[HN Gopher] Legacy Update: Fix Windows Update on Windows XP, Vis... ___________________________________________________________________ Legacy Update: Fix Windows Update on Windows XP, Vista, Server 2008, 2003, 2000 Author : weissbier Score : 89 points Date : 2022-12-16 20:30 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (legacyupdate.net) (TXT) w3m dump (legacyupdate.net) | accrual wrote: | I haven't tried this personally but I'm already a huge fan of it. | I build and benchmark various retro PCs and some of them are fast | enough to be fully patched, which I do if it's an option. | | For XP I really like the unofficial SP4 service pack which rolls | up all post-SP3 updates into a single executable, with or without | .NET. The later POS-only patches are also available. It makes it | really simple to bring an old system "up to date", even if the | last update was a couple years ago. | | These machines are just for fun of course and I don't do real | work on them, and I'm behind NAT and monitor my traffic, so I'm | not really worried about these systems. | ryandrake wrote: | I agree, this is excellent! Honestly, shame on Microsoft that | these sorts of things have to be a community-produced and | delivered. Not singling Microsoft out, either--most software | vendors' support for older products is abysmal. I'm tired of | the attitude in the software industry of only maintaining back | to some arbitrary time (mere years!), inevitably leaving users | of older systems out in the cold. Unpopular opinion, but if you | can't be assed to support a product for the duration that it's | deployed in the field, you probably shouldn't release it to | begin with. | londons_explore wrote: | I love the style/theme of the site. I might use it on some of my | own sites too. I think it's now old enough to be cool again... | zaggynl wrote: | Neat, could one combine this with | https://download.wsusoffline.net/ ? | | Edit: would need to pull from | https://archive.org/search.php?query=wsusoffline&sin= I guess | WhackyIdeas wrote: | I am very curious of how long it would take to be 'pwned' whilst | browsing the web with internet explorer on XP. | | Seconds, minutes, hours? | | Time to fire up a VM I think. | mmcgaha wrote: | A long time because the old TLS does not let you connect to | modern servers. | badsectoracula wrote: | Most likely never because nothing more advanced than very basic | HTML sites work with IE6 nowadays and with JS enabled you are | more likely to crash the browser than visit a site. | | This includes the vast majority of ads which are the main way | to get such malware. Also chances are even if a bad ad (or | other vulnerability) hits you, it wont work because it'd be | designed for browsers people actually use :-P. | hulitu wrote: | Years ? I don't know if the newest ransomware runs on Win XP. | danogentili wrote: | Actually, it would make perfect sense for malware to rely | very heavily on backwards compatibility and old exploits. | guestbest wrote: | I've used windows XP tablet is on a Toshiba with a patched up | version of Firefox designed to use TLS 1.3 on the internet | without issues for hours. I think most software is so I'm | compatible with it that even hacking it is a history lesson. | userbinator wrote: | If you turn off JS and all the other features (ActiveX, etc.) | that should've never been allowed on anything other than sites | you fully trust, probably a very long time. | | I wonder how much malware now just refuses to run on XP because | it attempts to use functions that were introduced in later | versions. | causality0 wrote: | Depends on your browsing habits. If you're only visiting a | handful of trustworthy websites maybe never. If you spend nine | hours a day on bootleg hentai streaming sites, maybe very | quickly. | WhackyIdeas wrote: | Maybe. See we had a trusted B2B site we use for stock. Then | we noticed our bank account being raided. Turns out they had | hackers on their system skimming all the card details. | | Maybe they were hosting on XP. Didn't ask. | badsectoracula wrote: | Chances are said bootleg hentai streaming sites wont work on | IE6 anyway. | Koshkin wrote: | I wish ReactOS were ready by now... | Animats wrote: | I could see staying with Windows 7. That was the best version | Microsoft ever made. Microsoft finally figured out how to make it | stable, and it didn't have all the ad and cloud crap nailed in. | You can run current Firefox, current Thunderbird, and current | LibreOffice, which covers the basics. Most Windows software still | works. | Koshkin wrote: | > _That was the best version Microsoft ever made_ | | No. 7 was a rollback on Vista. The best one which was not a | step back but rather a step forward was Windows 2000. (Some | even swear by NT4, which I feel also has some merit.) | nix23 wrote: | I think WindowsServer2003R2 was the best OS Microsoft ever | made, then XP >SP2 and Windows2000, then Win7. | Koshkin wrote: | As to "the best