17 ms·

Windows XP Delta Edition

358 points by kosasbest 4y ago

8organicbits 4y ago
This looks like a lot of effort for pirated software, unless I'm missing something.
- andai 4y ago
  From the FAQ: Q: What is the product key? A: One is not provided so the project stays legal. https://xpdelta.weebly.com/about.html https://xpdelta.weebly.com/about.html
  - 8organicbits 4y ago
    I'm pretty sure that's not how copyright works. Besides there's a product key on the download page.
    - rektide 4y ago
      Your original claim was, > This looks like a lot of effort for pirated software, unless I'm missing something. This is false. Whatever law may protect Microsoft from people being awesome & investing enormous effort improving their products for them- and I'm sure there are plenty such laws- this claim of piracy seems false. I do not see any product keys on the download page. These folks have no interest in helping piracy.
      - 8organicbits 4y ago
        No comment on the rest, I think we simply disagree on terminology, but the product key is visible when you click the download link.
        vore 4y ago
        The product key is a user-submitted comment on archive.org, I don't think you can hold the project owners accountable for this one.
      - gunhfgujh 4y ago
        Eh it’s clearly a violation not to mention the trademark violations everywhere. it wouldn’t take much to go through the image to find unlicensed msft programs and likeness. Sometimes hn confuses how things ought to be reasoning from first principals with how they actually are.
        rektide 4y ago
        > clearly a violation It's awesome to me that no one can clearly state what this is a violation of, but we all tend to agree, yes, a rag-tag group of product-loving enthusiasts absolutely have no right to go poke around & make things awesome & cool & to improve the product. That's absolutely not ok. We agree. But we also don't even know why or how we got here & why that is. It's still not piracy.
        CyberRabbi 4y ago
        There’s a difference between “what ought to be” and “what is.” I get that you think this project is cool and the authors are doing admirable work. I don’t necessarily disagree there but the reality is this is not legally defensible. It is a violation of copyright to redistribute software without the copyright owner’s permission. That is the definition of software piracy. Whether or not Microsoft pursues legal action is a separate matter.
        TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
        Would that stop you from downloading and using it?
        CyberRabbi 4y ago
        Yes actually.
    - PapaPalpatine 4y ago
      Did you even go to the website? I’m not seeing a product key anywhere.
      - kosasbest 4y ago
        There is one here: https://archive.org/details/windows-xp-delta-edition https://archive.org/details/windows-xp-delta-edition You may have clicked the 'Extras Pack' link where there is no serial.
        mynameisvlad 4y ago
        You understand what user comments are, right? I mean, you're making one of your own right now. So you'd understand how HN, for instance, has little responsibility with what you post in your comment. I can't claim that "Hackernews posted [your comment]". That extends to Archive.org and the owners of this project.
        PapaPalpatine 4y ago
        I replied to a comment saying "Besides there's a product key on the download page." That's not true: there is no product key listed on the download page. It sounds like there is a link somewhere on the page that goes to another site that hosts the product key.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - stordoff 4y ago
      As far as I can tell, there's only one listed by a reviewer on the archive.org page, not by the original uploader
    - Beltalowda 4y ago
      Someone left a review on archive.org with a product key. Can't hold the XPDelta people accountable for that. I could post it here too, and accuse YCombinator of encourage piracy. Other than that, Microsoft has always been fairly relaxed about copying CDs/ISOs (not sure what the license says about it). It's the product key that matters.
    - justsomehnguy 4y ago
      What if I have a legally bought copy of WinXP and therefore have a"working" product key? What if I installed a copy of WinXP from my CD with my bought key and it doesn't activate because WGA servers are long offline? Same, but I use any WGA activation hacks? Same, but instead of MS copy I used "Delta Edition" distrib? And by the way, "working" in quotes because even if you have the key - the product key itself doesn't mean nothing except the way to allow installation process to succeed. It even doesn't guarantee what it would accuse you of pirating the said software (see WGA).
  - nonamenoslogan 4y ago
    Fun fact: The 'smartphone' version of MS Activation still works with XP keys. I put XP on an old ThinkPad a few months back to play some early-2000's games and was able to activate it this way.
- frostedflakes 4y ago
  You might've missed the following: That not everyone cares about all that legal intellectual property stuff, and, that it was probably fun to make.
  - rektide 4y ago
    In a better world, companies would support & embrace this kind of creative exploration. It's just a sad chilling legal regime that rules us. Control is prioritized over fun, for fear that the fun get out of hand or come to not reflect well on the corporate image.
    - CyberRabbi 4y ago
      - rektide 4y ago
        What is Microsoft being defended from here, by these laws which prohibit this? This isn't a pirated work. This isn't distributing keys: they explicitly say you need to get your own key. I'm honestly not sure your claims are at all valid, that the laws you are describing are the ones protecting against awesome works like this. If they are, then what a shame that those laws would be so overbroad, would threaten & wreck such innocent & virtuous remix-culture, would deny the world any of their agency & enforce top down corporate control.
        CyberRabbi 4y ago
        > This isn't a pirated work. Distributing software without the permission of the author is the definition of software piracy. This is literally software piracy. The laws that prevent what you consider awesome work like this also prevent people from stealing your work. If we didn’t have these laws, we couldn’t have a software economy. It would be nearly impossible to make a living as a software engineer. The people who created these laws had the prudence to judge that the ability for programmers to securely make a living for their work is more important than the ability for programmers to take someone else’s work and do whatever they want with it.
- xmonkee 4y ago
  Why are there so many narcs on HN
  - rejectfinite 4y ago
    Its devs who hate piracy now that they wanna charge for their software but grew up doing it so they feel guilty.
kosasbest 4y ago
For those wondering about other fan-made XP editions, there is MicroXP: https://archive.org/details/MicroXP-0.82 https://archive.org/details/MicroXP-0.82 As for piracy, it seems Microsoft just don't seem to care. MicroXP has been on Archive.org since 2019!
- nyolfen 4y ago
  man, eXPerience brings back some memories. i used tinyxp for most of the late 00s, in high school.
- sgtnoodle 4y ago
  Microsoft themselves offer a freely downloadable software compatibility tool which internally contains a full Windows XP virtual machine. There's instructions online for how to import the imagine into Virtual Box. I wonder if it has to do with the common practice of using a stripped down windows install as a live bootable environment to run recovery tools?
  - zeusk 4y ago
    WinPE (recovery tools) is very different from the desktop SKU
    - userbinator 4y ago
      The kernel and a lot of the userspace DLLs (of which the former has far fewer) are exactly the same, AFAIK.
- joshcryer 4y ago
  You can get a ton of old, abandoned, or unsupported, software from Archive.org. I have no idea if the original authors are aware of it but if they are they don't seem to care that much.
  - pjerem 4y ago
    Everything on archive.org is user uploaded. So I think authors don’t event know. I just recently uploaded an old Pocket PC / Windows Mobile game that I found on an old disk drive. It took me less than five minutes to register and upload it and it was immediately available.
mproud 4y ago
Powered by weebly Thus it must be legitimate!
igtztorrero 4y ago
What about security holes ?
- orionblastar 4y ago
  Just don't use it on the Internet. Internet Explorer doesn't work because the certificates have expired. I would rather use Linux with WINE.
- zamadatix 4y ago
  > Windows XP Delta Edition is an unofficial modification of a 21 year old operating system, and should not be used as a daily driver. Microsoft ended support for Windows XP in 2014, and all unofficial updates stopped in 2019. Windows XP Delta Edition is made by enthusiasts, for enthusiasts. It's not meant to make it usable, just fun.
- accrual 4y ago
  I still play around with my XP laptop and even browse with MyPal. It has native WPA2 and can connect to a modern access point. As long as you're behind NAT and aren't downloading random warez, there's not too much to worry about. Just don't do anything sensitive like banking, of course.
  - Hackbraten 4y ago
    TIL that MyPal is a thing!
irthomasthomas 4y ago
