Opry99er Posted July 25, 2016 Share Posted July 25, 2016 I am considering dropping back to XP from Win7 due to some memory and architecture issues on my desktop. What version of WinXP wouod you guys recommend? Xp PRO? Gold version? Should I go with SP3 or SP4? I have options... I will be primarily using my browser, Classic99, WindowsMovieMaker, Magellan, and Notepad++. It will be a dev system for my TI work. Thanks in advance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted July 25, 2016 Share Posted July 25, 2016 If XP will do the job for you, I don't see any reason not to stick with it. The biggest problem will be the browser: the only mainstream browser that still supports XP is Firefox, but I don't know how long that will be the case. Since XP is not receiving security updates any longer, you would probably do well to keep browsing on the XP box to a minimum anyway, but if you practice smart browsing habits and close off the most common attack vectors (no Flash player, no Java plugin, etc), I think you should be fine. I would go with XP Professional if you have the option to do so. Install the OS and drivers, along with all available service packs and updates while Microsoft's old Windows Update site is still available, and then make an image of the bare OS before installing any apps. That way, if you ever need to wipe the machine, you can simply restore the OS image, substantially cutting down the rebuild time. I would be wary of "unofficial" updates (like the POSReady fixes), especially on a machine that I rely on for development work, but of course it's up to you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mister35mm Posted July 25, 2016 Share Posted July 25, 2016 You need to find something called XP BLACK. It's big ISO as it has heaps of drivers and will not need authenticating, which is just as well as MS has turned off it's XP authentication servers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted July 25, 2016 Author Share Posted July 25, 2016 Thanks for the advice jay. Browser will likely be limited to YouTube, Atariage, photobucket, ebay... My machine is 64 bit. Any reason I shouldnt be able to install a 32 bit OS? I am not able to utilize some legacy terminal emulation software that I was quite fond of... It does not operate in a 64 bit framework. If I had a 32 bit OS, would my software work again, or is the incompatibility with my machine rather than my OS? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted July 25, 2016 Author Share Posted July 25, 2016 You need to find something called XP BLACK. It's big ISO as it has heaps of drivers and will not need authenticating, which is just as well as MS has turned off it's XP authentication servers. I will look for that, thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickyDean Posted July 25, 2016 Share Posted July 25, 2016 Thanks for the advice jay. Browser will likely be limited to YouTube, Atariage, photobucket, ebay... My machine is 64 bit. Any reason I shouldnt be able to install a 32 bit OS? I am not able to utilize some legacy terminal emulation software that I was quite fond of... It does not operate in a 64 bit framework. If I had a 32 bit OS, would my software work again, or is the incompatibility with my machine rather than my OS? You could have a dual boot system, with XP on partition one and Win 7 on two. A 32 bit OS will install fine on a 64 bit system, generally with no problems, the only real problem that might crop up, is drivers for the hardware in the system. You can even have two of the same OS in a multi boot layout, 1 32 bit and 1 64 bit. Just have to set everything up for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted July 25, 2016 Share Posted July 25, 2016 Thanks for the advice jay. Browser will likely be limited to YouTube, Atariage, photobucket, ebay... My machine is 64 bit. Any reason I shouldnt be able to install a 32 bit OS? I am not able to utilize some legacy terminal emulation software that I was quite fond of... It does not operate in a 64 bit framework. If I had a 32 bit OS, would my software work again, or is the incompatibility with my machine rather than my OS? 1) I do not recommend going back to XP for any reason. There are plenty of options within Windows 7, including Virtual PC options and Windows XP mode. 2) XP x64 works fine with Server 2003 x64 drivers, Vista x64 drivers, and, of course, native drivers 3) Windows x64 does not have the 16-bit ntvdm subsystem, which means no 16-bit software will work 4) If you need help with XP x64, let me know as I supported it since it was introduced 5) If you insist on Windows XP, irrespective of the browser, do NOT use it for casual browsing, or any kind of browsing which will require secure credentials (eBay, for example.)