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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 f

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.
ranger_danger 4y ago
It's not that, archive.org has a DMCA exemption for being a library. It makes it legal for them to host the data, but that doesn't mean it's legal for you to download it. Weird I know... I mean why else would they store it if it's illegal to access? I've never gotten a straight answer to that.
- wtallis 4y ago
  > I mean why else would they store it if it's illegal to access? It's not permanently illegal to access. In the US, there's a constitutional requirement that copyright and patents be time-limited, so eventually all that stuff will be public domain. And the copyright period is current so absurdly long that by the time XP is public domain, it will be hard to find outside of dedicated archives.
  - ranger_danger 4y ago
    Let me rephrase... why make it available for download to the public if it's illegal to do so in 99% of cases?
- sp332 4y ago
  They have fairly strong protections, but it's not a blank check. Nintendo for example is aggressive about getting stuff taken down from there.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- bscphil 4y ago
  An ordinary library can not scan a copy of a book and allow unlimited downloads of that scan from the web. The DMCA exemption doesn't allow that. Actually, archive.org got in trouble pretty recently because they were accused of doing almost just that. Their response was not that they had the right to do it but rather that they had never been doing it to begin with - that each copy given out was merely "lended" and backed for the duration of the lend by an actual physical copy in a partnering library. Similarly, you will find a bunch of copyright software on there, including for recent DRM-free and cracked video games. Unfortunately, my impression is that the archive managers simply do not care about copyright. Anyone who wants to get something they own taken off the site has to put in quite a bit of work, similar to the old wild-west days of YouTube.
wrp 4y ago
Even if you have a licensed copy of WinXP, MicroXP is useful because it is a stripped down version that has been tested. That represents quite a lot of work.
grishka 4y ago
I also remember ZverCD being popular in Russia. It had Vista icons and a more glossy theme.

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.

ranger_danger 4y ago

It's not that, archive.org has a DMCA exemption for being a library. It makes it legal for them to host the data, but that doesn't mean it's legal for you to download it. Weird I know... I mean why else would they store it if it's illegal to access? I've never gotten a straight answer to that.

wtallis 4y ago
> I mean why else would they store it if it's illegal to access? It's not permanently illegal to access. In the US, there's a constitutional requirement that copyright and patents be time-limited, so eventually all that stuff will be public domain. And the copyright period is current so absurdly long that by the time XP is public domain, it will be hard to find outside of dedicated archives.
- ranger_danger 4y ago
  Let me rephrase... why make it available for download to the public if it's illegal to do so in 99% of cases?
sp332 4y ago
They have fairly strong protections, but it's not a blank check. Nintendo for example is aggressive about getting stuff taken down from there.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bscphil 4y ago
An ordinary library can not scan a copy of a book and allow unlimited downloads of that scan from the web. The DMCA exemption doesn't allow that. Actually, archive.org got in trouble pretty recently because they were accused of doing almost just that. Their response was not that they had the right to do it but rather that they had never been doing it to begin with - that each copy given out was merely "lended" and backed for the duration of the lend by an actual physical copy in a partnering library. Similarly, you will find a bunch of copyright software on there, including for recent DRM-free and cracked video games. Unfortunately, my impression is that the archive managers simply do not care about copyright. Anyone who wants to get something they own taken off the site has to put in quite a bit of work, similar to the old wild-west days of YouTube.

wrp 4y ago

Even if you have a licensed copy of WinXP, MicroXP is useful because it is a stripped down version that has been tested. That represents quite a lot of work.

grishka 4y ago

I also remember ZverCD being popular in Russia. It had Vista icons and a more glossy theme.