ProxHTTPSProxy and HTTPSProxy in Windows XP for future use

[Multibooter]

1 hour ago, AstroSkipper said:

The four files are now password protected and stops MediaFire from spreading further untruths.  That's quite enough for me. 

I have a 2TB HDD, labeled "FLAGGED", nearly full with flagged stuff. The flagged stuff is in the subfolders: adware, corrupt, incomplete, infected [=Trojans+viruses], malware, riskware and password-protected. Password-protected installer files require full trust. Your files may enjoy full trust because the source/referring page is msfn.org. The only installer containing pw-protected files which I use is for Beyond Compare, which has my full trust.

[AstroSkipper]

In April of 2022, I already recreated the cacert_Updater.exe due to false positives generated by some scanners. Read more about it here: https://msfn.org/board/topic/183352-proxhttpsproxy-and-httpsproxy-in-windows-xp-for-future-use/?do=findComment&comment=1217288  
Strangely, the archive in this post has not been flagged as malicious by MediaFire although it contains the same cacert_Updater.exe file. 

 

[Multibooter]

1 hour ago, AstroSkipper said:

In April of 2022, I already recreated the cacert_Updater.exe due to false positives generated by some scanners. Read more about it here: https://msfn.org/board/topic/183352-proxhttpsproxy-and-httpsproxy-in-windows-xp-for-future-use/?do=findComment&comment=1217288  
Strangely, the archive in this post has not been flagged as malicious by MediaFire although it contains the same cacert_Updater.exe file. 

 

Your old version of April 2022 gets flagged by my ancient version of Kaspersky, signature of 8Nov2024, as follows:

detected: Trojan program Trojan.Win32.Gamaredon.gj    file: E:\Downloads_5\cacert_Updater_Fixed_Recreated.7z//cacert_Updater.exe

No riskware is detected.

virustotal:

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/245eb2147210581ce8965cd1337d1137b48da190e5e5e2dd6627d8eb803dd563

Software which gets flagged has a much shorter life expectancy. A programming job may be considered complete after having ensured that it will not get flagged.

Edited January 14, 2025 by Multibooter

[AstroSkipper]

23 minutes ago, Multibooter said:

virustotal:

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/245eb2147210581ce8965cd1337d1137b48da190e5e5e2dd6627d8eb803dd563

Software which gets flagged has a much shorter life expectancy. A programming job may be considered complete after having ensured that it will not get flagged.

Only 2 of 62 scanners flag the cacert_Updater_Fixed_Recreated.7z file as malicious. That's a perfect result.  One of these two scanners is Kaspersky. So again, forget about Kaspersky!  It's trash just like Jiangmin. 

Edited January 14, 2025 by AstroSkipper

[VistaLover]

1 hour ago, AstroSkipper said:

The four files are now password protected ... That's quite enough for me. 

... FWIW, password-protecting the uploaded archive only takes care of downloading the archive from MediaFire; in the event one's locally installed security solution still flags some of the files contained inside the then extracted 7z archive, it's still a "nuisance", as those files have to be manually put inside an exception list  ...

Let us NOT revisit the whole "K" discussion (beaten to death already), I still respect the views voiced by members here  ; but let's consider that in places of the world where XP is still used (e.g. in ex-USSR states), "K" (v2018 Free?) might be also installed as a local Security Suite ; the best approach (apart from recreating the culprit files) would be to send those unjustly flagged files to Kaspersky Lab themselves, so, hopefully, they could lift their block on them:

https://support.kaspersky.com/common/error/other/1870

https://opentip.kaspersky.com/

@Multibooter, would you consider this? 

Kind regards.

PS: I suppose you're still being able to fetch definition updates after the Sep2024 US ban? 

[AstroSkipper]

10 hours ago, VistaLover said:

... FWIW, password-protecting the uploaded archive only takes care of downloading the archive from MediaFire;

This is of course true, but it is not the only positive effect. Password protection prevents MediaFire's virus scanner from being able to scan these files and therefore from reporting any further nonsense.  My uploaded files should only be downloaded by people who trust me and my information. It works according to the principle Take it or leave it!  Nobody is forced to download anything from me. And if after downloading my files a locally installed antimalware programme reports files as malicious, they should then be excluded from scanning as usual.

