Latest-ish MPC-HC ported for XP

[AstroSkipper]

1 hour ago, D.Draker said:

WhoCrashed Free Home Edition - marvellous tool! Old versions should work with XP, check it out.

"It will perform a post-mortem crashdump analysis and present all gathered information in an understandable way."

https://www.resplendence.com/whocrashed

Yes, a great tool.  I also have been using it for years but an older professional version.  And there is a further one from Nirsoft called BlueScreenView.

Edited January 16, 2024 by AstroSkipper

[AstroSkipper]

On 1/14/2024 at 3:06 PM, we3fan said:

when I start MPC-HC 2.1.2.18 on XP SP2

But there's something else I keep asking myself. Why is your Windows XP 32-bit running SP2? After SP2 came SP3.  And then hundreds of updates for SP3 and additionaly hundreds more POSReady updates.  This means that in total (SP3 included) presumably at least 1000 updates are missing from a Windows XP SP2 system. 

Edited January 16, 2024 by AstroSkipper
Update of content

[AstroSkipper]

Double posting! The editor is out of control. 

Edited January 16, 2024 by AstroSkipper

[Dixel]

17 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

But there's something else I keep asking myself. Why is your Windows XP 32-bit running SP2? After SP2 came SP3. 

This Service pack 3 is heavily bloated and slow. It was always the case with my Celeron Toshiba (2003) or any other right era hardware I used.

Possibly later, when the first Core Quad came out, it became less apparent. I can relate to those people who prefer to run MPC-HC on SP2.

[Dixel]

17 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

And then hundreds of updates for SP3 and additionaly hundreds more POSReady updates.  This means that in total (SP3 included) presumably at least 1000 updates are missing from a Windows XP SP2 system. 

I'm obviously not an XP expert anymore, if I ever was, but something tells me, those updates are no longer that important anymore. The times and the threats, they were written to deal with, are long gone. When was the last update for XP, a decade ago? I even find the first release of XP64 to be faster than the second one, so I maybe port MPC-HC on it someday.

[AstroSkipper]

2 hours ago, Dixel said:

This Service pack 3 is heavily bloated and slow. It was always the case with my Celeron Toshiba (2003) or any other right era hardware I used.

Possibly later, when the first Core Quad came out, it became less apparent. I can relate to those people who prefer to run MPC-HC on SP2.

My Windows XP Professional received the SP3 service pack as soon as it was released. My system was already fully updated in 2014 with all updates after SP3. From 2014 to 2019, my system received all POSReady updates. My 32-bit CPU is a Pentium 4 with only 1.5 GB SD-RAM. So very weak hardware. And yet my system runs excellently. By no means worse than when SP2 was still in use , but much more up-to-date. 

[Dixel]

3 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

Pentium 4 with only 1.5 GB SD-RAM. So very weak hardware.

Comparing to Celeron, Pentium is of a higher tier, especially if we compare desktop to notebook (Toshiba). Besides, my laptop had 512MB of RAM, it was the highest possible amount for the early 2003. Later I upgraded it to 1GB of DDR ram.

That was the max. amount the chipset allowed.

[AstroSkipper]

I don't know what the exact system requirements of MPC-HC 2.1.2.18 are with regard to Windows XP, but many programmes require Service Pack SP3 to be installed if they are compatible with XP at all.  Thus, stucking at SP2 doesn't really make much sense and is not really a good idea, IMHO.  

Edited January 17, 2024 by AstroSkipper
Update of content

[AstroSkipper]

I found the system requirements for MPC-HC 1.7.13 on the old, abandoned homepage:

Quote

What are the requirements for MPC-HC?

In order to run MPC-HC you must have an SSE2-capable CPU. MPC-HC will work on Windows® XP Service Pack 3, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10, both 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64).

https://mpc-hc.org/faq/#what-are-the-requirements-for-mpc-hc

Due to the fact that MPC-HC 2.1.2.18 is a port for Windows XP, it is completely unclear whether it has ever been tested under SP2 or is supported there at all. 

Edited January 17, 2024 by AstroSkipper
Update of content

[Dixel]

3 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

I found the system requirements for MPC-HC 1.7.13 on the old, abandoned homepage:

https://mpc-hc.org/faq/#what-are-the-requirements-for-mpc-hc

Due to the fact that MPC-HC 2.1.2.18 is a port for Windows XP, it is completely unclear whether it has ever been tested under SP2 or is supported there at all. 