I've been using the same xp vm about 8 years and I love it. 2 secs to boot and blazing fast. Only occasionally do I need win 7 or rarely 8. Not that I use windows much. I'll never use 10+, never ever.
- orf 4y ago
  If you’re using a VM, why wouldn’t you just suspend it? Boot speed seems somewhat irrelevant
  - chrsig 4y ago
    windows tends to need rebooting at just about every turn
  - adrian_b 4y ago
    The original Windows XP did not require a reboot at least once per day, like Windows 98, but it still required a reboot after 2 or 3 days of intense use. The many Service Packs that have been applied later to Windows XP have improved a lot its stability, but I have not used Windows XP for enough years to reach a Service Pack version where Windows XP would never need periodic reboots. I have stopped using Windows XP in 2005, maybe later revisions have solved the remaining bugs. I have used Windows 2000 on much less computers and for much less time than Windows XP, so the accumulated experience might be insufficient, but with Windows 2000 I have not encountered any situation when I was forced to reboot the computer, like it was needed from time to time with Windows XP. Even so, the improvement in stability between Windows 98 and Windows XP was huge. Simultaneously with using Windows XP on many desktops/laptops, I was managing a large number of FreeBSD servers. Those were rebooted exactly once per year, in order to do a kernel upgrade, even if that could have been skipped without problems.
    - kasabali 4y ago
      This contradicts my experience. I had been using hibernation instead of shutdown on my desktop computer during (which was on service pack 2), and it wasn't uncommon to not reboot for months.
tlhunter 4y ago
The Royale theme remains one of my favorite OS interfaces to this day.
gdulli 4y ago
I wonder if the custom Windows image scene will get a revival when they start to force online accounts. I'm not looking for a way to avoid paying for Windows, but I'll do what it takes to keep a local account.
- 323 4y ago
  There will always be offline accounts because there will always be offline computers, for a variety of reasons.
  - dymk 4y ago
    For enterprise, sure. But they've already shown a willingness to gimp their operating systems for common consumer use. For instance, you can't use virtualization features on Windows 10 Home edition. I wouldn't be surprised if you need a special license key to use Windows offline (past activation, at least) in the future.
    - 323 4y ago
      > you can't use virtualization features on Windows 10 Home edition Get the Pro edition then? What exactly is "common consumer use" of virtualization features?
      - dymk 4y ago
        Running a virtual machine. Something you could do on Windows 7 Home Premium, without having to purchase a "Pro" edition. My point is that they're slowly gating features behind their more Enterprise-y editions, which at some point won't be available to the general population. If they can force you to make a Microsoft account at some point, they will.
        emteycz 4y ago
        Wasn't the Home Premium for the same price as Pro is now?
kosasbest 4y ago
You can get lots of other software .ISOs (Mostly operating systems) here: https://archive.org/details/operatingsystemcds https://archive.org/details/operatingsystemcds
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- init 4y ago
  Thank you for sharing this link. The Internet Archive is truly a marvel of unequaled value. Didn't know it had such a trove of warez without the risk of pwnage that warez and torrent sites came with.
  - manjana 4y ago
    How do you know these are free of any malware?
    - bsagdiyev 4y ago
      For Windows ones the SHA sums are available online to compare to.
      - boomboomsubban 4y ago
        You can make SHA sums of malware.
        schroeding 4y ago
        If the ISOs are untouched (so it won't work for the posted "Delta Edition"), you can search the SHA hash of the version from MSDN. Relevant search keywords are "Microsoft SHA1 Hash Archive" :D
- accrual 4y ago
  Even more on WinWorldPC: https://winworldpc.com/library/operating-systems https://winworldpc.com/library/operating-systems I like WinWorld since each file usually comes with a bit of history about the release, as well as nearby serials.
branon 4y ago
Reminds me of the hacked-up Windows XP Service Pack 3 images you'd find on warez sites. I fondly remember XP "Black Edition" with custom themes. They also had it configured to receive the Windows XP POSReady security updates, which made the system serviceable long after the general EOL date.
- syntaxing 4y ago
  Super nostalgic! I remember them having a lite edition which ran noticeably faster on my netbook
  - comprev 4y ago
    nLite was popular in the carputer scene. I ran a stripped down XP version on a low power industrial PC (Atom CPU, 1GB RAM, laptop disk) hooked up to a Lilliput touchscreen up front. Good times!
    - radicalbyte 4y ago
      Also in the "people who want a fast PC and don't want all the extra shite MS keep bundling". Miss those days. Seems like even Linux installs are monsters nowadays.
      - genewitch 4y ago
        gentoo (and begrudgingly, i'll admit ubuntu server) are really light. I run web app servers on mostly gentoo, ubuntu if it requires docker, and a base install is 30-50MB of ram used. Right now my cgi, syncthing, and web fileserver is using 125MB. misskey server is using 725, i think it uses 175 on boot, so possible memory leak there. matrix server is using 363MB. Mattermost server been up for 3 months and is using 383MB. if you remove all the source files and cruft from a gentoo install when you're done setting it up, the actual system is less than 1GB on disk, and as mentioned, 30-50MB of memory used. Ubuntu is similar, although it does include more helper apps so the disk weight is higher.
1970-01-01 4y ago
This reminds me of XPize. https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/xpize.html https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/xpize.html
- kif 4y ago
  Whoa... this throws me back. It was pretty slick for the time. I loved it.
no_time 4y ago
Not bad but I prefer Gold Edition for its additional bling. https://preview.redd.it/bv1f9do7esky.png?auto=webp&s=dc5a65b5b8a07fe2484d1aa9b5d73f45a050a169 https://preview.redd.it/bv1f9do7esky.png?auto=webp&s=dc5a65b...
- kcplate 4y ago
  To each their own, but to my eyes that is bloody awful.
  - dymk 4y ago
    That's _why_ it was great. So gaudy. Blatantly opulent and tacky. Like rolling up to the Trump tower with spinning rims.
    - userbinator 4y ago
      "Pimp my OS". The creativity from those days was definitely interesting to see. A lot of the people who did that weren't even really into computer science/software development; they just liked customising stuff.
      - kcplate 4y ago
        I never got the whole “have to make everything skeuomorphic” trend from back in those days. You had a platform not bound by any analog interface…and what was the first thing designers did? Make crappy analog interfaces that you had to manipulate with a mouse.
itvision 4y ago
Windows XP, Vista and 7 were the most beautiful operating systems ever. Since 7 we've had what could only be described as horrendously unusable and ugly.
- extrememacaroni 4y ago
  Agreed, 7 was the last Windows I felt had more to love than to complain about. When 10 entered a silly update failed - keep retrying failing updates just to fail again loop I just said nah not worth it and switched permanently to linux mint. It was the last straw so to speak. I was supposed to install an update manager and use it to install updates instead? Bleh. Some audio tweaks here, some kernel tweaks there, we've been through a lot together already this OS and I :D
- thatfrenchguy 4y ago
  More like we’re all just all getting old
- icedchai 4y ago
  I always felt XP looked like a toy, compared to say Windows 2000 or NT 4.
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    It certainly grated if you were coming to it from macOS.
    - icedchai 4y ago
      Mac OS? or OS X? "macOS" didn't exist at the time. ;)
      - lostlogin 4y ago
        Probably Mac OS 9. I still hit command + n for a new folder, and get a new window. I loved that OS, but if I checked it out now I sure I’d be very disappointed.
graiz 4y ago
I was a former program manager on the Windows XP release so it warms my sprit when I see projects like this. Thanks for keeping the dream alive.
- polishdude20 4y ago
  Windows XP was my first operating system when my family got their first computer. At the time our school computers were running Windows 98. I felt so special having the new "XP" system at home haha. The login sound still brings back memories. Thank you for your contributions!
- imdsm 4y ago
  I have warm memories of Windows XP, upgrading to it from ME at about 11/12 years old, where I truly began my independent journey into SWE. I used to switch to the silver theme every now and then to keep things fresh. Windows XP + an internet connection, what more could a 12 year old geek want? Thanks for helping provide that!
  - iKevinShah 4y ago
    I am with you on that. Almost same timeline. Plus the amazing art work, icon packs, editing shell32.dll (or whatever it was called, sorry I dont remember accurately) to make it look like Aurora (or longhorn). Those were the days for a geek.
  - fartcannon 4y ago
