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[How-to] MicrowinX Project


gdogg

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I am looking for a really fast host, that can handle traffic, that I dont think anyones personal computer can handle.

Thanks for the offer though.

If anyone, not just beta testers, would like some software tested in this windows, and patches made for it, before this goes public. Let me know please, so I can test and make patches for it.

Thanks.

edit

I am gonna download stuff randomly and test them, if not. I have downloaded 24 different things, I think people "might use".

it took an arm and a leg of work. But sygate free firewall, the one I tested, worked out great. I am very pleased to have it running, as I know many many people use it and for those who are interested nlite works in my windows now too. NVU open source html editor works.

Edited by gdogg
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After reading the whole topic here's some comments and questions for gdogg:

1. First,what Kind of CPU do you have in your PC - Intel (Pentium 4,Pentium 3) , or AMD (AthlonXP,Athlon64) ?

If you have an AMD,you should check out the AMD-optimized Firefox build BlueFyre (based on the latest daily trunk) updated every day.Works well with my AthlonXP.

Very fast one.You may want to try this build and compare the speed with the optimized Firefox you're currently using.

It's a small 7-zip package.No need to install at all.Just unzip the folder and run Firefox.exe.Clean and easy. Get it at: http://pryan.org/firefox/BlueFyre/

2. Have you thought of using BBLean as a replacement shell for explorer.exe? Just replace the explorer.exe with this one and you'll be amazed at how little RAM it uses.

I just don't know if you will like the Linux-ish style

3. I noticed somebody recommended using UPX. Using UPX is a bad idea. Even the MAME team,which used UPX for a long time to compress MAME32,got rid of UPX because it was slowing loading time

and it used more RAM.Now the uncompressed exe they use is bigger in size,but uses less RAM when it is loaded and loads way faster.

4. You recommend using ATi Catalyst 5.10 drivers.Why 5.10? By my (and everyones else) experience the 5.9 drivers are the most stable and fast drivers ATi has ever released so far.

I'm so satisfied with the stability of 5.9,I'll never change them ever (unless I buy one of those high-end still unreleased X1800 cards)

5. MicrowinXP - Will it have sound/audio and MIDI support? You know,games,music and movies without sound are not fun at all :) And why MIDI support?

Because kX project drivers (www.kxproject.com) for my Audigy2 won't install when I remove MIDI support with nLite

6. Problems with booting? If you can boot from a Knoppix Linux Live CD successfully,but not boot from a Windows CD or HDD,it must be your hard drive that is dying.

7. OpenOffice is a much better option than MS Office in terms of security.Much less security risks,has everything you need and more and it's free.

It uses more RAM,but that is BY DEFAULT only.If you tweak the settings in the options menu,you can run it with half or third the RAM usage and startup time is decreased by 2 or 3 times as well.

8. Will Microwin ever support 56k dialup-modem connection support? This is very important.When your broadband connection dies,this is your only savior until it's working again.

Besides that,there are still people that use only dialup,or ADSL with Dynamic IP,but DON'T HAVE ROUTERS,or do not plan to buy

9. I'm looking forward to beta testing the themeless version of microwinX. Can you send me the latest (themeless) beta of MicrowninX,please?(with instructions for doing those steps)

I know,I know...IRC..but I don't know if I'll find you there,cause I go online only 15 minutes a day and I don't use IM,ICQ and other stuff,just IRC

10. If I have the beta,I must test and make sure it will run most of more than a hundred programs I use every day :) That's a lot of testing...

The list is long,I'll post it next time.

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1. ill give it a try during my next re-install, hard drive fragmentation is owing me right now, from all my testing.

2. I want something that uses less memory and still has a start menu, so explorer is is going to stay for now.

3. Wouldn't even think of using upx

4. Because its upto date, and I am more antisapation 5.11 with the opengl optimisations.

5. yes games have sound. but midi support, I dont know yet, you could leave it with nlite, and that should do the trick.

6. cd-rom troubles are fixed now, it was from either a bad nero cd (oem). I went to a demo instead. or it was the bios somehow.

7. yes openoffice is great, and works fine in microwinX

8. I am not sure, if I had a modem, it would be easier to figure out. More possibly, dynaic ip support will be added.

9. there is no themeless version yet, not until I complete this will that happen due to having a possibly small timeframe of inet left. I am not on irc much either, I am spending most of my time making patches and testing software, along with a game here and there.

10. hundreds of programs a day, I feel sorry for you, but post the list anyway, the more things I make patches for the better I say.

