Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Legacy Update: Fix Windows Update on Windows XP, Vista, Server 2008, 2003, 2000

legacyupdate.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 219 posts

Re: Legacy Update: Fix Windows Update on Windows XP, Vista, Server 2008, 2003, 2000

#171

Post by bambax »

dangus wrote: post #138
Animats wrote: post #34

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.

Groan , the luddite mentality about Windows is and has always been out of control, with so many people insisting on living on decade-old software for silly pedantic reasons like "cloud crap" that can be turned off in 5 seconds. Don't move my cheese, nothing else can possibly be better, Windows peaked 10 years ago. No, my Windows 11 system doesn't use a Microsoft Account. No, I don't get ads on Windows (web search and…

> so many people insisting on living on decade-old software for silly pedantic reasons

But what could possibly be the point of changing something that works?? Buy a new machine, spend weeks or months reinstalling software, try to find alternatives for things that no longer work, and for what benefit?

Yes one can run `ls ~/ | grep example` in a Windows 7 shell, and ok, it requires additional software, but once that additional software has been installed, it is done. What's the point of installing a new OS so that functionalities that you already have, become "native"? Who cares?

Same for PDF (Sumatra) or SSH (putty), etc. etc. I have a stable system that I know intimately, on old hardware that I also know well. I don't see the need to be running after new things like a dog after a ball.

Re: Legacy Update: Fix Windows Update on Windows XP, Vista, Server 2008, 2003, 2000

#172

Post by MomoXenosaga »

dangus wrote: post #138
Animats wrote: post #34

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.

Groan , the luddite mentality about Windows is and has always been out of control, with so many people insisting on living on decade-old software for silly pedantic reasons like "cloud crap" that can be turned off in 5 seconds. Don't move my cheese, nothing else can possibly be better, Windows peaked 10 years ago. No, my Windows 11 system doesn't use a Microsoft Account. No, I don't get ads on Windows (web search and…

The nice thing about win11 is that you can run all your decade old software on it.

And that's my baseline for an OS: can it run programs. And thanks to the absolute ubiquitous of Windows for the last 30 years everything was made with Windows in mind.

Re: Legacy Update: Fix Windows Update on Windows XP, Vista, Server 2008, 2003, 2000

#173

Post by zinekeller »

ryandrake wrote: post #26
accrual wrote: post #2

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 syst…

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,…

> 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.

I think that the ball is on everyone still sticking on it - It was clear that Windows XP was supposed to be supported only for 10 years and they relent it and extend it to be 14 years. At that point it's clear that the companies who can't move, especially big ones, are the ones who are reckless.

Re: Legacy Update: Fix Windows Update on Windows XP, Vista, Server 2008, 2003, 2000

#175

Post by input_sh »

joe5150 wrote: post #114
kitsunesoba wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This truly has me nostalgic for the days of breaking my computer trying to replace the theme, system icons, explorer shell, etc with untested crap to make it look cooler.

Check out https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/ (SFW despite the name). Sort by top all time for some movie-like interfaces.

I've reached the stage where I want my computer to just work, but it's still a fascinating place to check out from time to time.

Re: Legacy Update: Fix Windows Update on Windows XP, Vista, Server 2008, 2003, 2000

#176

Post by anenefan »

bluedino wrote: post #103
WhackyIdeas wrote: post #5

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.

There was a time where a fresh 98 install wouldn't last very long at all if you had a public IP

I think it was more people clicking on links being sent to them in IM, emails or other personal messaging.

I used to for fun 2001 to 2006 or so, run a fresh install of 98se which I had burned to CD, recovery was about 20 mins perhaps a bit less, (read however long it took to copy a 600 meg image to hard drive) and cruised the net. No security as such, just seeing what was out there, what ports being probed etc. I rarely had any issues. Yes of course when I was tormenting some large wannabe hacker forum (read script kiddies) where one or more had decided to prove themselves by attacking a couple of harmless looking forums, yes I think they managed to get in pretty quickly iirc about five minutes. For giggles after a couple of times (they got quicker) I switched over to a live linux cd ... but since one of their members had outdone themselves and annoyed people who unlike myself quite happy with my new chew toys, ... I figured just a matter of time before my fun would end ... their forum strangely packed it at end of week :) In all of it, my only issue albeit a very serious one, was contaminated backups, which occurred when was when I was "tagged" in 2003 with something, which was so unique that last time I scanned a copy of the infected system in 2009-10, it still didn't raise any flags with the latest anti malware or root kit detection available at the time.

Re: Legacy Update: Fix Windows Update on Windows XP, Vista, Server 2008, 2003, 2000

#177

Post by pieter_mj »

Animats wrote: post #34

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.

Too many interdependent services and superfluous wan connections that can't be disabled already on windows 7, 2K was the pinnacle of usability and system configurability and sparse use of system resources, with XP closer to 2K than to 7.

7 Mostly was allright because of huge increase in availabe RAM on laptops.

Re: Legacy Update: Fix Windows Update on Windows XP, Vista, Server 2008, 2003, 2000

#178

Post by bambax »

synaesthesisx wrote: post #7

It amazes me how many machines there are still out there, connected to the internet, running Windows XP (a 21+ year old OS)

I'm amazed you're amazed. I use cutlery that's 150 years old, every day, tableware that's over 80 years old, even kitchen rags of the same age. My dryer is 20 years old and works fine.

I wear shoes, coats, sweaters that are over 15 years old. My main stereo system is 25 years old; even the Sonos components (that I hate) are over 15 years old and still work ok.

I kept a motorbike for 25 years, and then eventually it was stolen (which meant the thieves still found it interesting).

I don't understand why tech that works should be thrown out just because there's new tech. New tech has to offer incredible new possibilities to offset the hassle of change.

My main system runs Win7 on hardware that's 10-15 years old and it does everything. I also have a couple of laptops running Win10 and I have yet to find what they do better, except being annoying and "different" for the sake of it.

Re: Legacy Update: Fix Windows Update on Windows XP, Vista, Server 2008, 2003, 2000

#179

Post by mmerlin »

hnlmorg wrote: post #168
Animats wrote: post #34

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.

Personally Windows 2000 was the only Microsoft operating system I’ve ever liked. And I’m including Microsoft Basic in that scope as well. XP did mature into something that was decent, but the initial release of XP was just an uglier and more system hungry version of 2000. And thus XP drive me to run Linux as my primary OS. But back when 2000 was around, most other OSs were terrible. Linux was getting close but still…

windows 11 removed many of the previous keyboard shortcuts eg ms paint annoys me so much now the keyboard accessibility degraded badly in win 11

Microsofties: Please put them ALL back to match Windows10, acknowledge the heritage of the previous version, and the years of keyboard muscle memory now flushed down the drain

example, let me use the arrow keys again in popup dialogs (arrow left+right keys now do nothing... have to use the tab or shift tab or mouse in dialogs)

Re: Legacy Update: Fix Windows Update on Windows XP, Vista, Server 2008, 2003, 2000

#180

Post by pjmlp »

Animats wrote: post #34

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.

Windows 7 plus an evolution Android like, where COM's role get downplayed and we get .NET bindings for all major workflow, with the same performance focus of .NET Core progress would have been great.

UWP was great from the point of view that .NET Native is what .NET 1.0 should have been, and C++/CX was the very first time Microsoft had anything similar to C++ Builder.

However it was horrible managed, and asking everyone to keep rewriting their code isn't something that makes Windows dev community jump of joy.

Now WinUI is too late for the party, too buggy, too many features lacking.

Post reply on HN