FYI if you have the MSVC redistributable 14.27.29114 you can use UCRT executables built with modern Mingw-W64 on Windows XP, and curl 8.18.0 will work too (microsoft removed the link but I found it on the PC gaming wiki). I never had to deal with GetDynamicTimeZoneInformation() for my stuff, but maybe it only is a problem if you use the related code and don't static link libstdc++?
this is so cool
people like you are keeping the internet alive
How on earth have I missed the existence of this physics game for the last 12 years!? It even has the option to play levels directly in the browser!
There's w64devkit too. Ah, well, mentioned.
Excellent write-up. Does anyone have the source of the background image shown in the last screenshot?
It's the background image for the Overgrowth theme in Acmlmboard 2.5, an old niche forum software. Here is a preview of the theme on one of the remaining boards running it: https://board.kafuka.org/?theme=overgrowth
You can also find it as the background image in the retro zone of my website, which is made to look like said theme from Acmlmboard: https://voxelmanip.se/retro/ I thought it would be very fitting to use as the wallpaper when I wanted to take the screenshot. :)
but what IS principia?
It is linked at the top of the article. It is a physics-based sandbox building game. Back in the day it was commercial, but it was abandoned a while back and somewhat more recently released as open-source.
Legacy Update basically solves every post install update/driver issues
Legacy Update is really a godsend, props to the people maintaining it. The only driver I actually had to install manually via USB was just the Ethernet controller, and then after that was done I could just go online to Legacy Update and let it sit and download and install the rest.
This is super cool! I admire those who make the effort to keep their software running on old unsupported OSs. There's a thriving community of new and existing XP users and I don't see it going away despite it being out of support for over a decade. It's one of the last great Windows versions and its long life ensured a huge software catalog is available for exploring, now including Principia.
What do people use XP for these days? I found it frustrating to use when it was new because of how often the system would lock up even on decent hardware (although being able to draw pictures with the frozen windows was sometimes fun). When 7 came out, I found that it usually ran better and froze less than XP even on XP era computers, although you'd have to upgrade your RAM.
I assume most people who use XP (which by default means non-hobbyists) are using it to run some software that was made to run only on it and the people who made said software never bothered to update the software for another OS. Something like a software application to manage prices in some family-run grocery store or warehouse in a former socialist country or what have you. The people using XP don't know they're even using an old OS, and they're oftentimes not very technical people (to say the least). They're using it because it's their job and they don't care particularly about it. It's usually not connected to the internet
Recently I went to the dentist, and while they weren't using XP, they were using Windows 7 to run some in-house software (I assume) to check my insurance
Yes, im from a former socialist country
I've not used Windows in a very long time so forgive my ignorance, but I always heard that it was a bad idea to connect an XP machine to the internet because of the amount of malware sloshing about. In practice is that much of a problem for modern-day XP enthusiasts?
The kind of passive infection that is shown in popular videos like this one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uSVVCmOH5w) tend to only happen if you hook up an XP machine to be directly accessible to the Internet. Like, if you connect your XP machine to your router sitting in the middle of your Internet connection and don't forward every port, you should be fine in that regard at least.
There is also Supermium which is a relatively recent version of Chromium backported to run on Windows XP with all the security patches that brings, but with that being said I still would not do anything security critical on it.
Yeah it was more of a problem back in the day when dial-up and DSL were more common, and home users would often have their computers directly connected to the internet if they didn't have multiple computers and a router. This was especially problematic before XP SP2 came out with the firewall enabled by default.