    Windows XP was actually the trigger for me to move to Linux full time. There was an option to let windows verify you owned the media files on your computer via a third party service when you set up Windows media player. Since this was slightly after all the hoopla about Napster and copyright law, it struck me then that perhaps Microsoft wasn't one of the good guys. I was slightly older than you though, so perhaps that gave me a different perspective.
    - golergka 4y ago
      > perhaps Microsoft wasn't one of the good guys That's the thing that tipped you off? After the 90s?...
RedShift1 4y ago
God I love that superbly crisp Tahoma font.
- accrual 4y ago
  Early Windows UI as a whole was incredibly crisp, like using a bitmapped OS sometimes. I miss it.
OsintOtter69 4y ago
Anyone remember that golf game that was on XP?
xmonkee 4y ago
That black and orange theme brings back memories. Does anyone know of a way to get that exact look in linux?
- opan 4y ago
  The Zune theme! I found this from a quick search: https://linux.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Environment/Metacity-Themes/Zune-Metacity-and-XFWM4-94747.shtml https://linux.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Environment/Metacity...
  - xmonkee 4y ago
    Thank you!
sydthrowaway 4y ago
Is Windows XP faster than Windows 11?
- bombcar 4y ago
  Depending on what you want to do with it almost certainly. After all, it ran on twenty year old computers, and quite usable, too.
- sp332 4y ago
  Not for opening .zip files lol.
- accrual 4y ago
  What boggles my mind is how slow the Win 10 start menu can be. Unless you disable the web integration via regedit, it can take _seconds_ to open something as simple as the calculator. Plenty of times I'm tapping my fingers for something that would have been instant in XP. This makes Win 10 so much more pleasant for me: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer] "DisableSearchBoxSuggestions"=dword:00000001
  - foxtacles 4y ago
    This also works on Windows 11. Thank you!
Lammy 4y ago
For maximum nostalgia they should find a way to remove the volume-license key blocklist (added in SP1) so I can install Delta Edition with the "FuCK GateWay" key that is still seared into my memory 20 years later.
- rootw0rm 4y ago
  pretty sure that's done? I used to distribute my own little hacked together bit of kit called TurboXP that used volume key
andix 4y ago
Okay, nice idea, well done, but whyyyyy? :D
- fuzzfactor 4y ago
  Why not? With a proper BIOS PC or CSM enabled, you can partition a SSD for a few MBR-layout partitions, then format the first partition FAT32. Following partitions can be formatted NTFS. Windows 98SE can then be installed to the volume if your BIOS can enable ATA mode (for HDD access to complete the boot process), otherwise you still can manually install the plain DOS (which underlies W98SE itself) to the FAT32 volume, but that way you only boot to the bare metal command line. DOS is simple enough where the BIOS or CSM can transparently handle access to the ATA, SATA, or USB drives, keyboards and mice without drivers or anything. Sound is not so easy though. DOS will usually work with the full amount of modern memory still physically installed, but W9x not, so excess memory might need to be disabled in BIOS or physically removed beforehand for full W9x use. If you have a (empty) WINDOWS folder already on your FAT32 DOS volume before you try to install W9x (or WXP) on it, then you will be given the option of putting the new install into a differently named folder if you wish, I would choose for a WIND98 folder rather than WIN98 since the latter was almost like a keyword. To a fresh FAT32 DOS volume without any of its few files in actual folders (directories) at that point, when you installed W98 it created your first 3 folders; Documents and Settings, Program Files, and your main Windows OS folder (which was either the default WINDOWS or your chosen alternative such as WIND98). When you upgraded from DOS to W9x the bootsector no longer loaded simply IO.SYS, but WINBOOT.SYS then which brought in the whole Windows GUI on top of DOS. As mentioned WXP can also be installed to a FAT32 volume, works great but it was never a mainstream approach. You can search much faster when its a FAT32 volume. XP install CDs usually also need to use ATA mode rather than SATA (AHCI) mode in the BIOS unless the proper SATA drivers have been slipstreamed into the ISO. Maybe this Delta edition handles that well. If you install XP to your FAT32/DOS/W9x volume which still contains your (intentionally empty) folder named WINDOWS, you will again be given the option to choose an alternative OS foldername such as WINXP. The WINXP choice was the actual XP default at the very beginning (W2k used WINNT foldername just like NT3 & NT4) before reverting to WINDOWS foldername for most XP PCs and newer. This would not be a recommended approach for users who were not comfortable renaming an existing Program Files folder used by Win9x to something else such as Prog98, otherwise installing XP over W9x would overwrite a number of the default Windows 98 programs in the Program Files folder with NT versions. Better to just hide the W9x Program folder and let XP write a whole new Program Files folder for itself when it installs. Either Windows version then boots using just its own uniquely named Windows folder. W9x doesn't care if the Program Files folder is from a newer version of Windows, it will still boot. When booted to W9x some of the common programs in the XP Program Files folder will only run under NT and you will get an error for that, but to workaround you could set a shortcut to your renamed Prog98 folder in that case. This NT install also overwrites the DOS volume bootsector so upon bootup it searches for NTLDR rather than DOS bootfiles, but it also makes a backup of your DOS bootsector first saving it as c:\bootsect.dos so if you want to you could use your new NTLDR to still boot to DOS or W98 if present (since it's FAT32 anyway) by adding the line c:\="DOS from W98" to your boot.ini text file. In boot.ini "c:\=" syntax in this case is shorthand for "c:\bootsect.dos=". Quite convenient and un-necessarily deceptive at the same time. IOW for advanced MBR operators who want to sometimes boot to Linux from a Windows-formatted volume using the NT bootloader, you need to back up the NT bootsector (disk editor is good for this), prepare a Linux bootsector using GRUB or Syslinux then save it as a file named something like c:\bootsect.lin. Then you can replace the NT bootsector to the volume from backup. Then in your boot.ini add a line such as c:\bootsect.lin="Linux on type 83 partition 4" for instance. Anyway with DOS, W9x and Wxp in the FAT32 bare metal root, WIND98 folder, and WINXP folder respectively, sharing the same FAT32 volume you could ideally choose any one of them (even further choose Linux or Windows installs on different partitions/filesystems if you went there) from the regular Windows NT multiboot menu which will appear upon PC startup. It has also been seen that on an NTFS volume already containing W10, if the Windows 10 Program Files folder was renamed to something like Prog10 beforehand, XP could still be installed afterward to a folder other than WINDOWS and share the same volume as long as the HDD was set up using MBR layout rather than GPT and you have a good BIOS or CSM, with SATA or plain ATA handled accordingly. Carefully, W10 can also be booted from the NTLDR bootmenu if you had saved a copy of the W10 NTFS bootsector as a file such as c:\bootsect.nt6 beforehand. Then address that in your boot.ini. Which you would need the W10 bootsector backup file anyway normally, to restore to the partition (after XP has "downgraded" it) so you can go back to using the original W10 NT6 BOOTMGR instead of the older NTLDR from XP. You then have to manually add an NTLDR bootentry to the modern NT6 BOOTMGR bootmenu to boot XP from there. But that's kind of backwards, ideally things like Vista, W7, W8, W10 & W11 would each be installed on their own remaining NTFS partitions without sharing the volume with any other OS. As each of these OS's is installed to its partition on an MBR-layout HDD it writes its additional bootentry to the NT6 bootmenu within the standard BOOT folder on your "Active" MBR partition, typically the FAT32 volume on your first partition which is often small in drive space and considered reserved for boot files alone. Alternatively, as we have seen, regular DOS can easily format as much as a 32GB FAT32 volume so there can be plenty of room for things like DOS, W9x, or Wxp to be also installed and function right there beside the active boot files. And the boot files can access other partitions too. With a BOOT folder this beefy, and NTLDR in the mix you may now have DOS, W9x, NT5, NT6 and even Linux on the bare metal at your fingertips. Next adding a new similarly beefy EFI folder to the FAT32 volume will provide an additional, alternative way to boot the same OS's on the same partitions, but on non-BIOS PCs only the OS's modern enough to support UEFI booting will be available (for booting) when a proper CSM is not enabled. UEFI alone is supposed to support booting from either MBR or GPT layout on the HDD, as long as a readable useful EFI folder is on a recognizable FAT32 volume. When not using a BIOS or CSM, UEFI can't really boot into DOS, W9x or Wxp any more, but when they are on the bare metal anyway you can still use them in a VM inside a modern OS, from right where they are if you do it right.
101008 4y ago
