palemoon-26.0.0.Atom.WinXP / WEPOS

[Moonchild]

I hope sincerely that you will be able to devise user-friendly strategies in order to deal with such issues.

This is a slightly different case (also see below) and as a community project with a small team of developers who do this to support the project and not as a paid job, the strategies have to also be developer-friendly.
Of course there are many different types of Windows installation, and many are certainly not what Microsoft intended. I'm well aware of that and have no issues with it. But what you are doing with this hack is mixing and matching binary components that are not supposed to be used together. You can't ask us to pick up the pieces from this.

Try this analogy:

• Different windows installation types of the same OS: This is like configuring a program in many different ways, some less usable than others.
• Installing updates for a different OS: This would be like randomly replacing .dlls in a program's folder with ones of a different version of the same program. It may work, it may not work, and it may blow up in your face or make the program do completely unexpected things like corrupting image files on your drive (if it was, e.g. a paint program).

This is a completely different class of thing and you should understand the implications of doing this.

Its obvious and Moonchild I am not alone as you can see by the post here and else where

I'm well aware that more than just you have hacked Windows XP this way. It was clearly published in several articles on the net around XP's EoL. But just because others do it, doesn't necessarily make it a smart or sane thing to do.

if the word "punish" has offended you, then I and have done it many times
in life graciously and respectfully apologize to you!

Apology accepted

---

Moving forward:

The root issue is that there is no way for us to know whether people are running on an unsupported OS unless there is a check in place. People may not even know it was hacked-up by a "techie friend" who did this to try and keep you safe without realizing the implications. This hack, by the way, will not keep you safe or updated for desktop use. See also the Microsoft statement quoted earlier.

I can remove this check, of course, but then we won't know when there is a support request that is actually a Pale Moon issue, or when it is caused by "FrankenXP" as Tobin calls it. If people are either unwitting or purposefully lie about their OS being hacked just to get support from us, then this causes a large amount of extra workload that is not needed because of issues that don't factually exist in normal setups. This may actually lead to us being forced to drop XP support altogether and stop targeting it, which I'd rather not be forced to do (yet, anyway).

EDIT: By the way, likely the only truly safe way to recover from FrankenXP would be to reinstall Windows XP on top of what you have now with all service packs, and all hotfixes that came after that. This would ensure that you don't have any leftover POS files strewn about your system that shouldn't be there...

[drharri]

what you are doing with this hack is mixing and matching binary components that are not supposed to be used together.

Supposed by whom? By you or by those who make revenue by luring people to purchase the same products again and again?

(During my 30+ years as a Windows user I've always been privileged to use together any binary components that work together without any visible flaw. As a software engineer you certainly understand the philosophy behind this, but I'm pointing this out because of other members. But I admit that I never could get Windows NT 4.0 display drivers to work in Windows XP. For my Windows 2000 Server installation this was no problem, even though it wasn't trivial. I also was able to transfer installations of NT from one computer to another with different architecture. Initially it was tricky, and unsupported to be sure. But after I figured out how to do it, there were no glitches of any sort.)

• Installing updates for a different OS: This would be like randomly replacing .dlls in a program's folder with ones of a different version of the same program. It may work, it may not work, and it may blow up in your face or make the program do completely unexpected things like corrupting image files on your drive (if it was, e.g. a paint program).

This is a completely different class of thing and you should understand the implications of doing this.

The chief implication is that possibly the system will become non-bootable, in which case I must restore it from a backup (this is nowadays trivial when compared to repairing a non-bootable Windows NT). This quite lamentably is a thing that can happen even after a certified software update (cases reported for the Windows 10 updates), or irrespective of an update. As for PM, I honestly can figure out no implication of much significance. If you can, please point it out. If all my cat pictures get corrupt, then I must have been attacked by some ransomware rather than an update. But the pictures are on a network share that is not so easy to find by a casual malware (and what is most important I additionally keep on a couple of internet servers). If I still loose them, I guess I must shoot them again.

[drharri]

The root issue is that there is no way for us to know whether people are running on an unsupported OS unless there is a check in place.

Yes, all the more so as the check actually doesn't check whether people are running on an unsupported OS, since by temporarily removing the offending registry key they may fool the check into believing that the OS is not unsupported.

So you might wish to implement a more sophisticated check that would really find out whether the user is running an "unsupported" OS or something that only apparently is an "unsupported" OS. But you may indeed be correct in that this check cannot be made more reliable without dropping all support for the XP platform. Since as it appears, there may be no measurable differences between the plain XP and the embedded versions.

[half-moon]

If I sound hot headed with this post, then oh well,

If this browser doesn't work on your FrankenXP, NOBODY is making you run the browser and you can just switch to an older version (or use something else)!

It's not Mooonchild's fault that you fell into the trap created by the registry hack. You may think that your system will be safer, but I can certainly guarantee you that there will still be many unpatched holes. If you really must run an unsupported platform, then:

-Install Windows 7 (it will even run on a P3 system with 512MB of RAM) or or some lightweight Linux distro like AntiX, and you can install it alongside your FrankenXP install.
-And if you have the computing power, you can just image your frankenXP and put in a virtual machine and have another OS as the host.

Yeah I know, I'm a PM fanboy.

[Kand_in_Sky]

So
after one change on the registry the OS is completely changed?
are you ~~~~~~ kidding me?

how about a check before installing and eventually crashing others profiles?


rollback to Palemoon 25.8.1
http://relmirror2.palemoon.org/release/ ... taller.exe


Moderator note: Mind your language

[Nigaikaze]

after one change on the registry the OS is completely changed?

