from Hacker News

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

by weissbier on 12/16/22, 8:30 PM with 209 comments

• by Animats on 12/16/22, 10:16 PM

  I could see staying with Windows 7. That was the best version Microsoft ever made. Microsoft finally figured out how to make it stable, and it didn't have all the ad and cloud crap nailed in. You can run current Firefox, current Thunderbird, and current LibreOffice, which covers the basics. Most Windows software still works.

• by accrual on 12/16/22, 9:24 PM

  I haven't tried this personally but I'm already a huge fan of it. I build and benchmark various retro PCs and some of them are fast enough to be fully patched, which I do if it's an option.

  For XP I really like the unofficial SP4 service pack which rolls up all post-SP3 updates into a single executable, with or without .NET. The later POS-only patches are also available. It makes it really simple to bring an old system "up to date", even if the last update was a couple years ago.

  These machines are just for fun of course and I don't do real work on them, and I'm behind NAT and monitor my traffic, so I'm not really worried about these systems.

• by slt2021 on 12/16/22, 9:36 PM

  For the love of god just get off of thece ancient systems pls, or run the only in airgapped and isolated network segments with application whitelisting and manual data ingress/egress controls, and everything will be fine without these silly updates.

  Just bury the body already, let winxp rest in peace, please

• by armagon on 12/17/22, 1:05 AM

  This is so exciting.

  I've got an old netbook and decided to put back on the OS it originally came with, Windows 7 Starter. I was so surprised when I couldn't run updates; I finally attributed it to having old security certificates, but couldn't figure out how to update them, and some important updates that I installed on other computers (a number of HTTPS sites are impossible to see without the right certs) and copied over would not install. Such a pain.

  And here, just like that, Windows 7 SP1 is installing.

  To those who made this: Thank you so much!

• by zaggynl on 12/16/22, 9:26 PM

  Neat, could one combine this with https://download.wsusoffline.net/ ?

  Edit: would need to pull from https://archive.org/search.php?query=wsusoffline&sin= I guess

• by p-e-w on 12/17/22, 5:27 AM

  Microsoft was wise to fear open source. If Windows XP had been free software, the vast majority of institutions would have just kept using it and Microsoft's future OS sales would have plummeted, along with all the ad and user data revenue that they indirectly generate.

  Instead, being closed source, Microsoft can just force users to update to systems that they don't want, by withholding critical security fixes and features that are required to use the modern web. And there's almost nothing the users can do about it, because they have no meaningful control over the system they are running.

  It's pure genius.

• by synaesthesisx on 12/16/22, 9:36 PM

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

• by ck2 on 12/17/22, 2:33 AM

  Source: https://github.com/kirb/LegacyUpdate/releases

  Windows 7 ESU ends January 2023

  Should be interesting to see what all the corporations still using it do.

  Also ATMs

• by WhackyIdeas on 12/16/22, 9:27 PM

  I am very curious of how long it would take to be ‘pwned’ whilst browsing the web with internet explorer on XP.

  Seconds, minutes, hours?

  Time to fire up a VM I think.

• by Koshkin on 12/16/22, 10:27 PM

  I wish ReactOS were ready by now...

• by londons_explore on 12/16/22, 9:24 PM

  I love the style/theme of the site. I might use it on some of my own sites too. I think it's now old enough to be cool again...

• by bluedino on 12/17/22, 1:46 AM

  Work firewall does not want me going to this site.

• by neonihil on 12/17/22, 3:36 AM

  One moment of silence for our brothers and sisters still using windows. /salute

  XD