So many memories. I am one of those who grew with WinXP (though I usd Win95 at school and for a few years Win98 at home), and as someone said in another comment, what else could a teen geek want besides WinXP with a bandwith connection? I still feel that seeing a XP Desktop screenshot invites to much more experiences (possibly online) than a Win10/Win11 screenshot. It may be with the fact that I associate it to different internet eras as well. With XP I used to browse websits, fansites, blogs, forums, chats, MSN messenger/Yahoo Messenger/etc, whil now everything seems to be the boring social networks where almost everything is generated/shared. Internet used to be much fun back then, and it may be the reason why most of the people have good memories about XP. I think the main reason (and I wanted to write an "essay" about this for a while) it's that we were offline by default in our lives, and we used to "go online" for a few hours durnig the day. Then you had your experience in the real world and went online to talk about them. Now it is the other way around - we live online by default, sharing photos and videos from a concert almost in real time, photos from a museum, etc. I think it took away its novelty.
- tijuco2 4y ago
  "we were offline by default...you had your experience in the real world and went online to talk about them" that is strong and so true.
- saiya-jin 4y ago
  You know, nobody actually needs to participate in this rat race for few seconds of attention (of people you don't care about much), there are no real gains at all in it, not long term, not anything in say quality of life lived or happiness. I used to be like that, posting 50+ albums of beautiful curated adventure photos per year (basically every weekend trips to alps, backpacking plus ie some evening climbing outdoors on mountain nearby and rest of life like concerts etc). Literally tens of thousands of photos at this point, sometimes stuff NatGeo would be happy to use. Backpacking around the world in wild places relatively few visit, always having full frame camera (+ diving cam + often gopro) with me. I got told I should start Instagram, get followers, create 'brand' etc but never went that way since that wasn't the reason for doing it. When first kid came, I toned down everything, stopped some things, less time to curate all those photos in lightroom. With second child, I practically stopped using camera and currently use just good phone (Samsung S22 ultra). My public photo stream basically died since I don't feel the need to share my kids/family photos, they feel much more intimate than just myself doing something cool/extreme. Close family still gets quite a few of those, but that's it. And you know what? I am fine, I don't miss this at all, and I definitely don't miss similar feeds coming from other folks (especially if they go to some place / experience something and then for a week there are photos dripping 1 by 1 about the same single thing, I began to hate that). Actually I am more than fine, unplugging quite a bit, reversing this process, having more time for much more important matters in life. Unplugged from quite a few social circles around those activities (but not all). So online life became similar kind of novelty you describe.
imbnwa 4y ago
Anybody remember those Performance Edition ISOs?
RedShift1 4y ago
I just intalled it into a virtual machine and it's already doing that thing where you go to network connections in the control panel and it hangs for like 60 seconds before it proceeds... Good times...
zerr 4y ago
Windows XP is the last Windows where Classic theme (thus GDI before WDDM/Aero) is hardware accelerated.
- sigzero 4y ago
  Yup! I ran the Classis theme exclusively. I was never a fan of the default "Fisher Price" theme.
- mikae1 4y ago
  :) https://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/421851-acceleration-gui-classic-theme-windows-7-a.html https://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/421851-accele...
- bitwize 4y ago
  That's because nobody uses those graphics primitives anymore, and by removing the legacy cruft graphics device drivers can be simplified. Aero/modern UI, by contrast, is much closer to how the modern Windows graphics stack actually works, so it makes sense for Microsoft to move everybody to it and deprecate GDI except for legacy applications.
  - hedora 4y ago
    I only use those primitives these days. My remaining Windows install is 3.1 in dosbox on a raspberry pi 4 Maybe I should see how XP runs on it.
bovermyer 4y ago
Starting from a Windows frame of reference... 98SE, then XP, then 7, and then (with reservations) 10 was the gaming experience. From a nostalgia perspective, I'm likely to view even Windows 3.11 clones in a positive light. Really, though... harboring no specific ill will toward any OS developer, I just hope that L/indo/nix figures out how to properly interoperate, and we get a computing ecosystem that allows for new users to quickly and accurately figure out what kind of system they want to live in.
kenesary 4y ago
I sometimes have to develop and test for Windows, and running latest 10-11 dev evaluation version from Microsoft in a virtual machine is nothing but pain (in terms of performance and usability, since I use FreeBSD/macOS/Linux for last ~15 years and anything after XP is a huge pain to me). Will definitely try this one and see if it will work for my purposes!
genericacct 4y ago
Such modernity. I liked windows better when you had to install your own tcpip stack
guerrilla 4y ago
Grrr, make the screenshots clickable...
tomjen3 4y ago
I was a Windows user until I moved to Linux and then Mac. I don't anticipate going back to Windows again, but the one that would tempt me would be an updated version of Windows XP. Like better security, drivers and maybe the search function in the start menu, but otherwise Windows XP. I feel like this was the last OS where Microsoft gave a damn about you as the user.
pigtailgirl 4y ago
only ran xp for a while - much preferred win2k - loved skinning windows - here's a screenshot from the brief skinned xp days: https://share.getcloudapp.com/p9uOpZeB# https://share.getcloudapp.com/p9uOpZeB#
Uptrenda 4y ago
I always loved Windows XPs UI design. So comfy. How legal is this project though?
divbzero 4y ago
I miss Windows 7 too. That was the last version of Windows that I really liked.
moralestapia 4y ago
Royale Noir ftw!
NonNefarious 4y ago
noisy_boy 4y ago
I created a vm of the XP install that came preinstalled on my HP laptop a out 11 years ago. Through multiple laptops and migrations, it has still survived and is so convenient when a website expects to be accessed from Windows. Boots in less than 5 seconds to the login sounds that has been burned into our memories.
terrycody 4y ago
Its so nice and comfortable feeling, my favorite Windows version ever, and will ever.
- terrycody 4y ago
  let alone many old games only run on XP, not windows 7 or later
jonhohle 4y ago
Luna was one of my favorite Windows themes of all time. Microsoft was actually way ahead on “flat” design but it was usable, looked modern, and was attractive. They threw it away to mimic the Aqua aesthetic but didn’t really understand why Aqua worked, just kind of how it looked. The final XP themes were so ugly and inconsistent. It was like at least three different widget designs were mashed together (the window frame, the standard widgets, and the scroll bars all appear to be from different worlds). Office XP and Visual Studio.NET had their own variations of flat widgets that also looked fantastic and seemed true to Luna. For a few seconds, Netscape 6 also had a really nice flat design that was replaced with bulbous, XP-esque chrome. It would have been great if Microsoft would have stuck with that flat design language. It was original, very true to their brand, and looked “professional”. I would love to hear why it was scrapped in favor of what shipped.
tomc1985 4y ago
Funny, I hated the color scheme back in the day. It reminded me of Fischer-Price children's toys. My very first customization was to always set it to the silver theme.
01walid 4y ago
> Windows XP Delta Edition > Windows XP Delta Edition > Windows XP Delta Edition > Windows XP Delta Edition > Windows XP Delta Edition > Windows XP Delta Edition > Windows XP Delta Edition
- userbinator 4y ago
  I wonder if anyone will make an Omicron Edition?
wodenokoto 4y ago
There is something about those screenshots that makes XP looks good. I remember when it came out we all thought it looked like a Fisher-Price toy. A very un-serious and unprofessional aesthetic.
greyhair 4y ago
As a developer, I really don't understand the lovefest for XP, other than in the context of Windows 98, in particular the Windows 98 ME fiasco, and the evolution of Windows NT into Windows 2000. Windows 7 pretty much fixed all the brokenness of XP, granted much of that brokenness was XP being a victim to the progress in hardware buses. Yes, Windows Vista was a hot mess, which carried over into the first release of Windows 8, though by the second release of Windows 8, it was pretty solid, but still tainted by the stench of Vista. But Windows 10 completed so much of what Windows 7 started. Everything in '10' was so much better. The network stack, particularly WiFi. Printer drivers. USB support. All of it really. When I think how far forward 10 moved from XP, and having lived with Windows from '95' on forward, including writing NDIS network drivers for NT, I just don't have any nostalgia for XP at all. And I know a lot of people hate Windows 11, but I have to say, USB support for Linux under WSL2 in Windows 11 is good, so it has that going for it.

