Sabina_16bit. wrote on 2025-02-27, 18:56:

I would never guess,a Win.7 would even successfully install & boot on a P3,as highest P3 configuration is 800MHz & 2GB RAM

Wrong – the Pentium III goes up to 1.4 GHz.

& many P3 BIOSes have 32GB limit for HDD

I've only seen such a limit on my Super Socket 7 motherboard. I'm using a 120 GB hard disk drive on my Pentium III with no issues.

Rencer wrote on 2025-02-24, 21:49:

2025 is the time to go back to Windows XP. Sadly the HDD with Windows Xp on it died a few years ago, never used any other later […]
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Sabina_16bit. wrote on 2025-02-23, 18:56:

RayeR wrote on 2025-02-23, 15:55:

I still run XP as primary os and for special cases multiboot to win7. I think OneCore api makes progress to support running newer apps under XP but didn' t test it thorougly yet...

& what antivirus r U using in Windows XP?
Or that special case for using Windows 7 includes also scanning for malware?

2025 is the time to go back to Windows XP.
Sadly the HDD with Windows Xp on it died a few years ago, never used any other later Windows versions.
I now use Linux, but recently it is getting worst and worst, almost every single update broke some software that I still want to use.
I have a 20GB HDD-image Windows XP on it, which can be restored to an empty partiton within a few minutes...

To answare your question:
I used Comodo Antivirus. I used and tried, I think, all the antivirus softwares, but nothing can beat Comodo, IMO. AVG was good enough, but can't even come close to what Comodo can/could do.

Back than there was a monthly gaming magazine shipped with a CD, later with a DVD with sharware programs and other stuff on it. Free vesrion of ESET Smart Security was one of those programs.
Every month they printed a code inside the magazin, that you could activate on the magazine's website and than you can unlock the ESET Smart Security to a full payed version for a month.
Never-ever used those codes, because the freeware Comodo was that better.

Some of my friends, whom not really good with computers always asked me to fix their PCs, harware or software related. Once one of my friend asked my to remove virus that somehow infected the PC, regardless that he used firewall and antivirus. I thought it will be no problem.
I can't recall the name of the virus, but it was a very nasty stuff, a huge thing. It could infect your machine as soon as you just booted up the PC, even if the boot drive was physically separate HDD.

Every single antivrus program failed to remove it. My beloved Comodo also failed, so I desperately contacted Comodo support, using my already infected PC.
Within 5 minutes (!) they responded, and not just with an automated mail-droid (as usually what you get if you contact any support) but a live support, a real person. I didn't aked for live support, but they responded with live support immediately!
I told my situation, and the woman said they are already aware of this new nasty stuff, and they send me a tiny executable, that removed the virus that no other antivirus program can.
And I didn't even was a client who payed for their software, I used free version! Best customer service ever.
So, Comodo is the best.

Cool!Is Comodo Free still available for Windows XP?

Jo22 wrote on 2025-02-26, 02:02:

Believe it or not, but among the best programs in DOS* and Win16/32 era had been written with Turbo Pascal and Delphi! :D […]
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RayeR wrote on 2025-02-25, 01:46:

I think most spreaded kind of viruses now is some kind of ransomware because it really works to make money. And to make many money you need to spread your ransomware in wide audience - this means Win10/11 users and not 1% of fosil XP or 9x users. So yes, you will need use modern tools to make your ransomware run on Win10/11 not 90' delphi 😀

Believe it or not, but among the best programs in DOS* and Win16/32 era had been written with Turbo Pascal and Delphi! 😁

(*IMHO on DOS with Turbo Pascal 3-7 - the latter with Turbo Vision, on Windows 3.x using Turbo Pascal for Windows/Borland Pascal for Windows/Delphi 1 and on Windows 9x/NT using Delphi 3, 5 and 7!)

RayeR wrote on 2025-02-25, 01:46:

this means Win10/11 users and not 1% of fosil XP or 9x users. So yes, you will need use modern tools to make your ransomware run on Win10/11 not 90' delphi 😀

I'm not certain. Using Windows 9x/NT compatible executables doesn't mean that you can't exploit vulnerabilities in modern Windows.
And especially by using old, obscure API functions or old DLL/services the malware becomes harder to detect.