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I've got access to a dedicated server (my bro's dedicated) ... I was not talking about my own pc lol :D

some software I would like to run on this windows (some of them are already running):

browsing&email = firefox and thunderbird (+sunbird ?)

office = openoffice

pdf = gsview + foxit + afpl postscript

music = winamp (+ streamripper/stationripper?)

movies = vlc (+klite codec package would be nice *g*)

chat = miranda, skype (+teamspeak?)

file transfer = filezilla, winscp (+putty?)

filesharing = utorrent (or any non-bloated bittorrent client)

burning = nero burning rom

iso stuff = ultraiso, daemon-tools, dvd-fab platinum

picture stuff = irfan view

system monitoring = nmap, tools from sysinternals (filemon, tcpview etc)

optional:

coding stuff: homesite, devcpp, ruby, activeperl ...

picture editing: photoshop ;-)

to be continued ;-)

today I'll be able to test some of that stuff

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Just to note: Those optimizations in the 5.11 Drivers will be of no use for anything but the newest X1000 Series of ATi cards :( I wish my good old Radeon 8500 would benefit...even your x800pro won't gain a single fps more,sadly.It's only for cards with the 512-bit ring memory bus.Don't expect too much.nVidia cards are the kings of OpenGL,ATi are better for Direct3D and image quality,ESPECIALLY image quality,which I appreciate the most.

And,here's part 1 of my list of programs (and some drivers) that I would like to be compatible with microwinX:

Opera 9

BlueFyre (Optimized Firefox 1.6alpha)

Nero 7

Nero 6.6.x.x

Nero 5.5.10.xx

WinDVD 7

AntiVir Personal Edition

Spyware Blaster

ProtoWall (this is NOT a firewall) (from www.bluetack.co.uk)

Tune-Up Utilities 2006

Everest Home Edition

eMule

Azureus + Java2 SE 1.5

CCleaner

Spybot S&D

Ad-Aware SE

kX Drivers 3538h (for Live and Audigy 1,2,4-series soundcards)

ASIO4ALL 2.6

Winamp 5.11

3DMark 2001SE

3DMark 2003

3DMark 2005

PCMark 2005

Windows Media Encoder 9

Windows Media Player 10

FRAPS

Vana'Diel Bench 3 (Final Fantasy XI Online benchmark)

OpenOffice.org 2.0 Final

XP-Antispy

Xpy

FLStudio 5.02c

Sound Forge 6.0e

Sound Forge 8.0

Cubase SX

Logitech Rumblepad 2 Gamepad Drivers

GetRight

Soulseek

Shareaza

uTorrent

mIRC 6.16

Task Catcher

Alcohol 120%

Adobe Acrobat Reader 7

XnView

WinRAR 3.50

7-Zip

ASUS Update

ASUS PC Probe II

Kerio Personal Firewall 4.2.2 (now this IS a firewall)

Media Player Classic

BSPlayer

KL Mega Codec Pack & DivX 6 create

Blocklist Manager (from www.bluetack.co.uk)

TiMidity++

VMWare Workstation

NOKIA Monitor Test 1.0.0.1

CPU-Z

InCD

EAC (Exact Audio Copy)

Auto Gordian Knot

FLAC

Foobar2000

CoolPage

Photoshop CS

Vegas

CDex

Multimedia Fusion (Pro)

RPG Maker XP

MP3 Direct Cut

OggDropXPd

PhotoFiltre

Axialis Icon Workshop

Flash FXP

Teleport Pro

ClrMAMEPro

MAME32FX

NetLimiter 2.0

NetStat Live

Yahoo Messenger

Softes Windows Cleaner 2005

O&O Defrag Professional

Dr. TCP

SpeedFan

ISO Buster

nVidia tweak Suite

HijackThis

PCInspector File Recovery 4.0

McAfee S_T_I_N_G_E_R

ROM Zipper

Partition Magic

Acronis TrueImage

PSXMC

Old games:

Halo

Morrowind

Red Faction 2

Hitman 2

Soldiers of fortune II

... and all of this is just one part of the list...DUH!

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The two things this lacks currently for myself is Wireless and Dynamic IP Support, I currently run an nLited XP in my Car for my CarPC and would like to make it even smaller, if someone can point me in the right direction, I'd even have a go myself to put some work into the project.