* 6) I will be happy to help you with any Windows 7 woes if it means I can help keep you away from the security disaster that is now Windows XP (and, no, we can do without the diatribes about Windows insecurity -- every OS sucks, get over it.) * Really, I require that all XP machines be taken off the network or at least isolated by VLAN. I have one network which was taken down by an XP machine with access to network resources which was attacked through an XP-specific vector. Isolated from a network, even completely disconnected from the Internet, is the best way, if there is such a thing, to run an XP machine. This is not scare mongering. I have seen shit that will turn you white. This is my job and I do it well. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+arcadeshopper Posted July 25, 2016 Share Posted July 25, 2016 (edited) For what you are doing.. why don't you consider using Xubuntu.. - free - installing wine will make those windows apps run fine under it I have used classic99, hdx etc. fine under wine - you can learn something new and have no hassles with viruses - runs faster on your older hw than any windows version - there are native programs that replace some windows functionality You can download an iso and burn it to a cdrom or usb thumb drive and try out xubuntu on that device without installing it. It will boot off the device. It also can be installed as "dual boot" or even tripple boot if you have win7 and want to keep it..and you will get a boot menu to pick which one you like etc.. Greg Edited July 25, 2016 by arcadeshopper 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Schmitzi Posted July 25, 2016 Share Posted July 25, 2016 If less than 4 GB, I would prefer XP 32-bit & FireFox For Windows XP, Microsoft provides ALL (ALL) Security-Updates until 2019. They are almost identical with the Win7/8/8.1-updates (KB-Numbers and amount of patches) So you maybe want to go this way (SP3 + plain "official" MS-Updates) and not the unofficial SP4. If so, flash your mainboards BIOS to newest version, just install XP as usual, SP3, all drivers, all Windows-Updates. Then just doubleklick the .REG from the ZIP-file here and re-run Windows-Updates (this one here is for 32-bit only, for pls 64-bit ask or just google) WIN-XP-Updates-after-2014.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted July 25, 2016 Share Posted July 25, 2016 There is also the unofficial SP4 for XP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted July 25, 2016 Author Share Posted July 25, 2016 This is actually a dual boot machine with XUbuntu installed in the other partition. I.just don't use it because I don't know how Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+arcadeshopper Posted July 26, 2016 Share Posted July 26, 2016 This is actually a dual boot machine with XUbuntu installed in the other partition. I.just don't use it because I don't know how Um is the same thing as Windows click the icons to run stuph 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RXB Posted July 27, 2016 Share Posted July 27, 2016 I am running Windows 10 on hard drives as there is not need to run Window 7 anymore as it will not be supported anymore same as XP and Vista are not supported anymore by Microsoft. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
senior_falcon Posted July 27, 2016 Share Posted July 27, 2016 @ OLDCS1 I am running Linux Mint as the main OS. I have Windows XP (service pack 2) running in Virtual Box so I can use an old scanner and some TI programs such as Classic99, but never for web browsing. I have gone to Control Panel>Network connections and under LAN or High Speed Internet have disabled Local Area Connection. which is the only option shown. With that disabled, running a web browser will not display a web page and tells me there is a connection problem. Is this enough to ensure that XP is closed off from the internet? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted July 27, 2016 Share Posted July 27, 2016 @ OLDCS1 I am running Linux Mint as the main OS. I have Windows XP (service pack 2) running in Virtual Box so I can use an old scanner and some TI programs such as Classic99, but never for web browsing. I have gone to Control Panel>Network connections and under LAN or High Speed Internet have disabled Local Area Connection. which is the only option shown. With that disabled, running a web browser will not display a web page and tells me there is a connection problem. Is this enough to ensure that XP is closed off from the internet? Thanks! That works. An additional measure would be to disable TCP/IP in the network connection. Also, in VirtualBox you can disable all of the network connections which would prevent it from seeing the network