Also, EXEs compiled with Delphi 3 or 7 don't need any special requirements. They just work! : D
There's no .NET Framework being required, no runtime that has to be installed.
Windows 95 era applications are small and quick, they don't trigger an "This application needs MS Visual C++ 2005 runtime" pop-up window that raises suspiscion.
Heck, even Visual Basic 6 applications are portable. Msvbvm60.dll is part of every Windows since 98.

I would dare to assume that modern Microsoft developers barely see through old code any more, because the original developers are six feet under, fired or retired.
That's why Microsoft tries to switch to Linux more and more, the underlying NT system has become too complex to handle.
Linux is easier to manage, with lots of free volunteers everywhere.
Also, you can hire&fire more frequent - firing a real Windows developer always means a loss of knowledge.

Here: Delphi 7 from the 2002 was in common use until 2020 or so.

"Delphi 7, released in August 2002, added support for: […]
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"Delphi 7, released in August 2002, added support for:

Web application development
Windows XP Themes

Used by more Delphi developers than any other single version, Delphi 7 is one of the most successful IDEs created by Borland.
Its stability, speed, and low hardware requirements led to active use through 2020. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_o ... 80%932003)

Interesting,like malware is obviously the most universal & cross-platform,or @ least cross-version SW.
Is there ever other SW with such wide range of compatible OSs like malware?
Maybe BIOSes?
But sadly ridiculous is,if U compare the requirements of an antimalware program with the requirements of a common malware...

Why shouldn't work on P3?
I think that original Win7 required CPU with SSE and P3 has SSE. But later updates since 2018 started to require SSE2 so it breaks then. With SSD and 2GB RAM it may run quite decent speed but waste a lot of RAM and common P3 systems was limited up to 1GB, some newer maybe 2GB. So you would be better with XP on P3. You can try One Core API if you need to run some newer app that can't run on XP. 32GB HDD limit was probably on some very old slot1/S370 boards on most I have I used 120-500GB HDD without a problem. Even winNT/2K/XP/7 loads it's own HDD controller driver so not limited by stupid BIOS limits. In such case you just need to have your windows partition start below 32GB so bootloader could reach it but then Windows take control over it (same as linux).

Cyberdyne wrote on 2025-02-26, 02:09:

If you want to be absolutely sure your windows can not get viruses, just use Windows 3.11 for Workroups to go to internet. Garanteed safe fun browsing.

U stolen my idea,I already posted this in other tread & I plan to try it,it has only con for me,that it is impossible to get a WiFi card in a laptop like IBM ThinkPad X40 work under WFW 3.11 or any1 other Win16.
My dream is to be able to check my emails on a nice Legacy laptop like this from Win3.x & be able to access public WiFis this way,but this is a dream close to moving to Mars to let my painful bones rest in lower gravity,about same chances to fulfill.Yes,for desktops & RJ45 it can be done,but I doubt,som1 here will write a 16bit WiFi driver to get us all safe & comfortable internet access from 2000s' laptops...But as I love sci-fi, I can @ least dream about warp drive,replicators,EMH...& 16bit WiFi driver...
I have a nice 16bit dreams...yes,I even wish a 16bit AI...
& guess the resolution of my dreams...
Another 🤣 thing is Apple's motto "Think different",which is meant as "Think all the same."... What is different about buying an Apple?Billions of people have Apples(many of them full of worms)...
I am really thinking different,I think 16bit...

Jo22 wrote on 2025-02-26, 02:02:

I'm not certain. Using Windows 9x/NT compatible executables doesn't mean that you can't exploit vulnerabilities in modern Windows.
And especially by using old, obscure API functions or old DLL/services the malware becomes harder to detect.
...

I wouldn't share this opinion that modern malware is written so widely portable but I don't have an evidence because I met my last virus on XP some 10+ years ago and I didn't actively seek for it 😀
If someone has some modern virus collection I could try to play in VM how well it runs. Or if there are some official statistics from AV companies...
I agree that a vulnerability in user space can be exploited by code compiled with legacy tools and may be then portable. But lot of legacy subsystems was deleted from Win10 so it also 'solved' old vulnerabilities.
I also think about some special kind of malware - rootkits that needs to install some kernel mode driver. This would probably require use of recent DDK and tools and signing...