Let me know if you need another more beta tester, I'd be more than willing to test for you, my current smallest working install with Nlite and a few manual tweaks is 150Meg, would love to make this even smaller then I could boot off a smaller Compactflashcard :D

Edited by Gobby
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I would now like to thank XPMania,

creator of the Windows MAX Apocalypse x64 Theme for giving me permission to redistribute his theme. I am very thankful, as it allows me to shrink the fonts folder a great deal more.

@Gobby Wireless and Dynamic IP Support , once i get this project going, I hope to add support for this too.

@synth lol, I dont even know what to say, part 1, :P , hahaha, are you sure you run those on a daily basis? 3DMark 2001SE, 3DMark 2003, 3DMark 2005,PCMark 2005 ,Everest Home Edition (everest worked b4), FFXI bench, are all benchmarking software, as you need two windows on your computer for this project, i am sure you can restart to use these. But I will add support for them later, if I can, but they wont be priority.

Nero 7, Nero 6.6.x.x, Nero 5.5.10.xx , come on, pick one :P, I dont have nero 7, so it wont be tested until they make a trial version of it, nero 6.6.0.16 is tested, and working, except for a couple components, check the last 4 pages.

Opera 9, BlueFyre (Optimized Firefox 1.6alpha), Winamp 5.11(might be new, but still falls under winamp),OpenOffice 2.0 final (as said a few pages ago) , winrar, mirc, work, and patches already made, (firefox will need to be in a folder under \program files\firefox , for the patch to work though.

Windows Media Encoder 9 , Windows Media Player 10, will not be working to the best of my knowledges, you need to pick and choose, what your gonna use :P

But here is what I know for sure will not work. Yahoo messenger requires IE Core, and that will not be getting put back into this windows. Media player classic I dont see work atm, unless it was just a fluke, and I can get it running next time I format.

Partition magic, should be used from a bootable cd to ensure proper partitioning and resizing, anyway, I personally have lot my partition many times, using partition programs from windows, that do its work in the boot process.

I will be testing windvd, as I have been working hard on getting power dvd working also.

also anything that requires host files, probally wont work, (from reading, host files do nothing to increase your security, and only slow your internet down)

Also be aware, that any software, that installs stuff under \windows, or requires a patch that requires stuff be put back under \windows, will increase \windows size, possibly decrease security, and so forth, but there are some things, that I will decide, whether or not to make patches for, if I know the file being place back in the win directory would be a bad idea.

I cant really comment about everything, but I will go through the list, test what I can, and basically, there are gonna be so many patches in 2 weeks, that I will need a website, just to organise it.

But I appreaciate your list of software, and for sure would like to see part 2.

@vci, teamspeak worked for me b4, so I think your in luck.

Edited by gdogg
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@ synth

I guess this windows is not intended to be a replacement for an all-in-one-working-windows-with-all-your-favourtie-programs

it is just what it is: a small simple and secure windows providing all basics to 'survive' :D

@gdogg

I would not provide support all that bloated stuff like benchmarking software ...

I was thinking of a small, low-power box for the kids, guests or something similiar (carpc, kioskpc)

It should be possible to use a cf-card (or microdrive) + second hdd to setup that windows and then remove the second hdd ...

Edited by vci
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yes but I am also aware, of the fact, that there is some software, people just must have. As long as it doesn't completly bloat the windows directory I am fine supporting it, as it is a per patch basis, it will only bloat the windows of the user who wants to use that given piece of software.

Benchmarking software is important to alot of people, especially during overclocking, I too would like to get these software working, but they are not priority right now.

basically, I am going to need the testing of the users, to do a per game basis patching, as I cant make every game work myself, as I dont have everyones games on my computers.

But what I will do for games, is make a revert directx patch, a directx 7, 8 9 and opengl game needed files folders patch. But as the purpose is really get rid of bloat (memory bloat too) the users who play lots of games and are worried about hard drive space, should choose, revert directx, while users worried about memory usage, should use the per game patches, so directx only gets loaded during game usage.

Edited by gdogg
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what could also work, the steps which need the second windows (modify registry, delete system relevant dlls etc ...) could also be done from a windows PE ... so we don't need to make the extra partition :P

*to be tested* :thumbup

edit:

microwinx just rocks ;-)

lowestpf.png

Edited by vci
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@qdogg:

You don't need the ATi control Panel,it eats a large chunk of RAM,but if you ever plan to use the TV-Out...(which I do quite often),you will need to install that bloody thing :(

Do you add the parameter /noguiboot in the boot.ini to your microwinX installed in partition c: ? It loads even faster.