even if the other two became enabled. In regard to Windows 7 support, Microsoft has a current support road-map for Windows 7 ending in 2020. Right now it is in what is called "extended support," meaning that no more features and only the most critical of bugs will be fixed, including security updates. Now, that said, there is always the chance for things to happen which will limit its functionality. As an example, about a year before Microsoft ended Server 2003 support it deprecated the RC4 cipher which was the strongest cipher supported in IIS6. A patch was released to support AES-128 but it was not reliable (it only worked on a handful of servers on which I installed.) That essentially made SSL on IIS6 and therefore Exchange 2003 deprecated and insecure†. A later change by all major websites (requiring TLSv1.2 and deprecating SSLv3 and most of its shared cipher suites in TLS v1) made it so Windows XP natively can no longer connect to these services. † I mitigated this problem on a couple of upgrade stragglers using stunnel between the world and the server to accept TLSv1.2 connections from the Internet and then connect internally to the IIS6 server (www and smtp) using TLSv1 with RC4-SHA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Schmitzi Posted July 27, 2016 Share Posted July 27, 2016 @senior_falcon Hi. If present, maybe it works just to remove the Standard-Gateway from the TCP/IP-config, or just givem a wrong gateway in your LAN, just an IP that is unused. (I did it with blocking traffic for the machine on the firewall) If your XP (regulary configured) can PING through your firewall (->outside), this can be a quick indicator to check connectivity --- Is there a difference for old (TI-)programs/Emus, using XP with SP2 or SP3 ? (I start a new XP-machine next time, would be nice to know) thx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted July 27, 2016 Share Posted July 27, 2016 Is there a difference for old (TI-)programs/Emus, using XP with SP2 or SP3 ? (I start a new XP-machine next time, would be nice to know) thx You know, I am not certain. I know that a pre-SP2 has a lower RAM requirement, so that would help with a resource-starved machine. XP Gold and SP1 run okay on 128MB, better 256MB; SP2 needs 512MB or better; SP3 can run on 512MB if you like to torture yourself, but does better starting at 1GB. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R.Cade Posted July 27, 2016 Share Posted July 27, 2016 (edited) I keep Windows XP on a partition just for older stuff... I tried Unofficial SP4 and had to reformat and just install base SP3 + IE8 + PAE patch (to use all RAM, 12G on mine!). SP4 caused Chrome and other apps to crash constantly for me for some reason. Chrome doesn't "support" XP, but it works as long as you don't need newer TLS encryption types, and you can use Firefox for those sites that need that). I run everything I can (internet facing) in Sandboxie, so extra layer of protection from Malware- it can't get to my files or registry at all. Edited July 27, 2016 by R.Cade Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted July 27, 2016 Share Posted July 27, 2016 Good to know about SP4. I had been thinking about applying it to a scratch VM just to see how it works. Mind, I do not use Chrome, so that would have no affect on me, but I would expect the system to be stable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Schmitzi Posted July 27, 2016 Share Posted July 27, 2016 I think the best way is to go to SP3 and then just use the "official" Microsoftupdates up to 2019. This is genuine and integrated, and uses almost the same patches/sec-updates as given for 7 and 8x (excluding IE, of course) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElectricLab Posted July 28, 2016 Share Posted July 28, 2016 I've heard that Micro$oft does indeed still patch XP to this day and that updates are being created. It's because XP is so widely deployed on important systems that aren't easily upgraded or upgradeable at all, like point-of-sale systems, and it would be a bad thing tm for M$ to abandon them. I've also heard that you can change a registry setting in your home version of XP so that M$ will think it's a PoS (Point of sale, not the other meaning of pos which may also apply) system and that you can still get updates that way. Has anyone ever tried this? (I heard this on a security podcast about six months ago, so your mileage may vary.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Schmitzi Posted July 28, 2016 Share Posted July 28, 2016 works for me on many machines http://atariage.com/forums/topic/255209-ot-windows-xp-install/?p=3558937 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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