Sabina_16bit. wrote on 2025-02-27, 21:14:

My dream is to be able to check my emails on a nice Legacy laptop like this from Win3.x & be able to access public WiFis this way,but this is a dream close to moving to Mars to let my painful bones rest in lower gravity,about same chances to fulfill.Yes,for desktops & RJ45 it can be done,but I doubt,som1 here will write a 16bit WiFi driver to get us all safe & comfortable internet access from 2000s' laptops...But as I love sci-fi, I can @ least dream about warp drive,replicators,EMH...& 16bit WiFi driver...

Not impossible!
There were old 1st gen wifi cards that had DOS packet/NDIS drivers. You can then run up to date Links graphics browser on it (32-bit for DOS), better than ancient MSIE/Netscape for Win 3.x. But there are some issues with WPA(2) encryption standards that old wifi cards lacks while modern routers may not support legacy WEP...
https://www.os2museum.com/wp/wireless-networking-in-dos/

shamino wrote on 2025-02-26, 07:09:

I had to stop using XP on my daily PC because of support from newer software. Currently I run a mix of Linux and Win7 on differ […]
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I had to stop using XP on my daily PC because of support from newer software. Currently I run a mix of Linux and Win7 on different machines. Win7 is okay, but I liked XP better. I do not like Win10 at all.

Of all the reasons I stopped using WinXP, viruses had nothing to do with it. I've been surprised at how many knowledgeable users worry so much about that. I understand worrying about it on behalf of less knowledgeable users. There are people who have a habit of infecting themselves, I certainly have some of those in my family. It's easier for me to let those people be nannied by their modern OS. But surely people on this site are conscious of what they're installing on their PCs.

No sensible person connects their home PC directly to the internet anymore. It's going through a NAT, so nobody can randomly access your PC from the internet. Port forwarding would expose you (on that port), but that's rarely necessary for a home PC. If you don't trust your LAN, then use a local firewall.

The biggest risk is web browsers (not the OS), because their support for script-happy web sites opens lots of possibility for bugs that might be exploited by "dodgy" sites. But at this point web browsers on XP are barely usable anyway. There was a time when I ran NoScript (whitelisting sites I trusted) but I don't even know if it's possible to browse the web productively that way anymore. The script happy culture of the modern web is just too rampant.
If you really are worried about this, run your web browser on a user with limited permissions.

I don't like autorun, so I used policy or registry settings (I forget which) to "disable autorun completely" - I recall XP is a little stubborn about this so standard GUI options aren't enough to truly disable it. Be careful with untrusted USB flash drives from your cousin's girlfriend.

I keep installers archived so I rarely need to dig up new installers from the web. But if I have to do that, I scan it with virustotal and research anything that looks concerning.

I've had viruses twice in my life, both in the early 2000s and I know why it happened both times. It was foolishness in both cases, nothing that justified the annoyance of memory resident Antivirus software, and so I've preferred not to use it.

The only malware issue I have is my Windows 10 machine, which I only use for games. Win10 harasses me about 5 times every time I boot it up about different things Mother Microsoft wants me to install, change in my settings, or whatever. It also quietly installs things I don't want, and it also broke my video driver once, forcing me to manually roll it back. Windows XP never did any of that, it respected my choices.

U r right,Windows 10 is the worst malware @ all,just to add to damages,U listid,it caused me several drivers to be replaced by worse,often non-functional @ all(sound,WiFi,etc.),changed settings,I also confirm installing unwanted apps,mainly the Windows Store 1s,disrupted the DOSBox,some spyware called Microsoft Compatibility Telemetry always consumed 50 to 100% of system resources & what pissed me up most,it even silently changed my partition layouts on HDD & SD cards,on HDD it shrinked a partition & created a new 1 hidden,on SD cards it shrinks partitions by last 16MB,thus I fired it out of my home & banned its return & about Windows 11 I just assume,it must be even worse,I am so sure,I even did not tried & I never will & y?It even does not have 32bit version,this alone proves,it is a hostile malware too,but about Windows 10 I can fully confirm,it is the worst malware,I ever had on any of my disx.Then I placed a stop gap after Windows 8.1 & stuffed as much as possible supplies of Legacy HW to allow me to have Windows 7 as my newest OS used as main on any machine up to my death,no more UEFI,no more MalWindows 10+.

