulator like UefiSeven for UEFI class 3 or something like that or you could replace the bootmgr.efi file and maybe even bootmgfw.efi and replace it with windows 10's, anyhow while it works on 7 vista just gets stuck on a black screen, it just doesnt boot at all, i even tried with windows 8.0's files and it still didnt work. :( 

I have a solution that may work. Burn a Windows 10 ISO as UEFI to a USB using Rufus or similar and then replace 10's Install.EFD (or whatever its extension is) with Vista's Install.wim. I'm gonna try this out and see what happens.

EDIT: This did not work. The installer loaded up, I could manage the partitions (and I was indeed able to create more than 4), and let it do the initial installation (Expanding Windows Files), but after restart, I got the black screen @burd got. There has to be a way to get it to work. We could wait until @win32 adds Windows 7 driver support, but I am not sure if DISM Command Prompt supports installing Windows Vista through it (I tried to use 10's DISM to merge drivers into Vista, but it told me that DISM did not support Vista installations), and not a lot of people would want to do that. They'd rather have a simpler way to install Vista on UEFI, especially if they want a penta-boot (5 OSes).

Edited by Jakob99
Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, Jakob99 said:

replace 10's Install.EFD (or whatever its extension is) with Vista's Install.wim

that's not how it works

install.wim from vista contains most of the os (vista) inside it, like system files (eg. system32)

if you replace that with windows 10's that basically means that you are trying to install windows 10 but with a vista installer

Edited by winvispixp
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 6/6/2021 at 10:32 PM, winvispixp said:
On 6/6/2021 at 10:03 PM, Vistapocalypse said:

But if you want to watch videos using a Firefox version that requires Windows 7, then the Media Foundation files are necessary.

is there any way to make a "localized" version of firefox with the required dlls?

I tried this and it works! no need to install mfplat and break other windows components like wmp, dreamscene and experience index

you just need to make a folder called "firefox.exe.local" in the folder where you extracted the installer so you can run it as "portable" and then throw in there the 4 mfplat DLLs

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, winvispixp said:

that's not how it works

install.wim from vista contains most of the os (vista) inside it, like system files (eg. system32)

if you replace that with windows 10's that basically means that you are trying to install windows 10 but with a vista installer

What I was trying to do is Install Windows Vista to UEFI mode using Windows 10's installer. Basically, I removed Windows 10's install.wim and replaced it with Vista's so when you ran the USB, it would load Windows 10's setup, but install Windows Vista instead of 10. Unfortunately, this did not work in getting Vista to load on my laptop's UEFI mode (It was bought in 2019).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, Jakob99 said:

What I was trying to do is Install Windows Vista to UEFI mode using Windows 10's installer. Basically, I removed Windows 10's install.wim and replaced it with Vista's so when you ran the USB, it would load Windows 10's setup, but install Windows Vista instead of 10. Unfortunately, this did not work in getting Vista to load on my laptop's UEFI mode (It was bought in 2019).

did you try uefiseven?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

32 minutes ago, Jakob99 said:

What I was trying to do is Install Windows Vista to UEFI mode using Windows 10's installer. Basically, I removed Windows 10's install.wim and replaced it with Vista's so when you ran the USB, it would load Windows 10's setup, but install Windows Vista instead of 10. Unfortunately, this did not work in getting Vista to load on my laptop's UEFI mode (It was bought in 2019).

well i guess i misunderstood the situation :lol:

also i retried getting updates for netframework 4.6 in win server 2008 sp2 (now set to use microsoft update) and got just 2 updates.. every time i check for updates it says it's up to date

2nd also: does anyone have trouble getting office 2010 up to date on vista or server 2008? every time i check for updates it gets stuck searching (except the first time when i get 52 updates including sp2 (office 2010 pro plus with sp1)). office 2007 doesn't have this problem but still i was expecting more updates than what i got since o2k7 is older than o2k10

photo.thumb.jpg.9060ecdcfdb38c2a9c60590cfcc749dd.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, winvispixp said:

...also i retried getting updates for netframework 4.6 in win server 2008 sp2 (now set to use microsoft update) and got just 2 updates...

photo.thumb.jpg.9060ecdcfdb38c2a9c60590cfcc749dd.jpg

Thanks for that. KB4041778 was also on burd’s list, but @VistaLover may find it puzzling that you were not given the somewhat earlier KB4040973. KB4532932 was simply the final January 2020 (EOL for Server 2008) update, which has probably been superseded by ESU updates.

Edit: And yes, having Office installed definitely slowed down the initial check for Microsoft updates on Vista, but did not prevent eventual completion.

Edited by Vistapocalypse
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 6/22/2021 at 4:32 AM, win32 said:

The Extended Kernel project is still active, but the amount of time I have to work on it has dropped to new lows for various reasons.

I assume that my question will be a little stupid, but: is there a way to trace the reason why application fails to start with extended kernel installed? It crashes with "not a valid Win32 application" reason. Please let me know what information I need to collect (and how to). :rolleyes:

UPD: WGC is an x86 application and is supposedly compiled with newer compiler versions, that's why it crashes. win32 WoT client crashes because x86 KERNEL32 lacks of newer functions.

 

unknown.png

Edited by SigmaTel71
New info.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I tried to run the latest version of Deemix Server on Windows Vista and it give me this error:

 

deemix-server.exe - No se encuentra el punto de entrada  diálogo  No se encuentra el punto de entrada del procedimiento GetActiveProcessorCount en la biblioteca de vínculos dinámicos KERNEL32.dll.

If we translate it to english, it tells that can't find the entry point of the procedure GetActiveProcessorCount in the dinamic library Kernel32.dll. Was this included in the KernelEX? I answered in the topic about latest software for Vista exkernel how to use it without installation, just local redirection so you have all the dlls inside the folder of the applications and .exe.local files. I somewhere read that it's necessary a modification on the registry, but don't know what to modify.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...