Edited January 15, 2025 by AstroSkipper
Update of content

[roytam1]

trying to run ProxHTTPSProxy_TLS_1_3_1_5_220717_PopMenu_3V3 on a XP SP3 system, and I get a crash:

Fatal Python Error: initfsencoding: unable to load the file system codec
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'encodings'

and a crash in ucrtbase.dll of python37.exe

[AstroSkipper]

18 hours ago, roytam1 said:

trying to run ProxHTTPSProxy_TLS_1_3_1_5_220717_PopMenu_3V3 on a XP SP3 system, and I get a crash:

Fatal Python Error: initfsencoding: unable to load the file system codec
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'encodings'

and a crash in ucrtbase.dll of python37.exe

Very strange. Never had any crashes with this release. All Python related modules were ported by me from @cmalex's ProxyMII (20220717) release. Check my main article under the sections 8.3.1 and 9.3! As I said, no problems here with these releases on my Windows XP computer. And you are the very first who reported such issues Did you install it by following my instructions? Maybe, you should completely remove it and perform a reinstallation. Is there anything else in your system which might interfere with the Python modules?

Edited March 15, 2025 by AstroSkipper

[AstroSkipper]

Even today, the proxies ProxHTTPSProxy, HTTPSProxy and ProxyMII have lost none of their importance for Windows XP. There are programmes that still run on Windows XP but require a secure TLS connection. A good example of this is Panda Antivirus Free, which requires such a connection to activate the user account, albeit only once. 

[Guest sea]

Thank you, adding TLS 1.3 support to XP was very easy with your proxy.

I was having trouble connecting to Microsoft server because of failed handshake, finding out after wasting much time, that they require at minimum TLS 1.3, when I was trying to install SDK (MSDN library) on XP.

First i was trying to add tls 1.3 to XP by using RebexTinyTlsProxy, but it didnt work at all, and its options were very limited.

Then I've found about this proxy and it worked very well, almost immediately. Now let me tell you about my experience when using ProxHTTPSProxy's PopMenu TLS 1.3 3V3

- first i thought that this is the latest version, and it already includes ProxyMI-20230813 but it does not, so i have first deleted original python folder in (ProxHTTPSProxy's PopMenu TLS 1.3 3V3) and replaced it with ProxyMI-20230813 python folder. Next change was, I added the missing line to ProxHTTPSProxy.bat file: set "CRYPTOGRAPHY_OPENSSL_NO_LEGACY=1". For the last change i saw that ProxHTTPSProxy.EXE is also different, but both version worked the same, and it seems that only icons differ, so I've left the old one.

- I couldn't get pop-menu options to show up because, I'm used to, and always click right mouse button on tray icon, because it was always until now, for all tray icons to show options with right click and open window with left click. So it will be good to add to readme that you must click with left button on tray icon for pop-menu options to show up.

 

Now, my modifications:

I'm always using or making my own portable applications so i was wondering if is possible to make it portable so that no configuration is required, and YES it is and its easy. PopMenu executable was build very well, because it can accept relative paths directly without any of its own modifications, so i just edited PopMenu.ini and is enough.

Now "Configure PopMenu.exe" is completly unnecessary. You can now move proxy folder anywhere you wish, or rename as you wish and it will work flawlessly immediately by just running ProxyPopMenu.exe. You only need to activate proxy for the first time by ActivateProxy.exe (on clean system), which i have added to the menu. I've also added DeactivateProxy.exe to menu, so you can restore system state.

here are PopMenu.ini changes:

[Dat]
Key=57382
Cnt=19
[0]
Tit=Start ProxHTTPSProxy
Art=0
Prg=.\StartProxy.exe
Par=
Dir=.
Win=0
Ico=
Idx=0
[1]
Tit=Stop ProxHTTPSProxy
Art=0
Prg=.\window.exe /KILL ProxHTTPSProxyMII v1.5
Par=
Dir=.
Win=0
Ico=.\Icons.icl
Idx=109
[2]
Tit=Minimize ProxHTTPSProxy to systray
Art=0
Prg=.\SendKey.exe "%m" "ProxHTTPSProxyMII v1.5"
Par=
Dir=.
Win=0
Ico=.\Down.ico
Idx=0
[3]
Tit=Restore ProxHTTPSProxy from systray
Art=0
Prg=.\SendKey.exe "%r" "ProxHTTPSProxyMII v1.5"
Par=
Dir=.
Win=0
Ico=.\Up.ico
Idx=0
[4]
Tit=Hide ProxHTTPSProxy
Art=0
Prg=.\window.exe /HIDE ProxHTTPSProxyMII v1.5
Par=
Dir=.
Win=0
Ico=.\Icons.icl
Idx=47
[5]
Tit=Show ProxHTTPSProxy
Art=0
Prg=.\window.exe /SHOW ProxHTTPSProxyMII v1.5
Par=
Dir=.
Win=0
Ico=.\Icons.icl
Idx=48
[6]
Tit=Check if ProxHTTPSProxy is running
Art=0
Prg=.\CheckProxy.exe
Par=
Dir=.
Win=0
Ico=
Idx=0
[7]
Tit=--------------------
Art=1
[8]
Tit=ACTIVATE Proxy <Enable> (for first time is needed)
Art=0
Prg=.\ActivateProxy.exe
Par=
Dir=.
Win=0
Ico=
Idx=0
[9]
Tit=Deactivate Proxy <Disable>
Art=0
Prg=.\DeactivateProxy.exe
Par=
Dir=.
Win=0
Ico=
Idx=0
[10]
Tit=--------------------
Art=1
[11]
Tit=cacert Update
Art=0
Prg=.\..\cacert_Updater.exe
Par=
Dir=
Win=0
Ico=
Idx=0
[12]
Tit=Root Certificate Update
Art=0
Prg=.\..\Certificate Updater 1.6\Cert_Updater_v1.6.exe
Par=
Dir=
Win=0
Ico=
Idx=0
[13]
Tit=--------------------
Art=1
[14]
Tit=Open IE Proxy Settings
Art=0
Prg=.\OpenLANSet.exe
Par=
Dir=.
Win=0
Ico=
Idx=0
[15]
Tit=Close IE Proxy Settings
Art=0
Prg=.\CloseLANSet.exe
Par=
Dir=.
Win=0
Ico=
Idx=0
[16]
Tit=Check system proxy status
Art=0
Prg=.\CheckSysProxStatus.exe
Par=
Dir=.
Win=0
Ico=
Idx=0
[17]
Tit=Enable ProxHTTPSProxy system-wide
Art=0
Prg=.\EnableProxSysWide.exe
Par=
Dir=.
Win=0
Ico=
Idx=0
[18]
Tit=Disable ProxHTTPSProxy system-wide
Art=0
Prg=.\DisableProxSysWide.exe
Par=
Dir=.
Win=0
Ico=
Idx=0
[19]
Tit=--------------------
Art=1
[20]
Tit=Edit config.ini
Art=0
Prg=notepad
Par=.\..\config.ini
Dir=
Win=0
Ico=.\Icons.icl
Idx=5
[21]
Tit=Read documentation
Art=0
Prg=notepad
Par=.\..\Docs\Documentation of ProxHTTPSProxy's PopMenu 3V3.txt
Dir=
Win=0
Ico=.\Icons.icl
Idx=30

 

PopMenu.ini

Edited March 29 by sea

[AstroSkipper]

Hello @sea! Thanks for posting and interest in ProxHTTPSProxy's PopMenu TLS 1.3 3V3!  However, it is more or less portable. It only uses modules from inside its programme folder and stores its settings there. The "Configure PopMenu.exe" is necessary to adapt all absolute pathes, to configure Min2Tray and to set the autostart of PopMenu and Min2Tray. You can of course use relative pathes but Min2Tray has then to be manually configured as well. It needs own registry entries and is therefore not really fully portable. I personally use ProxHTTPSProxy's PopMenu TLS 1.3 3V4 which I had updated to the most recent ProxyMI-20230813 long time ago but never released here due to the lack of interest.  Strictly following the rule: No demand, no supply. 

Edited March 30 by AstroSkipper
Update of content

[Guest sea]

all configuration can also be done via tray icon, basically only the following steps are now required, assuming that certificate is installed

1. run ProxyPopMenu.exe

2. (optional) right click on tray icon and under settings you can set auto-start option if you want.

3. left click on tray icon and click Activate Proxy & Start Proxy

In the end you can click Deactivate proxy to restore registry (proxy settings).

As for Min2Tray is actually redundant because I just use hide/show proxy option.

[AstroSkipper]

12 hours ago, sea said:

As for Min2Tray is actually redundant because I just use hide/show proxy option.

Maybe for you but my package needs a correct configuration of Min2Tray for minimizing the proxy console. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel.  My package works perfectly as it was described in my thread and inside the archive.  Any modifications done by users at their own risk! 

Edited April 1 by AstroSkipper
Update of content