GemCookie wrote on 2025-02-27, 19:10:

Wrong – the Pentium III goes up to 1.4 GHz. […]
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Sabina_16bit. wrote on 2025-02-27, 18:56:

I would never guess,a Win.7 would even successfully install & boot on a P3,as highest P3 configuration is 800MHz & 2GB RAM

Wrong – the Pentium III goes up to 1.4 GHz.

& many P3 BIOSes have 32GB limit for HDD

I've only seen such a limit on my Super Socket 7 motherboard. I'm using a 120 GB hard disk drive on my Pentium III with no issues.

Interesting,I did not seen such a P3.5 in my region,newest,I encountered here & I also have,is 800MHz,I thought,it is the newest desktop version.For laptops I have 1pc of 999MHz,but I thought,it was,because P4 desktops was sooner than P4 laptops,thus I thought,that laptop is from era,when 1st desktops was P4 & laptop P3 got to their edge to substitute,until the release of mobile version of P4.
True is,P3 is the most rare generation in my collection,I have plenty of P2 & earlier & huge stuff of P4 & newer & only very few P3[1 desktop(Slot 1 @ 350MHz),1 mini tower(800MHz),1 laptop(999MHz,but I thought,only laptops make it so far in P3 era,as from this era I c usually better RAM max.limits per slot than for desktops)],in any case apologize for disinfo,but U r still bold to try 600MHz below the Windows 7's min.limit & btw,would U like to exchange(trade) some machine,if U have some surplus for some newer 1s?
I would give U several P4/C2D/equal AMD MoBos for 1 that P3 @ 1.4GHz MoBo,if U have a spare 1,or maybe I could give U also some whole P4/C2D comps for a P3 PC,I have some P4/C2D comps 2ce the same,some of the P4+ stuff I got with the planned purpose to trade them somewhen for something older & I most miss P3s in my collection,of course,if I do not count,I have only 1 XT & none of 186,but all my P4+ stuff has no equal value to trade it for 086/186,but for trading for P3 I have enough of them,so the P3 is the only tradable generation,I almost entirely miss...
I am willing to trade 75% of my P4/C2D+ stuff for older machines & 100% of this new AMDs for something more vintage.
The exchange course depends on the manufacturer,most valuable is IBM,because that was the only still non-RoHS in that era,so for an IBM P3 I will give most,because such a machine has a lifespan of about 10 RoHS P4s combined...
So U have 128GB limit there,P3s has 32 or 128GB limit,128GB is sufficient,they usually have USB & the HDD limit is only for IDE,so U can expand the storage via USB.
On such a 1.4GHz P3 Windows 7 UltraLite or SuperLite could run smoothly.But still Windows XP is best fit for that.How much RAM do U have there?

RayeR wrote on 2025-02-27, 21:05:

Why shouldn't work on P3?
I think that original Win7 required CPU with SSE and P3 has SSE. But later updates since 2018 started to require SSE2 so it breaks then. With SSD and 2GB RAM it may run quite decent speed but waste a lot of RAM and common P3 systems was limited up to 1GB, some newer maybe 2GB. So you would be better with XP on P3. You can try One Core API if you need to run some newer app that can't run on XP. 32GB HDD limit was probably on some very old slot1/S370 boards on most I have I used 120-500GB HDD without a problem. Even winNT/2K/XP/7 loads it's own HDD controller driver so not limited by stupid BIOS limits. In such case you just need to have your windows partition start below 32GB so bootloader could reach it but then Windows take control over it (same as linux).

Thanx 4 additional info,I probably have too new installers of Win.7.
Yes,RAM is sure a reason,this is insufficient for Win.7 @ least by documentation,Windows 7 32bit officially requires 2GB RAM.
Was early versions happy with 1GB RAM?
When published, Vista was declared to have minimal requirements of 1GB RAM,but that was later proven insufficient & it is recommended 2GB RAM min.also for Vista,the result is,best fitting for a P3 is Windows XP.
As U just wrote.I rather pair stronger HW with lighter OS than vice versa to get it a performance reserve,not to force it to the edge.
Those my P3s has 32GB limits & yes,1 of those is Slot 1 desktop(HP Vectra VEi8).
But most BIOSes with 32GB limit freeze @ POST,when U connect a larger hard drive,for most other limits,it just shows wrong size & U can solve it,as U described,by OSs driver,but most MoBos with 32GB limit(all of my with this limit) does not make it trough POST,if hard drive is over limit.