I can be mistaken, but that requirement is related to DXVA1, that old version will still open up and work on SP2, but no acceleration will be available, so on that Celeron max 360p, 480p at best.

On such old hardware no acceleration is possible anyways, like in my case with the ancient Intel Extreme Graphics on Toshiba.

[AstroSkipper]

Most probably nobody will bother to test their ports for Windows XP without SP, without SP fully updated, with SP1, with SP1 fully updated, with SP2, with SP2 fully updated, with SP3, with SP3 fully updated and with SP3 + all POSReady updates, fully updated.   Tests under SP3 are logically the most likely. 

Edited January 17, 2024 by AstroSkipper

[Dixel]

Those artificially boosted requrements of that era were mostly related to PVP.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_Video_Path

It was in the interests of companies to exclude XP and Vista RTM because "in January 2007 the developer Alex Ionescu announced that he had found a method that allows end users to bypass Vista's Protected Media Path. This would allow digital content to be played on equipment that does not implement DRM restriction measures"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_Media_Path

From what I remember, but can't find any articles, those "loopholes" were fixed in XP SP3 and SP1 of Vista in 2008.

"These restrictions only apply to DRM-restricted content, such as HD DVD or Blu-ray that are encrypted with AACS, and also apply in Windows XP using supported playback applications."

[we3fan]

Thanks everyone.

@D.Draker, @mina7601   I appreciate the input, but I don't think that is the case with my drive, I have SSD and it's in Good condition.
This only happens with 1% of the Programs I try.

@j7n   Your hint was correct, it was sxs.dll that was causing it.
Do you still use XP SP1?

@UCyborg   Your modified mpc-hc.exe works good, no BSOD.
Did it require replacing many lines?

I want to try this mpc-hc.exe modification, I read j7n's info about this:

Quote

"The culprit turned out to be an overly complicated manifest resource: two "xmlns" values per any element, as well as a section <ms_compatibility:compatibility ... >. Removal of those stopped the crashes. Replacing <ms_compatibility...> with <compatibility><application><supportedOS ... also seemed to work."

I could try replacing the minimal number of lines.

Do I need to replace this line:
<ms_compatibility:compatibility xmlns:ms_compatibility="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:compatibility.v1" xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:compatibility.v1">
with:
<compatibility><application><supportedOS>
?

@IXOYE   Can you tell me what version is your C:\WINDOWS\system32\sxs.dll ?

@AstroSkipper   I wanted to analyse the BSOD crash dump file, but XP SP2 didn't create a crash dump file for me, I used these settings:
Small memory dump (64 KB) + Custom size 16MB pagefile on C: + BSOD from MPC-HC 2.1.2.18 - no crash Minidump file hmm
Small memory dump (64 KB) + Custom size 16MB pagefile on C: + BSOD from WhoCrashed > Crush Dump Test - created crash Minidump file, good.
So with exact same settings the MPC-HC 2.1.2.18 BSOD didn't create crash dump file but the WhoCrashed > Crush Dump Test BSOD created crash dump file.
From my tests I can only conclude that: 'STOP c000021A Error with 0xc0000005' BSOD on XP SP2 doesn't create crash dump file hmm.

But even without crash dump file MSFN triumphed!    @j7n    @UCyborg  

I have SP2 and SP3, my SP2 is very customized; I use SP3 for testing, SP3 on my laptop felt a bit bloated and slower from the moment I installed it ... but I could start customizing SP3 at some point.

[mina7601]

On 1/17/2024 at 7:43 PM, we3fan said:

@mina7601   I appreciate the input, but I don't think that is the case with my drive, I have SSD and it's in Good condition.
This only happens with 1% of the Programs I try.

Thanks, but the suggestion of running chkdsk is, however, not mine, it's from that link I put earlier, which points to the same error code.

But hey, good to know both j7n and UCyborg solved your issue.

Edited January 20, 2024 by mina7601

[j7n]

19 minutes ago, we3fan said:

@j7n   Your hint was correct, it was sxs.dll that was causing it.
Do you still use XP SP1?

No, I got rid of it a couple years ago. I had to make a clean install of Windows and most applications, which was very disruptive.

For WinXP you don't need that manifest if it doesn't link to a MSVC runtime DLL. The admin rights stuff and OS compatibility matters to Vista+. But new applications being able to crash the system is worse than the CON and AUX bug on Win98.

For Nvidia video adapters there is still the CUVID interface in MPC-HC which works on WinXP. Microsoft's always does its best tie APIs to recent versions of Windows.

Edited January 17, 2024 by j7n