Paint.NET 4.0+ on Windows XP/Vista?

[FantasyAcquiesce]

Hey MSFN!

PaintNET has become my preferred art program because of the many wonderful plugins available! I was wondering if it was possible to do a simple tweak to get version 4.0 and later working on XP or at least Vista. I am hoping to get this working on a vanilla machine over an extended kernel for best stability. If we could get it working on XP, perhaps even 2000 with extended kernel could run it as well.

The main issues are the program contains an official OS blocker. I believe I need to use Orca to fix that issue? I checked the dependencies and Windows XP is missing the IESHIMS.dll and WER.dll. Vista is missing the GPSVC.dll, and modules in IEFRAME.dll and  SHLWAPI.dll.

Would it be easy to patch these issues? I have no experience with dll dependencies and only had mixed experiences with placing Windows 2000/XP dlls in Windows ME to get programs working. My other experience with attempting to place Windows 7 files into Vista for Chromium lead to an endless loop of dependencies and files that would not connect to each other.

[ED_Sln]

Quote

Paint.NET depends on Microsoft's .NET Framework 4.7.2.

Therefore, even if you manage to run the installer, the program itself will not work.

[FantasyAcquiesce]

Just now, ED_Sln said:

Therefore, even if you manage to run the installer, the program itself will not work.

Hmmm...in theory, could we get it working if we do this for Windows Vista?

 

[ED_Sln]

1 hour ago, FantasyAcquiesce said:

Hmmm...in theory, could we get it working if we do this for Windows Vista?

Theoretically, yes. If the program itself did not use system calls that are not in Vista.

[FantasyAcquiesce]

Just now, ED_Sln said:

Theoretically, yes. If the program itself did not use system calls that are not in Vista.

I just looked back at the topic a bit more...looks like Paint.NET 4.1.6 is a "no-go..."

I will try to use version 4.0 and beta 4.0 versions to see if this will work later.

Edited July 13, 2020 by FantasyAcquiesce

[FantasyAcquiesce]

This topic should probably be moved to the Vista section. At the moment, I am trying to use PE Maker to force the installer to work on Windows Vista, but I still get the error that it's Windows 7 or later. I changed only the SubSysVersion to 6.0.

So far, I got NETFramework 4.8 to install on Windows Vista and applied the provided patch. I tried to launch a portable 4.2.12 version and the darn thing has an artificial blocker.

Now, I am trying to modify paintNET to install on Vista. I honestly need a tutorial for this or something.

1) Get the paint.net 4.0 beta file

2) Force convert to MSI with BWC's KDW???

3) Change minimum required version with PEMaker???

Could a hex editor help remove the block as well?

Edited July 14, 2020 by FantasyAcquiesce

[win32]

You will have to use Application Verifier on Vista to fake Windows 7. In the case of an installer, you will have to track down the name of its temp installer file if they also do version checks.

Once you have the program in Application Verifier, check the Compatibility box and then the HighVersionLie box under it. Right-click "Properties" on HighVersionLie and set your preferred OS version like 6 major, 1 minor, build 7601 etc.

[RainyShadow]

I got the two versions from here and by simply extracting the .msi files with UniExtract they run fine in their intended OS without proper installing.

The v.4beta complains that it has expired, but setting the year to 2010 makes it work.

Personally, i would not use software with such artifical blocks (OS and date check) even if i could. But, hey, it's your choice.

[DosFreak]

The last version of Paint.NET I ran on XP was v4.0.6

[FantasyAcquiesce]

6 hours ago, DosFreak said:

The last version of Paint.NET I ran on XP was v4.0.6

Where did you obtain the download? I could not get Paint.NET past version 3.51 to launch on Windows XP or Vista

[ED_Sln]

7 hours ago, DosFreak said:

The last version of Paint.NET I ran on XP was v4.0.6

Not working.

[Vistapocalypse]

10 hours ago, FantasyAcquiesce said:

I could not get Paint.NET past version 3.51 to launch on Windows XP or Vista

I believe you mean 3.5.11, which is the version listed in Last Versions of Software for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 despite considerable discussion along these same lines in May 2019. I realize this is too elementary for MSFN, but installing Windows 7 on the Vista hardware would solve numerous software compatibility issues.

[win32]

The version check is very complicated. First you must tell fcwin2k/nnn4nt5/Application Verifier x86 to trick the downloaded setup executable into thinking it's on 7 SP1.

But then another version block appears, references W7, 8.1 and 10 1607+. This is done by a file named SetupShim.exe. For some reason I can't get around that.

So I located the install files in X:\User\AppData\Local\Temp\PdnSetup. This appears to include the files needed to run the software.

You can also run the two MSIs in the folder once you go into Orca and drop the "LaunchCondition" table. It will error out at the end but don't press OK: copy the files from the Paint.NET folder in Program Files (x86) to a safe place before the Windows Installer deletes everything.

However, it appears that programs running under .NET 4.8 on Vista need SetThreadGroupAffinity (which is relatively easy to implement). I haven't tried with 4.7.