RayeR wrote on 2025-02-27, 21:32:

Not impossible! There were old 1st gen wifi cards that had DOS packet/NDIS drivers. You can then run up to date Links graphics b […]
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Sabina_16bit. wrote on 2025-02-27, 21:14:

My dream is to be able to check my emails on a nice Legacy laptop like this from Win3.x & be able to access public WiFis this way,but this is a dream close to moving to Mars to let my painful bones rest in lower gravity,about same chances to fulfill.Yes,for desktops & RJ45 it can be done,but I doubt,som1 here will write a 16bit WiFi driver to get us all safe & comfortable internet access from 2000s' laptops...But as I love sci-fi, I can @ least dream about warp drive,replicators,EMH...& 16bit WiFi driver...

Not impossible!
There were old 1st gen wifi cards that had DOS packet/NDIS drivers. You can then run up to date Links graphics browser on it (32-bit for DOS), better than ancient MSIE/Netscape for Win 3.x. But there are some issues with WPA(2) encryption standards that old wifi cards lacks while modern routers may not support legacy WEP...
https://www.os2museum.com/wp/wireless-networking-in-dos/

Amazing!
How old laptop I need to be compatible with this solution?
Is IBM ThinkPad X40 in range,or do I need an older laptop?
The X40 is my only tiny 4:3 laptop good for traveling,the older ones r too huge & heavy,the newer ones r not 4:3,so not good for mailing...
So what is next...16bit EMH?

Sabina_16bit. wrote on 2025-02-27, 23:22:

How old laptop I need to be compatible with this solution?
Is IBM ThinkPad X40 in range,or do I need an older laptop?

I tkink you need something older with PCMCIA controller, not newer CARDBUS. It should be equivalent of ISA and PCI but physically the slots looks the same. Thinkpad X40 would have newer cardbus so most probably no DOS drivers for the cardbus host controller. But I don't have much experiences with this mobile stuff. Also there was mentioned a possibility to use wifi-ethernet bridges you can attach to RJ-45, also solve WPA problem...

There was significant RAM req. increase between XP and Vista. If I remember some cheap entry Vista Home laptops was sold with not less than 1GB and it was a pain to use it so users often downgraded it to XP. Win7 was similar to Vista so not much fun on 1GB either...

About P3, there was multiple versions of this CPU generation differs by socket and manuf. technology. It started with Slot1 (up to cca 550MHz), switched to FC-PGA (coppermime, maybe up.to 1GHz) and ended with FC-PGA2 (tualatin, top at 1,4GHz). Problem was that FC-PGA2 was a bit incompatible with FC-PGA and required special adapter or a bit of HW hacking or MB with latest chipset like i820. Memory limitation was mostly determined by chipset and available.slots not CPU itself. It was usually 1GB or 2GB for latest chipsets on desktop MBs. I think VIA made some chipset even with DDR support.

For BIOS HDD limit, maybe this trick would work that I used on some 486s with larger HDD. I set HDD type to user 47 and fill values manually to max and disable LBA if caused problem. Then I was able to boot and access at least the 1st 500MB FAT16 partition from beginning of the HDD. It's enough to start some bootloader like grub4dos and step further... Maybe BiosPather tool could fix your buggy BIOS. Or use some additional PCI controller. There was also some old PCI SATA controllers with its own int13h BIOS and had suport of win9x/nt4 drivers...

RayeR wrote on 2025-02-28, 01:13:

There was significant RAM req. increase between XP and Vista. If I remember some cheap entry Vista Home laptops was sold with not less than 1GB and it was a pain to use it so users often downgraded it to XP. Win7 was similar to Vista so not much fun on 1GB either...

I lived through these times, and I remember that many XP computers were really just recycled Windows 98SE PCs.

That means that Windows Vista had been forced on PCs with 512MB of RAM.
Or less, even. It can still boot with less memory, if it was being installed with 512 MB of RAM.

The problem with Vista was that Microsoft wanted to have wide adoption.
Thus, the minimum requirements were unrealistic.

Sigh. It could have been so easy and smooth if Microsoft simply had been honest.
The slogan should have been like this: "Windows Vista is a powerful operating system for powerful PCs".

That way, gamers and power users would have adopted it without so much complain.