358 points by kosasbest 4y ago

8organicbits 4y ago

This looks like a lot of effort for pirated software, unless I'm missing something.

andai 4y ago
From the FAQ: Q: What is the product key? A: One is not provided so the project stays legal. https://xpdelta.weebly.com/about.html https://xpdelta.weebly.com/about.html
- 8organicbits 4y ago
  I'm pretty sure that's not how copyright works. Besides there's a product key on the download page.
  - rektide 4y ago
    Your original claim was, > This looks like a lot of effort for pirated software, unless I'm missing something. This is false. Whatever law may protect Microsoft from people being awesome & investing enormous effort improving their products for them- and I'm sure there are plenty such laws- this claim of piracy seems false. I do not see any product keys on the download page. These folks have no interest in helping piracy.
    - 8organicbits 4y ago
      No comment on the rest, I think we simply disagree on terminology, but the product key is visible when you click the download link.
      - vore 4y ago
        The product key is a user-submitted comment on archive.org, I don't think you can hold the project owners accountable for this one.
    - gunhfgujh 4y ago
      Eh it’s clearly a violation not to mention the trademark violations everywhere. it wouldn’t take much to go through the image to find unlicensed msft programs and likeness. Sometimes hn confuses how things ought to be reasoning from first principals with how they actually are.
      - rektide 4y ago
        > clearly a violation It's awesome to me that no one can clearly state what this is a violation of, but we all tend to agree, yes, a rag-tag group of product-loving enthusiasts absolutely have no right to go poke around & make things awesome & cool & to improve the product. That's absolutely not ok. We agree. But we also don't even know why or how we got here & why that is. It's still not piracy.
        CyberRabbi 4y ago
        There’s a difference between “what ought to be” and “what is.” I get that you think this project is cool and the authors are doing admirable work. I don’t necessarily disagree there but the reality is this is not legally defensible. It is a violation of copyright to redistribute software without the copyright owner’s permission. That is the definition of software piracy. Whether or not Microsoft pursues legal action is a separate matter.
        TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
        Would that stop you from downloading and using it?
        CyberRabbi 4y ago
        Yes actually.
  - PapaPalpatine 4y ago
    Did you even go to the website? I’m not seeing a product key anywhere.
    - kosasbest 4y ago
      There is one here: https://archive.org/details/windows-xp-delta-edition https://archive.org/details/windows-xp-delta-edition You may have clicked the 'Extras Pack' link where there is no serial.
      - mynameisvlad 4y ago
        You understand what user comments are, right? I mean, you're making one of your own right now. So you'd understand how HN, for instance, has little responsibility with what you post in your comment. I can't claim that "Hackernews posted [your comment]". That extends to Archive.org and the owners of this project.
      - PapaPalpatine 4y ago
        I replied to a comment saying "Besides there's a product key on the download page." That's not true: there is no product key listed on the download page. It sounds like there is a link somewhere on the page that goes to another site that hosts the product key.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - stordoff 4y ago
    As far as I can tell, there's only one listed by a reviewer on the archive.org page, not by the original uploader
  - Beltalowda 4y ago
    Someone left a review on archive.org with a product key. Can't hold the XPDelta people accountable for that. I could post it here too, and accuse YCombinator of encourage piracy. Other than that, Microsoft has always been fairly relaxed about copying CDs/ISOs (not sure what the license says about it). It's the product key that matters.
  - justsomehnguy 4y ago
    What if I have a legally bought copy of WinXP and therefore have a"working" product key? What if I installed a copy of WinXP from my CD with my bought key and it doesn't activate because WGA servers are long offline? Same, but I use any WGA activation hacks? Same, but instead of MS copy I used "Delta Edition" distrib? And by the way, "working" in quotes because even if you have the key - the product key itself doesn't mean nothing except the way to allow installation process to succeed. It even doesn't guarantee what it would accuse you of pirating the said software (see WGA).
- nonamenoslogan 4y ago
  Fun fact: The 'smartphone' version of MS Activation still works with XP keys. I put XP on an old ThinkPad a few months back to play some early-2000's games and was able to activate it this way.
frostedflakes 4y ago
You might've missed the following: That not everyone cares about all that legal intellectual property stuff, and, that it was probably fun to make.
- rektide 4y ago
  In a better world, companies would support & embrace this kind of creative exploration. It's just a sad chilling legal regime that rules us. Control is prioritized over fun, for fear that the fun get out of hand or come to not reflect well on the corporate image.
  - CyberRabbi 4y ago
    - rektide 4y ago
      What is Microsoft being defended from here, by these laws which prohibit this? This isn't a pirated work. This isn't distributing keys: they explicitly say you need to get your own key. I'm honestly not sure your claims are at all valid, that the laws you are describing are the ones protecting against awesome works like this. If they are, then what a shame that those laws would be so overbroad, would threaten & wreck such innocent & virtuous remix-culture, would deny the world any of their agency & enforce top down corporate control.
      - CyberRabbi 4y ago
        > This isn't a pirated work. Distributing software without the permission of the author is the definition of software piracy. This is literally software piracy. The laws that prevent what you consider awesome work like this also prevent people from stealing your work. If we didn’t have these laws, we couldn’t have a software economy. It would be nearly impossible to make a living as a software engineer. The people who created these laws had the prudence to judge that the ability for programmers to securely make a living for their work is more important than the ability for programmers to take someone else’s work and do whatever they want with it.
xmonkee 4y ago
Why are there so many narcs on HN
- rejectfinite 4y ago
  Its devs who hate piracy now that they wanna charge for their software but grew up doing it so they feel guilty.

kosasbest 4y ago

For those wondering about other fan-made XP editions, there is MicroXP: https://archive.org/details/MicroXP-0.82 https://archive.org/details/MicroXP-0.82 As for piracy, it seems Microsoft just don't seem to care. MicroXP has been on Archive.org since 2019!

nyolfen 4y ago
man, eXPerience brings back some memories. i used tinyxp for most of the late 00s, in high school.
sgtnoodle 4y ago
Microsoft themselves offer a freely downloadable software compatibility tool which internally contains a full Windows XP virtual machine. There's instructions online for how to import the imagine into Virtual Box. I wonder if it has to do with the common practice of using a stripped down windows install as a live bootable environment to run recovery tools?
- zeusk 4y ago
  WinPE (recovery tools) is very different from the desktop SKU
  - userbinator 4y ago
    The kernel and a lot of the userspace DLLs (of which the former has far fewer) are exactly the same, AFAIK.
joshcryer 4y ago
You can get a ton of old, abandoned, or unsupported, software from Archive.org. I have no idea if the original authors are aware of it but if they are they don't seem to care that much.
- pjerem 4y ago
  Everything on archive.org is user uploaded. So I think authors don’t event know. I just recently uploaded an old Pocket PC / Windows Mobile game that I found on an old disk drive. It took me less than five minutes to register and upload it and it was immediately available.

mproud 4y ago

igtztorrero 4y ago

What about security holes ?

orionblastar 4y ago
Just don't use it on the Internet. Internet Explorer doesn't work because the certificates have expired. I would rather use Linux with WINE.
zamadatix 4y ago
> Windows XP Delta Edition is an unofficial modification of a 21 year old operating system, and should not be used as a daily driver. Microsoft ended support for Windows XP in 2014, and all unofficial updates stopped in 2019. Windows XP Delta Edition is made by enthusiasts, for enthusiasts. It's not meant to make it usable, just fun.
accrual 4y ago
I still play around with my XP laptop and even browse with MyPal. It has native WPA2 and can connect to a modern access point. As long as you're behind NAT and aren't downloading random warez, there's not too much to worry about. Just don't do anything sensitive like banking, of course.
- Hackbraten 4y ago
  TIL that MyPal is a thing!

irthomasthomas 4y ago

I've been using the same xp vm about 8 years and I love it. 2 secs to boot and blazing fast. Only occasionally do I need win 7 or rarely 8. Not that I use windows much. I'll never use 10+, never ever.