OS Microsoft has ever made," it was OS/2 | (which they abandoned in favor of the "hugely successful" | Windows 3.0 which was clearly inferior on all technical | accounts). | ahartmetz wrote: | Yes, 2000 was by far my favorite Windows. Very solid, very | clean style. I have a burning hatred for the visual design of | Windows 7 (and Vista to a lesser degree) - it may have been | technically great, but the design felt appropriate for a | toothpaste, not for an operating system. I could only stand | XP with the 2000 style as well. What the hell were they | thinking? | rzzzt wrote: | The theme in Windows 2000 and its classic counterpart in XP | 64-bit used a darker shade of blue for the background, | which I always tried to hand-select on the systems that I | had (and weren't running these versions). | | There was also some tiny difference between the active | window colors as well, IIRC. | kitsunesoba wrote: | Windows 7 also had the best customization/theming, followed by | XP. Both 7 and XP had some amazing looking community-made | .msstyle themes but 7's theme engine allowed for things like | full transparency while XP was limited to 1-bit transparency. | This was nice in that it offered UI looks that were more modern | than the classic theme yet more understated than the gaudy | Luna/Aero. | | Then Windows 8 came along and decided flat squares were the | only option anybody could use, removing theme transparency | support altogether. | synaesthesisx wrote: | It amazes me how many machines there are still out there, | connected to the internet, running Windows XP (a 21+ year old OS) | MuffinFlavored wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel_version_history | | I wonder if there is a sizable position easily identifiable | Linux 2.6.x running out there. | dezgeg wrote: | Plenty of routers (especially on Broadcom chipset). | Lammy wrote: | Lots of old Androids | https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/51651/which- | andr... | doodlesdev wrote: | There probably are a lot of NAS all around the world still | running that version, probably somewhat patched with some | backporting though. | slt2021 wrote: | For the love of god just get off of thece ancient systems pls, or | run the only in airgapped and isolated network segments with | application whitelisting and manual data ingress/egress controls, | and everything will be fine without these silly updates. | | Just bury the body already, let winxp rest in peace, please | no_identd wrote: | Tell that to my desire for a retro gaming experience. | wnevets wrote: | > For the love of god just get off of thece ancient systems | pls, | | Is anyone actually writing exploits for these ancient systems? | I wouldn't be surprised if it is actually safer from non- | targeted attacks. | Koshkin wrote: | Why, they all have been written already, long ago. | throwaway0x7E6 wrote: | there are hundreds of multiplayer games that dont work past | win7 bro | hhh wrote: | do you have examples? | userbinator wrote: | You're welcome to stay on your leash and do as MS says. | Klonoar wrote: | OP is appealing to modern security needs and general advances | in computing. Your comment isn't really necessary or useful. | causality0 wrote: | Give me a new Windows that isn't dripping with contempt for the | user. | cpuguy83 wrote: | That's what they said about XP when it came out. | throwaway0x7E6 wrote: | really? who, when? | | I have actually lived through that era, and I can't | remember there being negative sentiment about XP. I don't | know about the dark corners of the internet, but the people | in my circles were neutral about XP, hated Vista, loved 7, | hated 8, hated 10 and hate 11 | | to this day, the only criticism of XP I saw is about the | UI, which doesn't make sense to me - switching it was a | matter of 3 clicks | bitwize wrote: | XP was the first Windows with phone-home DRM. | mostlysimilar wrote: | Better to have at-install license key check than all of | the hostile telemetry and ads in Windows 11. | bitwize wrote: | Yeah, but that shit was a big deal back then. We were | used to having software work for us and not anyone else, | so monetizing your eyeballs or attempting to profile you | and enforce copyright through the internet was weird and | creepy. People lost their shit when they found out Bonzi | Buddy and Comet Cursor had spyware. Today's Bonzi | Buddy/Comet Cursor is called... well, Windows 11, and no | one seems to care. | throwaway0x7E6 wrote: | guess they were right then that it was a sign of things | to come | Koshkin wrote: | > _there being negative sentiment about XP_ | | I, on the other hand, clearly remember a huge wave of | disgust and resentment towards XP right after it came | out. Slow and bloated, with hideous, gimmicky visuals, it | had been an object of all kinds of ridicule and | criticisms by "sophisticated" computer users. | iso1631 wrote: | I think people were happy with NT4, 2000, Windows 95, and | possibly Windows 98 as it had a fair number of technical | improvements over Vanilla 95 (OSR2 brought in support for | >2G drives for example but it wasn't until 98 you could | use it properly) | | From memory XP was the first "phone home" windows version | which required some form of online registration. I | stopped using windows at home or admining it around then. | badsectoracula wrote: | Pretty much everyone i remember hated XP's "Fisher Price" | look. | | Also there was a ton of compatibility issues, at the time | Microsoft saw Win98 as the biggest competitor to XP and | it wasn't until SP2 that XP was seen as good. | | Funny enough, a quick search for "windows xp fisher | price" has this Ars Technica article about exactly that | topic (people hating Windows XP when it first came out): | | https://arstechnica.com/information- | technology/2014/04/memor... | causality0 wrote: | As did I. I was excited for everything until 8. I even | liked Vista, since I was installing it on a real computer | and not a 256MB shitbox. Still miss Vista's ability to | dock My Computer as a desktop toolbar. | danogentili wrote: | What about switching to Linux? :) | | If you're running legacy OSes, you're most definitely not | playing recent games with DRM or doing anything that can't be | done on a recent Linux system. | [deleted] | archontes wrote: | I still believe that linux is unsuitable for the vast | majority of people. I virtualize all of my workstations | with proxmox, and have the ability to backup and restore | snapshots quickly, and without that ability, the number of | times a _gui recommended_ kernel update would just kill | large portions of my system is too damn high. | | Kernel 5.15 still seems to be incompatible with running two | monitors on a GTX 1080TI with any of the proprietary nvidia | drivers I've tried. | StillBored wrote: | What you give up with linux is the hardware | compatibility. The linux bigots would say you get better | HW compatibility but that is only true if your HW is old | junk the manufacture abandoned years back. | | Nvidia tends to be a bit of a no-no when it comes to | linux these days because of the wayland fiasco (and | others), although it might be getting better with their | latest opensource driver efforts. Who knows, but the fact | does remain that linux's refusal to have a binary driver | ABI fsk's anything that doesn't have an opensource | driver, so usually just make sure one exists before even | trying the HW. | [deleted] | causality0 wrote: | Un-fucking Windows 10 is still easier than Linux where the | answers to half of my problems are "You fool, if you wanted | to use more than two mouse buttons you should have used | Slippery Weasel 7. Trash your install and start over with a | better distro. By the way Slippery Weasel 7 doesn't support | changing your screen brightness." | djbusby wrote: | I have a 12 button gaming mouse working as expected on | Gentoo with their binary kernel in XFCE. | | It's even easier in any other distro. | StillBored wrote: | I get your point, but its not quite that bad if your | careful about your laptop selection (most desktops its | not a problem because you just plug in another | mouse/whatever when you discover a compatibility issue). | And KDE/etc is still wonderfully configurable with the | control panel that ships, and there are loads of actual | themes that aren't just someone changing a color and | background image like windows. And it supports 3 or 4 | start menu styles out of the box, with just a right click | properties selection, or putting the task bar on the side | of the window, etc, etc, etc. | | So, yah linux is still shit, but at this point it might | have finally reached the point where its the least shitty | if your careful. Largely because the competitors are | doing their darnest to destroy their own offerings while | chasing features/etc no one actually wants (ads anyone?). | wereallterrrist wrote: | Damn near pure FUD with any remotely, _remotely_ | mainstream laptop. The Linux ecosystem is so wildly more | consistent and predictable than Win10. | | I mean, my laptop doesn't overheat daily in my bag when | its booted to Linux, but yeah, Windows is so easy. /s | Lammy wrote: | The site does agree with you in the Disclaimer at the bottom of | the page: | | "The existence of this site shouldn't be taken as an | endorsement to continue using unsupported OSes. You should | stick to a supported OS such as Windows 10 or 11 (or, try | Linux?!). However, this service exists anyway in recognition | that using these OSes is sometimes necessary to run legacy | hardware/software, or just interesting to play around with." | | Presumably they knew they would get a lot of | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfUEb_neu3U | i386 wrote: | Yeah until some IT moron running a hospital installs this on | their aging fleet for budgetary concerns. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-12-16 23:00 UTC)