Because, it wasn't bad per se. For example, it did compression/decompression on the fly when copying files.
Why? To compensate for slow network connections. Vista was meant for ethernet use and the Internet.

So if you had a hot-rod PC at the time, Vista was a really good performer. Way better than XP!
The whole network stack was a re-write, with better multitasking and multi-threading.

However, if you ran Windows Vista on a weak PC that's low on RAM the performance was worse than that of Windows XP.
It was slow at copying files. Compressing/uncompressing files took longer than just copying the files in uncompressed form.

I often think that it's sad that people don't really learn from history.
Windows 95 and OS/2 had been more capable and smoother than DOS/Windows 3.x if they had the resources they needed.

Unfortunately, a lot of the IT people in charge didn't convince their superiors of the importance of RAM expansion or fast HDD i/o.
That's why PCs in super markets and offices were so horrible slow.

So it's of no surprise that a lot of people in my surroundings stuck to obsolete PCs and Windows 10, for example.
For whatever reason they want to use newest Windows, but without spending necessary upgrades on their PCs.

This gives me flashbacks of those guys who wanted to browse the internet in early 2000s with obsolete PCs that had Windows 95 and 8MB of RAM or so.

Edit: It also gave me flashbacks of Zeta, the OS marketed torwards users of weak, outdated PCs. That was so early 2000s!
Here's an TV ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQW-q2vp6W4

Edited.

Sabina_16bit. wrote on 2025-02-27, 18:35:

& do Your AVG worx without side effects?
My is exploiting csrss.exe for about last month after an update causing constant 100% CPU usage,it is an EoL sabotage & happened on both my XP-only builds,where I have antivirus on XP(on multiboot systems I check all partitions from Win.7 by its antivirus).
Do U deal with same problem (successfully)?

Interesting...... csrss.exe caused ~50% CPU usage after last update on my C2D E7400 WinXP build. Could you elaborate "EoL sabotage"?

Something older is quite heavy,newer is ugly & has widescreen...
Maybe that WiFi to RJ45 adapter,if I could get the USB-powered version & if power from USB 1.1 is enough(500mA) to be able to use it on battery too.In all cases I will create a backup OS on flash drive(sadly SD nor CardBus is not visible for BIOS,thus not bootable) for the worst case scenario,if its 1.8" HDD would die,because it is not easy to get a replacement.& flash drive means an OS,which does not write too much,with minimal to no swapping,thus DOS+Windows 3.1(1).
Yes,I know about requirements differences between XP & Vista.I also have both in several installs in my collection.& for P3 I always preferred XP or 2K.
Win 7/Vista:I am using these on same HW & not feel a difference in performance...only in drivers availability...But I never installed Windows 6/7 on a HW with less than 2GB RAM,if I will try,I will use the SuperLite "edition" or ThinPC/Tiny 7,if I find an ISO.
I have that Slot 1 version.
The other is something atypical.
Sure did not meet the Tualatin version yet.
I know,memory limit is not determined directly by CPU,but for a certain era there was certain CPUs & MoBos had certain memory limits typical for that era,for example that Slot 1 machine has only 512MB memory limit,I have HDD salvaged from dead Toshiba Satellite 430CDT in it with original HDD with DOS 6.20+Windows 3.1+Windows 98SE & I will add another HDD & install Windows 2000.
Thanx for the tip about BIOS limit,but for Windows 2000 it will be sufficient-the 20GB HDD,I have a lot of them,I did stuffed HDDs just below particular limits(504MB;7.8GB;plenty of 20GB & even 1 30GB HDD for 32GB MoBos & in worst case some 40GB with 32GB jumper can be used;but for 128GB limit I have only few 120GB HDDs),this PC will not be used for movies...
But thanx 4 the method,may be useful for some other cases,when there will be a need to combine a MoBo with this limit with a larger drive.Sadly for this Slot 1 PCs I even do not guess long life,as it is early RoHS with quite high tendency to fall apart,HP Vectras of this era r terribly suffering by early RoHS experimentation,1 already completely died for this reason,that is,y I would better like to have IBM P3s & P4s,IBM was last non-RoHS.
PCI-SATA controllers would come handy for more projects,but I only c PCIe variants & I just need a PCI-SATA low profile card & cannot find it,so maybe I will have to connect the 3rd device to internal USB via adapter instead-it is a small desktop,I need ODD,system HDD & data SSD there & it only has 2 SATA connectors & no IDE,so if I will not get a low-profile PCI-SATA card,I can only connect 1 of the 3 drives via USB.