orf 4y ago
If you’re using a VM, why wouldn’t you just suspend it? Boot speed seems somewhat irrelevant
- chrsig 4y ago
  windows tends to need rebooting at just about every turn
- adrian_b 4y ago
  The original Windows XP did not require a reboot at least once per day, like Windows 98, but it still required a reboot after 2 or 3 days of intense use. The many Service Packs that have been applied later to Windows XP have improved a lot its stability, but I have not used Windows XP for enough years to reach a Service Pack version where Windows XP would never need periodic reboots. I have stopped using Windows XP in 2005, maybe later revisions have solved the remaining bugs. I have used Windows 2000 on much less computers and for much less time than Windows XP, so the accumulated experience might be insufficient, but with Windows 2000 I have not encountered any situation when I was forced to reboot the computer, like it was needed from time to time with Windows XP. Even so, the improvement in stability between Windows 98 and Windows XP was huge. Simultaneously with using Windows XP on many desktops/laptops, I was managing a large number of FreeBSD servers. Those were rebooted exactly once per year, in order to do a kernel upgrade, even if that could have been skipped without problems.
  - kasabali 4y ago
    This contradicts my experience. I had been using hibernation instead of shutdown on my desktop computer during (which was on service pack 2), and it wasn't uncommon to not reboot for months.

tlhunter 4y ago

The Royale theme remains one of my favorite OS interfaces to this day.

gdulli 4y ago

I wonder if the custom Windows image scene will get a revival when they start to force online accounts. I'm not looking for a way to avoid paying for Windows, but I'll do what it takes to keep a local account.

323 4y ago
There will always be offline accounts because there will always be offline computers, for a variety of reasons.
- dymk 4y ago
  For enterprise, sure. But they've already shown a willingness to gimp their operating systems for common consumer use. For instance, you can't use virtualization features on Windows 10 Home edition. I wouldn't be surprised if you need a special license key to use Windows offline (past activation, at least) in the future.
  - 323 4y ago
    > you can't use virtualization features on Windows 10 Home edition Get the Pro edition then? What exactly is "common consumer use" of virtualization features?
    - dymk 4y ago
      Running a virtual machine. Something you could do on Windows 7 Home Premium, without having to purchase a "Pro" edition. My point is that they're slowly gating features behind their more Enterprise-y editions, which at some point won't be available to the general population. If they can force you to make a Microsoft account at some point, they will.
      - emteycz 4y ago
        Wasn't the Home Premium for the same price as Pro is now?

kosasbest 4y ago

You can get lots of other software .ISOs (Mostly operating systems) here: https://archive.org/details/operatingsystemcds https://archive.org/details/operatingsystemcds

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
init 4y ago
Thank you for sharing this link. The Internet Archive is truly a marvel of unequaled value. Didn't know it had such a trove of warez without the risk of pwnage that warez and torrent sites came with.
- manjana 4y ago
  How do you know these are free of any malware?
  - bsagdiyev 4y ago
    For Windows ones the SHA sums are available online to compare to.
    - boomboomsubban 4y ago
      You can make SHA sums of malware.
      - schroeding 4y ago
        If the ISOs are untouched (so it won't work for the posted "Delta Edition"), you can search the SHA hash of the version from MSDN. Relevant search keywords are "Microsoft SHA1 Hash Archive" :D
accrual 4y ago
Even more on WinWorldPC: https://winworldpc.com/library/operating-systems https://winworldpc.com/library/operating-systems I like WinWorld since each file usually comes with a bit of history about the release, as well as nearby serials.

branon 4y ago

Reminds me of the hacked-up Windows XP Service Pack 3 images you'd find on warez sites. I fondly remember XP "Black Edition" with custom themes. They also had it configured to receive the Windows XP POSReady security updates, which made the system serviceable long after the general EOL date.

syntaxing 4y ago
Super nostalgic! I remember them having a lite edition which ran noticeably faster on my netbook
- comprev 4y ago
  nLite was popular in the carputer scene. I ran a stripped down XP version on a low power industrial PC (Atom CPU, 1GB RAM, laptop disk) hooked up to a Lilliput touchscreen up front. Good times!
  - radicalbyte 4y ago
    Also in the "people who want a fast PC and don't want all the extra shite MS keep bundling". Miss those days. Seems like even Linux installs are monsters nowadays.
    - genewitch 4y ago
      gentoo (and begrudgingly, i'll admit ubuntu server) are really light. I run web app servers on mostly gentoo, ubuntu if it requires docker, and a base install is 30-50MB of ram used. Right now my cgi, syncthing, and web fileserver is using 125MB. misskey server is using 725, i think it uses 175 on boot, so possible memory leak there. matrix server is using 363MB. Mattermost server been up for 3 months and is using 383MB. if you remove all the source files and cruft from a gentoo install when you're done setting it up, the actual system is less than 1GB on disk, and as mentioned, 30-50MB of memory used. Ubuntu is similar, although it does include more helper apps so the disk weight is higher.

1970-01-01 4y ago

This reminds me of XPize. https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/xpize.html https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/xpize.html

kif 4y ago
Whoa... this throws me back. It was pretty slick for the time. I loved it.

no_time 4y ago

Not bad but I prefer Gold Edition for its additional bling. https://preview.redd.it/bv1f9do7esky.png?auto=webp&s=dc5a65b5b8a07fe2484d1aa9b5d73f45a050a169 https://preview.redd.it/bv1f9do7esky.png?auto=webp&s=dc5a65b...

kcplate 4y ago
To each their own, but to my eyes that is bloody awful.
- dymk 4y ago
  That's _why_ it was great. So gaudy. Blatantly opulent and tacky. Like rolling up to the Trump tower with spinning rims.
  - userbinator 4y ago
    "Pimp my OS". The creativity from those days was definitely interesting to see. A lot of the people who did that weren't even really into computer science/software development; they just liked customising stuff.
    - kcplate 4y ago
      I never got the whole “have to make everything skeuomorphic” trend from back in those days. You had a platform not bound by any analog interface…and what was the first thing designers did? Make crappy analog interfaces that you had to manipulate with a mouse.

itvision 4y ago

Windows XP, Vista and 7 were the most beautiful operating systems ever. Since 7 we've had what could only be described as horrendously unusable and ugly.

extrememacaroni 4y ago
Agreed, 7 was the last Windows I felt had more to love than to complain about. When 10 entered a silly update failed - keep retrying failing updates just to fail again loop I just said nah not worth it and switched permanently to linux mint. It was the last straw so to speak. I was supposed to install an update manager and use it to install updates instead? Bleh. Some audio tweaks here, some kernel tweaks there, we've been through a lot together already this OS and I :D
thatfrenchguy 4y ago
More like we’re all just all getting old
icedchai 4y ago
I always felt XP looked like a toy, compared to say Windows 2000 or NT 4.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  It certainly grated if you were coming to it from macOS.
  - icedchai 4y ago
    Mac OS? or OS X? "macOS" didn't exist at the time. ;)
    - lostlogin 4y ago
      Probably Mac OS 9. I still hit command + n for a new folder, and get a new window. I loved that OS, but if I checked it out now I sure I’d be very disappointed.

graiz 4y ago

I was a former program manager on the Windows XP release so it warms my sprit when I see projects like this. Thanks for keeping the dream alive.

polishdude20 4y ago
Windows XP was my first operating system when my family got their first computer. At the time our school computers were running Windows 98. I felt so special having the new "XP" system at home haha. The login sound still brings back memories. Thank you for your contributions!
imdsm 4y ago
I have warm memories of Windows XP, upgrading to it from ME at about 11/12 years old, where I truly began my independent journey into SWE. I used to switch to the silver theme every now and then to keep things fresh. Windows XP + an internet connection, what more could a 12 year old geek want? Thanks for helping provide that!
- iKevinShah 4y ago
  I am with you on that. Almost same timeline. Plus the amazing art work, icon packs, editing shell32.dll (or whatever it was called, sorry I dont remember accurately) to make it look like Aurora (or longhorn). Those were the days for a geek.
- fartcannon 4y ago
  Windows XP was actually the trigger for me to move to Linux full time. There was an option to let windows verify you owned the media files on your computer via a third party service when you set up Windows media player. Since this was slightly after all the hoopla about Napster and copyright law, it struck me then that perhaps Microsoft wasn't one of the good guys. I was slightly older than you though, so perhaps that gave me a different perspective.
  - golergka 4y ago
    > perhaps Microsoft wasn't one of the good guys That's the thing that tipped you off? After the 90s?...