There should be an option in nLite too,to set the /noguiboot flag in boot.ini after install

And what's that funny thing with the nForce RAID driver? To install it,you also have to install Java,but I hate to have dung like Java or .NET Framework installed on my machine.All this crap lowers your security level badly.

Oh,so you do know that site from before? Heh,it's a bit old,but have you read the replies at the end that some guy has managed to get rid of even Csrss.exe on Win2k3,leaving just the System process running...that's the really amazing part,and he's gaming like this for weeks.

And,about your benchmarks - you claim your microwinX gets 25-30 fps more in SWAT 4 than a well nLited XP? That's very hard to believe.

I made a most minimal nLited XP possible,including removal of unneeded exe's,dll's,folders and whatnot and then cleaned a lot of registry junk.

And microwinX to give you at least 20fps more? Hmmm... I don't believe I can gain even 2fps more at best.To prove this,I benchmarked my system in 3DMark2001SE with that nLited XP,and then I rebooted and killed all services as in that site with process explorer,

leaving just explorer.exe,Csrss,System and System Idle Process. Then I started 3DMark2001,KILLED explorer.exe and ran a new benchmark...

Guess what? The result was 0% better...hmmmm...

Note: I had my drivers integrated and no ATi Control panel installed.

So,you won't get any FPS increase with microwinX,but you will get lower LATENCY,that explains the increased system response I experienced when I killed all the stuff.

That's why your LAG was lower.So you'll *only* get

- lower memory footprint

- really small HDD space used (that's the biggest thing in microwinX,since now it can FINALLY fit in a 64MB USB Flash disk)

- shorter boot times (have you tried how long it will boot if you have Kerio Personal Firewall instead of your firewall? This firewall takes a LONG time to start)

- higher system response

- lower network latency

but no FPS increase,unless you have compared it to a normally-nLited XP,not to an extremely stripped XP.

Oh,and there are those optimized ATi drivers called Omega Drivers (www.omegadrivers.net) which are faster and offer good overclock options,but if you can try them and make them use less memory,I'd rather use them instead of the regular ATi ones,if I wanted more FPS in games.

You can test them and see if they are worth the trouble.

P.S. I visited #microwinX on IRC and waited hoping somebody will come,but it was empty for hours

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software tested so far (starting the program works, didnt test any function!!!):

I guess some of them might need additional dlls when they start working/make use of some special tools (nero e.g.)... whatever here we go:

Derive 5.02 (math program)

comdlg32.dll, comctl32.dll, winspool.drv, oledlg.dll, olepro32.dll

works

Blackbox

comctl32.dll, bbleanbar.dll (plugins\bbleanbar\bbleanbar.dll)

works

Firefox:

comdlg32.dll, wsock32.dll, winspool.drv

works

7zip:

comdlg32.dll

works

WinSCP:

wsock32.dll, winspool.drv, comdlg32.dll, imm32.dll

works

VLC:

opengl32.dll, comdlg.dll

works

Filezilla:

comctl32.dll, winspool.drv

PROBLEM: starting program and nothing happens

Winamp:

comctl32.dll, comdlg32.dll, wsock32.dll, dciman32.dll

works

Skype:

imm32.dll, comdlg32.dll, SHfolder.dll, oleacc.dll

PROBLEM: The application failed to initialize properly (0x0000142). Click ok to terminate the application)

Photoshop 7.0:

comdlg32.dll, winspool.drv, imm32.dll, comctl32.dll

works

Miranda 4.0.1:

wsock32.dll, comdlg32.dll, riched20.dll, riched32.dll

works

Nero 6.6.0.8 (burning rom/express):

shfolder.dll, quartz.dll, comdlg32.dll, olethk32.dll, wsock32.dll, winspool.drv, olepro32.dll, oledlg.dll

works

Openoffice 1.1.5:

wsock32.dll, winspool.drv, imm32.dll

works

IrfanView 3.97:

winspool.drv, comdlg32.dll

works

utorrent:

comdlg32.dll

works

Foxit:

comdlg32.dll, comctl32.dll, winspool.drv, oledlg.dll, olepro32.dll

works

Ultraiso:

comdlg32.dll, oledlg.dll

works

Homesite:

comctl32.dll, imm32.dll, winspool.drv, comdlg32.dll, msvfw32.dll, avifil32.dll

PROBLEM: starting program and nothing happens

DVD-Fab Platinum:

comctl32.dll

PROBLEM: starting program and nothing happens

Edited by vci
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