Jo22 wrote on 2025-02-28, 03:09:

So if you had a hot-rod PC at the time, Vista was a really good performer. Way better than XP! The whole network stack was a re- […]
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So if you had a hot-rod PC at the time, Vista was a really good performer. Way better than XP!
The whole network stack was a re-write, with better multitasking and multi-threading.

However, if you ran Windows Vista on a weak PC that's low on RAM the performance was worse than that of Windows XP.
It was slow at copying files. Compressing/uncompressing files took longer than just copying the files in uncompressed form.

I often think that it's sad that people don't really learn from history.
Windows 95 and OS/2 had been more capable and smoother than DOS/Windows 3.x if they had the resources they needed.

Unfortunately, a lot of the IT people in charge didn't convince their superiors of the importance of RAM expansion or fast HDD i/o.
That's why PCs in super markets and offices were so horrible slow.

So it's of no surprise that a lot of people in my surroundings stuck to obsolete PCs and Windows 10, for example.
For whatever reason they want to use newest Windows, but without spending necessary upgrades on their PCs.

Do you ever wonder how much resources are actually needed and how much are only used because software development and super optimizing everything is hard?

dormcat wrote on 2025-02-28, 05:01:

Sabina_16bit. wrote on 2025-02-27, 18:35:

& do Your AVG worx without side effects?
My is exploiting csrss.exe for about last month after an update causing constant 100% CPU usage,it is an EoL sabotage & happened on both my XP-only builds,where I have antivirus on XP(on multiboot systems I check all partitions from Win.7 by its antivirus).
Do U deal with same problem (successfully)?

Interesting...... csrss.exe caused ~50% CPU usage after last update on my C2D E7400 WinXP build. Could you elaborate "EoL sabotage"?

Thanx for independent confirming.
I already elaborated it in independent treads " Serious Bug of AVG Antivirus for Windows XP or Possible Sabotage" & in "Do U Know about an Antivirus still Usable with Windows XP?", the latter I based,after I found confirmation,they did it as a part of EoL strategy to get rid of Windows XP users,it is a link to that in both that topics.I also wrote to AVG & they r just ignoring my emails,which I understand as a response "Fuck u,unwanted XP user,we r proud about what we did to u.".
So it is sure,they will not fix it,thus if we will continue to use AVG,it will fry our CPUs,that is,y I started a discussion about finding a replacement for now unusable AVG.
So 50% on C2D?
That is 1 entire core of Your 2.
But I have AVG on single-core ThikPads T42 & X40,where it consumes 100% of the CPU.
On C2D I also have Windows 7,thus no need to install antivirus to XP,I scan all partitions from Windows 7 by its Antivirus,but those laptops have 2 small HDDs to add Windows 7,in wosrt case,I will try to add Windows 7 SuperLite,mainly with X40 it is a problem,it only has 40GB HDD & only 16GB is free...
On this system AVG's stub in the back is most painful.
But U r OK,I guess,U have a multiboot on a C2D & U can do malware scans from a newer OS.

UCyborg wrote on 2025-02-28, 11:20:

Do you ever wonder how much resources are actually needed and how much are only used because software development and super optimizing everything is hard?

Good question! As a rule of thumb, I'm trying to interpret the recommended requirements as some sort of baseline configuration for real world usage.

But todays operating systems consist of some many system processes..
It's hard to say what's necessary and what not.
The internet and the many ports, device classes etc. Support for many filesystems, languages.

The Windows Registry is full of settings, policies and hardware enumeration catalogs.
And searching the Registry alone takes up a lot of memory, I suppose.

Jo22 wrote on 2025-02-28, 03:09:

That way, gamers and power users would have adopted it without so much complain.

Not that easy. As I remember that times even a lot of gamers from overclockers community I participated with enough powerfull computers refused to upgrade to Vista. Because there was still some differences - XP got just better FPS and lower latency in games and also some games had compatbility issues in Vista. It might be caused by changing video driver model and drivers might not be well optimized at the beginning. So many of those gamers/users just skipped Vista and go to Win7 later, also after some more HW upgrade. On some fast C2D/Q the differences fades. And of course they needed DX10 for new games and also new games was optimized for Win7...