RedShift1 4y ago

God I love that superbly crisp Tahoma font.

accrual 4y ago
Early Windows UI as a whole was incredibly crisp, like using a bitmapped OS sometimes. I miss it.

OsintOtter69 4y ago

Anyone remember that golf game that was on XP?

xmonkee 4y ago

That black and orange theme brings back memories. Does anyone know of a way to get that exact look in linux?

opan 4y ago
The Zune theme! I found this from a quick search: https://linux.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Environment/Metacity-Themes/Zune-Metacity-and-XFWM4-94747.shtml https://linux.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Environment/Metacity...
- xmonkee 4y ago
  Thank you!

sydthrowaway 4y ago

Is Windows XP faster than Windows 11?

bombcar 4y ago
Depending on what you want to do with it almost certainly. After all, it ran on twenty year old computers, and quite usable, too.
sp332 4y ago
Not for opening .zip files lol.
accrual 4y ago
What boggles my mind is how slow the Win 10 start menu can be. Unless you disable the web integration via regedit, it can take _seconds_ to open something as simple as the calculator. Plenty of times I'm tapping my fingers for something that would have been instant in XP. This makes Win 10 so much more pleasant for me: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer] "DisableSearchBoxSuggestions"=dword:00000001
- foxtacles 4y ago
  This also works on Windows 11. Thank you!

Lammy 4y ago

For maximum nostalgia they should find a way to remove the volume-license key blocklist (added in SP1) so I can install Delta Edition with the "FuCK GateWay" key that is still seared into my memory 20 years later.

rootw0rm 4y ago
pretty sure that's done? I used to distribute my own little hacked together bit of kit called TurboXP that used volume key

andix 4y ago

Okay, nice idea, well done, but whyyyyy? :D

fuzzfactor 4y ago
Why not? With a proper BIOS PC or CSM enabled, you can partition a SSD for a few MBR-layout partitions, then format the first partition FAT32. Following partitions can be formatted NTFS. Windows 98SE can then be installed to the volume if your BIOS can enable ATA mode (for HDD access to complete the boot process), otherwise you still can manually install the plain DOS (which underlies W98SE itself) to the FAT32 volume, but that way you only boot to the bare metal command line. DOS is simple enough where the BIOS or CSM can transparently handle access to the ATA, SATA, or USB drives, keyboards and mice without drivers or anything. Sound is not so easy though. DOS will usually work with the full amount of modern memory still physically installed, but W9x not, so excess memory might need to be disabled in BIOS or physically removed beforehand for full W9x use. If you have a (empty) WINDOWS folder already on your FAT32 DOS volume before you try to install W9x (or WXP) on it, then you will be given the option of putting the new install into a differently named folder if you wish, I would choose for a WIND98 folder rather than WIN98 since the latter was almost like a keyword. To a fresh FAT32 DOS volume without any of its few files in actual folders (directories) at that point, when you installed W98 it created your first 3 folders; Documents and Settings, Program Files, and your main Windows OS folder (which was either the default WINDOWS or your chosen alternative such as WIND98). When you upgraded from DOS to W9x the bootsector no longer loaded simply IO.SYS, but WINBOOT.SYS then which brought in the whole Windows GUI on top of DOS. As mentioned WXP can also be installed to a FAT32 volume, works great but it was never a mainstream approach. You can search much faster when its a FAT32 volume. XP install CDs usually also need to use ATA mode rather than SATA (AHCI) mode in the BIOS unless the proper SATA drivers have been slipstreamed into the ISO. Maybe this Delta edition handles that well. If you install XP to your FAT32/DOS/W9x volume which still contains your (intentionally empty) folder named WINDOWS, you will again be given the option to choose an alternative OS foldername such as WINXP. The WINXP choice was the actual XP default at the very beginning (W2k used WINNT foldername just like NT3 & NT4) before reverting to WINDOWS foldername for most XP PCs and newer. This would not be a recommended approach for users who were not comfortable renaming an existing Program Files folder used by Win9x to something else such as Prog98, otherwise installing XP over W9x would overwrite a number of the default Windows 98 programs in the Program Files folder with NT versions. Better to just hide the W9x Program folder and let XP write a whole new Program Files folder for itself when it installs. Either Windows version then boots using just its own uniquely named Windows folder. W9x doesn't care if the Program Files folder is from a newer version of Windows, it will still boot. When booted to W9x some of the common programs in the XP Program Files folder will only run under NT and you will get an error for that, but to workaround you could set a shortcut to your renamed Prog98 folder in that case. This NT install also overwrites the DOS volume bootsector so upon bootup it searches for NTLDR rather than DOS bootfiles, but it also makes a backup of your DOS bootsector first saving it as c:\bootsect.dos so if you want to you could use your new NTLDR to still boot to DOS or W98 if present (since it's FAT32 anyway) by adding the line c:\="DOS from W98" to your boot.ini text file. In boot.ini "c:\=" syntax in this case is shorthand for "c:\bootsect.dos=". Quite convenient and un-necessarily deceptive at the same time. IOW for advanced MBR operators who want to sometimes boot to Linux from a Windows-formatted volume using the NT bootloader, you need to back up the NT bootsector (disk editor is good for this), prepare a Linux bootsector using GRUB or Syslinux then save it as a file named something like c:\bootsect.lin. Then you can replace the NT bootsector to the volume from backup. Then in your boot.ini add a line such as c:\bootsect.lin="Linux on type 83 partition 4" for instance. Anyway with DOS, W9x and Wxp in the FAT32 bare metal root, WIND98 folder, and WINXP folder respectively, sharing the same FAT32 volume you could ideally choose any one of them (even further choose Linux or Windows installs on different partitions/filesystems if you went there) from the regular Windows NT multiboot menu which will appear upon PC startup. It has also been seen that on an NTFS volume already containing W10, if the Windows 10 Program Files folder was renamed to something like Prog10 beforehand, XP could still be installed afterward to a folder other than WINDOWS and share the same volume as long as the HDD was set up using MBR layout rather than GPT and you have a good BIOS or CSM, with SATA or plain ATA handled accordingly. Carefully, W10 can also be booted from the NTLDR bootmenu if you had saved a copy of the W10 NTFS bootsector as a file such as c:\bootsect.nt6 beforehand. Then address that in your boot.ini. Which you would need the W10 bootsector backup file anyway normally, to restore to the partition (after XP has "downgraded" it) so you can go back to using the original W10 NT6 BOOTMGR instead of the older NTLDR from XP. You then have to manually add an NTLDR bootentry to the modern NT6 BOOTMGR bootmenu to boot XP from there. But that's kind of backwards, ideally things like Vista, W7, W8, W10 & W11 would each be installed on their own remaining NTFS partitions without sharing the volume with any other OS. As each of these OS's is installed to its partition on an MBR-layout HDD it writes its additional bootentry to the NT6 bootmenu within the standard BOOT folder on your "Active" MBR partition, typically the FAT32 volume on your first partition which is often small in drive space and considered reserved for boot files alone. Alternatively, as we have seen, regular DOS can easily format as much as a 32GB FAT32 volume so there can be plenty of room for things like DOS, W9x, or Wxp to be also installed and function right there beside the active boot files. And the boot files can access other partitions too. With a BOOT folder this beefy, and NTLDR in the mix you may now have DOS, W9x, NT5, NT6 and even Linux on the bare metal at your fingertips. Next adding a new similarly beefy EFI folder to the FAT32 volume will provide an additional, alternative way to boot the same OS's on the same partitions, but on non-BIOS PCs only the OS's modern enough to support UEFI booting will be available (for booting) when a proper CSM is not enabled. UEFI alone is supposed to support booting from either MBR or GPT layout on the HDD, as long as a readable useful EFI folder is on a recognizable FAT32 volume. When not using a BIOS or CSM, UEFI can't really boot into DOS, W9x or Wxp any more, but when they are on the bare metal anyway you can still use them in a VM inside a modern OS, from right where they are if you do it right.

