11–20 of 65 posts
> Windows XP/7's video modesetting logic is a bit mysterious. It may try to set a incompatible mode using int10h, which will cause flickering or even black screen after transferring control to the legacy OS. I would really love to know more about this. I assume it's this VGA driver: https://github.com/tongzx/nt5src/tree/master/Source/XPSP1/NT...
Wow, Microsoft open-sourced Windows XP?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, Microsoft open-sourced Windows XP?
... uhh, not really. :)
If it were an Oracle source code leak, I expect they’d have a crack team of lawyers suing people 24x7 until it was all gone… maybe that’s why there haven’t (to my knowledge) been any Oracle source code leaks (I vaguely remember one of Solaris, but that wasn’t such a clearcut case since IIRC it was mostly previously open sourced code)
Well, it wouldn’t surprise me if some unfriendly intelligence agency somewhere had succeeded in stealing some of it, but if they have, they are unlikely to release it publicly
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, Microsoft open-sourced Windows XP?
... uhh, not really. :)
Anyways, very cool to see.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
... uhh, not really. :)
Microsoft owns GitHub, and GitHub is crawling with Windows source code leaks… and I’m wondering it anyone at Microsoft really cares? Is it possible they’ve even made an intentional decision just to ignore it? If it were an Oracle source code leak, I expect they’d have a crack team of lawyers suing people 24x7 until it was all gone… maybe that’s why there haven’t (to my knowledge) been any Oracle source code leaks (I…
Even weirder is that GitHub hosts all of the tools for activating (i.e. cracking) modern versions of Windows and Office as well. Microsoft really doesn't care.
> Windows XP/7's video modesetting logic is a bit mysterious. It may try to set a incompatible mode using int10h, which will cause flickering or even black screen after transferring control to the legacy OS. I would really love to know more about this. I assume it's this VGA driver: https://github.com/tongzx/nt5src/tree/master/Source/XPSP1/NT...
> It is based on the SpiderSTREAMS source, stremul\msgsrvr.c.
There's some special history.
> Windows XP/7's video modesetting logic is a bit mysterious. It may try to set a incompatible mode using int10h, which will cause flickering or even black screen after transferring control to the legacy OS. I would really love to know more about this. I assume it's this VGA driver: https://github.com/tongzx/nt5src/tree/master/Source/XPSP1/NT...
> https://github.com/tongzx/nt5src/blob/master/Source/XPSP1/NT... > It is based on the SpiderSTREAMS source, stremul\msgsrvr.c. There's some special history.
Very cool hack. But, as okanat says, if the goal is to run legacy operating systems, then modern hardware is going to be challenging in other ways too. IME the biggest thing I want PC BIOS back for is the ability to use non-GPT disk layouts, which this doesn't accomplish as, as to use it you put it on the EFI partition on your GPT disk.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Microsoft owns GitHub, and GitHub is crawling with Windows source code leaks… and I’m wondering it anyone at Microsoft really cares? Is it possible they’ve even made an intentional decision just to ignore it? If it were an Oracle source code leak, I expect they’d have a crack team of lawyers suing people 24x7 until it was all gone… maybe that’s why there haven’t (to my knowledge) been any Oracle source code leaks (I…
> Microsoft owns GitHub, and GitHub is crawling with Windows source code leaks… and I’m wondering it anyone at Microsoft really cares? Even weirder is that GitHub hosts all of the tools for activating (i.e. cracking) modern versions of Windows and Office as well. Microsoft really doesn't care.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Microsoft owns GitHub, and GitHub is crawling with Windows source code leaks… and I’m wondering it anyone at Microsoft really cares? Even weirder is that GitHub hosts all of the tools for activating (i.e. cracking) modern versions of Windows and Office as well. Microsoft really doesn't care.
Why should they? They have bulk licensing deals with PC OEMs and large organizations. They've already got the big money. J. Random Hacker building a PC isn't even a rounding error to them.
Why?
The two reasons I can think of: to run legacy or educational operating systems. There are going to be limitations to what can be supported, but simply getting the OS to boot is part of the battle. It would also be useful for those who want to experiment with operating systems by creating their own. Yes you can do that without BIOS support, but there are many old tutorials floating around that depend upon BIOS support…