101008 4y ago

So many memories. I am one of those who grew with WinXP (though I usd Win95 at school and for a few years Win98 at home), and as someone said in another comment, what else could a teen geek want besides WinXP with a bandwith connection? I still feel that seeing a XP Desktop screenshot invites to much more experiences (possibly online) than a Win10/Win11 screenshot. It may be with the fact that I associate it to different internet eras as well. With XP I used to browse websits, fansites, blogs, forums, chats, MSN messenger/Yahoo Messenger/etc, whil now everything seems to be the boring social networks where almost everything is generated/shared. Internet used to be much fun back then, and it may be the reason why most of the people have good memories about XP. I think the main reason (and I wanted to write an "essay" about this for a while) it's that we were offline by default in our lives, and we used to "go online" for a few hours durnig the day. Then you had your experience in the real world and went online to talk about them. Now it is the other way around - we live online by default, sharing photos and videos from a concert almost in real time, photos from a museum, etc. I think it took away its novelty.

tijuco2 4y ago
"we were offline by default...you had your experience in the real world and went online to talk about them" that is strong and so true.
saiya-jin 4y ago
You know, nobody actually needs to participate in this rat race for few seconds of attention (of people you don't care about much), there are no real gains at all in it, not long term, not anything in say quality of life lived or happiness. I used to be like that, posting 50+ albums of beautiful curated adventure photos per year (basically every weekend trips to alps, backpacking plus ie some evening climbing outdoors on mountain nearby and rest of life like concerts etc). Literally tens of thousands of photos at this point, sometimes stuff NatGeo would be happy to use. Backpacking around the world in wild places relatively few visit, always having full frame camera (+ diving cam + often gopro) with me. I got told I should start Instagram, get followers, create 'brand' etc but never went that way since that wasn't the reason for doing it. When first kid came, I toned down everything, stopped some things, less time to curate all those photos in lightroom. With second child, I practically stopped using camera and currently use just good phone (Samsung S22 ultra). My public photo stream basically died since I don't feel the need to share my kids/family photos, they feel much more intimate than just myself doing something cool/extreme. Close family still gets quite a few of those, but that's it. And you know what? I am fine, I don't miss this at all, and I definitely don't miss similar feeds coming from other folks (especially if they go to some place / experience something and then for a week there are photos dripping 1 by 1 about the same single thing, I began to hate that). Actually I am more than fine, unplugging quite a bit, reversing this process, having more time for much more important matters in life. Unplugged from quite a few social circles around those activities (but not all). So online life became similar kind of novelty you describe.

imbnwa 4y ago

Anybody remember those Performance Edition ISOs?

RedShift1 4y ago

I just intalled it into a virtual machine and it's already doing that thing where you go to network connections in the control panel and it hangs for like 60 seconds before it proceeds... Good times...

zerr 4y ago

Windows XP is the last Windows where Classic theme (thus GDI before WDDM/Aero) is hardware accelerated.

sigzero 4y ago
Yup! I ran the Classis theme exclusively. I was never a fan of the default "Fisher Price" theme.
mikae1 4y ago
:) https://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/421851-acceleration-gui-classic-theme-windows-7-a.html https://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/421851-accele...
bitwize 4y ago
That's because nobody uses those graphics primitives anymore, and by removing the legacy cruft graphics device drivers can be simplified. Aero/modern UI, by contrast, is much closer to how the modern Windows graphics stack actually works, so it makes sense for Microsoft to move everybody to it and deprecate GDI except for legacy applications.
- hedora 4y ago
  I only use those primitives these days. My remaining Windows install is 3.1 in dosbox on a raspberry pi 4 Maybe I should see how XP runs on it.

bovermyer 4y ago

Starting from a Windows frame of reference... 98SE, then XP, then 7, and then (with reservations) 10 was the gaming experience. From a nostalgia perspective, I'm likely to view even Windows 3.11 clones in a positive light. Really, though... harboring no specific ill will toward any OS developer, I just hope that L/indo/nix figures out how to properly interoperate, and we get a computing ecosystem that allows for new users to quickly and accurately figure out what kind of system they want to live in.

kenesary 4y ago

I sometimes have to develop and test for Windows, and running latest 10-11 dev evaluation version from Microsoft in a virtual machine is nothing but pain (in terms of performance and usability, since I use FreeBSD/macOS/Linux for last ~15 years and anything after XP is a huge pain to me). Will definitely try this one and see if it will work for my purposes!

genericacct 4y ago

Such modernity. I liked windows better when you had to install your own tcpip stack

guerrilla 4y ago

Grrr, make the screenshots clickable...

tomjen3 4y ago

I was a Windows user until I moved to Linux and then Mac. I don't anticipate going back to Windows again, but the one that would tempt me would be an updated version of Windows XP. Like better security, drivers and maybe the search function in the start menu, but otherwise Windows XP. I feel like this was the last OS where Microsoft gave a damn about you as the user.

pigtailgirl 4y ago

only ran xp for a while - much preferred win2k - loved skinning windows - here's a screenshot from the brief skinned xp days: https://share.getcloudapp.com/p9uOpZeB# https://share.getcloudapp.com/p9uOpZeB#

Uptrenda 4y ago

I always loved Windows XPs UI design. So comfy. How legal is this project though?

divbzero 4y ago

I miss Windows 7 too. That was the last version of Windows that I really liked.

moralestapia 4y ago

Royale Noir ftw!

NonNefarious 4y ago

noisy_boy 4y ago

I created a vm of the XP install that came preinstalled on my HP laptop a out 11 years ago. Through multiple laptops and migrations, it has still survived and is so convenient when a website expects to be accessed from Windows. Boots in less than 5 seconds to the login sounds that has been burned into our memories.

terrycody 4y ago

Its so nice and comfortable feeling, my favorite Windows version ever, and will ever.

terrycody 4y ago
let alone many old games only run on XP, not windows 7 or later

jonhohle 4y ago

Luna was one of my favorite Windows themes of all time. Microsoft was actually way ahead on “flat” design but it was usable, looked modern, and was attractive. They threw it away to mimic the Aqua aesthetic but didn’t really understand why Aqua worked, just kind of how it looked. The final XP themes were so ugly and inconsistent. It was like at least three different widget designs were mashed together (the window frame, the standard widgets, and the scroll bars all appear to be from different worlds). Office XP and Visual Studio.NET had their own variations of flat widgets that also looked fantastic and seemed true to Luna. For a few seconds, Netscape 6 also had a really nice flat design that was replaced with bulbous, XP-esque chrome. It would have been great if Microsoft would have stuck with that flat design language. It was original, very true to their brand, and looked “professional”. I would love to hear why it was scrapped in favor of what shipped.

tomc1985 4y ago

Funny, I hated the color scheme back in the day. It reminded me of Fischer-Price children's toys. My very first customization was to always set it to the silver theme.

01walid 4y ago

> Windows XP Delta Edition > Windows XP Delta Edition > Windows XP Delta Edition > Windows XP Delta Edition > Windows XP Delta Edition > Windows XP Delta Edition > Windows XP Delta Edition

userbinator 4y ago
I wonder if anyone will make an Omicron Edition?

wodenokoto 4y ago

There is something about those screenshots that makes XP looks good. I remember when it came out we all thought it looked like a Fisher-Price toy. A very un-serious and unprofessional aesthetic.

greyhair 4y ago

As a developer, I really don't understand the lovefest for XP, other than in the context of Windows 98, in particular the Windows 98 ME fiasco, and the evolution of Windows NT into Windows 2000. Windows 7 pretty much fixed all the brokenness of XP, granted much of that brokenness was XP being a victim to the progress in hardware buses. Yes, Windows Vista was a hot mess, which carried over into the first release of Windows 8, though by the second release of Windows 8, it was pretty solid, but still tainted by the stench of Vista. But Windows 10 completed so much of what Windows 7 started. Everything in '10' was so much better. The network stack, particularly WiFi. Printer drivers. USB support. All of it really. When I think how far forward 10 moved from XP, and having lived with Windows from '95' on forward, including writing NDIS network drivers for NT, I just don't have any nostalgia for XP at all. And I know a lot of people hate Windows 11, but I have to say, USB support for Linux under WSL2 in Windows 11 is good, so it has that going for it.