That one change in the registry ENABLES the OS to be completely changed.

And please watch your language - this is a public forum.

[half-moon]

after one change on the registry the OS is completely changed?

That one change in the registry ENABLES the OS to be completely changed.

And please watch your language - this is a public forum.

There's way worse on many other public forums.

[Kand_in_Sky]

so,
i made an update on an other XP System. Pure XP, all updates, no magic "hacks" (registry entries)

after the update...
all sessions were gone, no entries in the history, all complete empty
bookmarks: all empty
downloads: no data lost, list from all last downloads available

add-ons: blank window, no entries, the installed add-ons still working fine (just a few, nothing special)

open links in new tabs: all tabs empty, no pages loaded (different sites from news.google.de)
tried to close the tabs: no effect clicking on the red X to close

after browser restart: only one tab opened, no tabs from the last session were restored
just a window with the error-code (german)

Code: Select all

XML-Verarbeitungsfehler: Nicht definierte Entität
Adresse: chrome://browser/content/places/places.xul
Zeile nr.298, Spalte 11:
<label id="scopeBarTitle" value="&search.in.label,"/>

restarting browser was no problem, got a add-on with an icon for this
but i could end it. no effect, so i have to use the task manager.


so, now for the joke
after downgrade back to 25.8.1... everything was fine as just before!
the tabs from the last sessions, bookmarks and all data (as far as i can see) were restored!


looks like V26 needs a little bit improvement

[drharri]

-And if you have the computing power, you can just image your frankenXP and put in a virtual machine and have another OS as the host.

Probably a much more convenient solution is running the frankenXPstein as the host and then Pale Moon under a supported OS in a virtual machine.

[Moonchild]

Off-topic:
About the German language pack: If you've disabled compatibility checking, then that is your issue. you MUST update the language pack. Normally, the previous one gets blocked automatically with an update option in the add-on manager. If you disabled compatibility checking it would try to use a now incompatible language pack, and fail.

As stated before: flipping the registry entry sets you up to become a mixed version of OS components that we can't support.
The check is not water tight, I'm well aware of that. It doesn't need to be "more sophisticated" either because anyone who has wilfully changed this key has done so with full knowledge of what it means, and the presence of that key means either:

1. It's really POSReady2009, which we don't support, OR
2. It's Windows XP which has been set up to be changed with incompatible components and libraries not belonging to it, which we don't support.

Yes, it can be tricked. No, I don't feel like it's necessary to start checking actual library versions or make it an arms race of check versus user. The presence of the key itself is an indicator that you're running on something unsupported. If you insist on finding workarounds for it, then that is entirely up to you, but we STILL won't support it, even if you thwart the check.

[drharri]

Yes, it can be tricked. No, I don't feel like it's necessary to start checking actual library versions or make it an arms race of check versus user.

This is good news to anyone having to run PM under embedded XP systems.

The presence of the key itself is an indicator that you're running on something unsupported.

The key only needs to be present when the system checks for updates. As we know, new updates are released on the second Tuesday of each month. On other days, the key can be kept removed.

[TELVM]

... We do not have the time or resources nor the very foundational tools and reference points to support or expend time troubleshooting this kind of unsupported, unrecommended, and completely unwise configuration ...

^ This I understand completely.

So be advised ladies & gents, anyone reckless enough to run Pale Moon 26 on POSReady XP, do it at your own risk and peril, and if you run into trouble be a grown up and don't come back crying.

[drharri]

do it at your own risk and peril

Does this differ considerably from the conditions on which almost any software, especially free software, is generally run?

[Kand_in_Sky]

i tried once again (on the other "clean" xp system), this time i updated the language pack and restart again
now it seems PaleMoon 26 is fully working

this release is very disturbing


edit:
@TELVM
thanks, works perfect

i dont know why, anyway, after update to v26 you have to install language pack first and restart browser, otherwise you get strange behaviour like here viewtopic.php?f=49&t=10829&start=20#p76006
i still do not really understand why this pos2009-check is needed (won't start the discussion again)


first feel on the new v26: faster and maybe a little less memory usage (will this affect add-ons like Memory-Fox? https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addo ... -fox-next/ )

so great work done @moonchild
(and i will try to mind my language)

[vwestlife]

Can you at least update the installer to check for the POSReady registry flag before overwriting the existing Pale Moon installation and causing it to become inoperable? That is a very good way to very quickly piss off a bunch of people -- to knowingly release a new version which nags you to update and then purposely causes itself to bomb your system. That is Trojan-like coding behavior which no user should tolerate.

And I fail to see how POSReady (either "hacked" on XP or genuine POSReady) has suddenly become a major issue now, almost two years after many people have been running Pale Moon on these systems with absolutely no problems. In fact, Windows Embedded POSReady 2009 was released in December 2008, thus it's older than Pale Moon -- so if this is such a big concern, why wasn't installation on POSReady systems disallowed from the very beginning of Pale Moon's public release in 2009?

This is yet another development decision that smacks of intractable ideology, such as removing Firefox from the user agent string (a decision which was thankfully reversed after much outcry) and deeming what is probably the most popular browser add-on in the world -- AdBlock Plus -- to be "incompatible" because of vague, unverified claims of it having "a high risk of causing stability or security problems" -- wording which is being repeated almost verbatim in this case...

[drharri]

wording which is being repeated almost verbatim in this case...

Exactly so. The reasons spelled out just are not very credible, which suggests that there are other factors behind the actions (that some users may even find sort of arrogant, as if it were decisive to ignore the opinions and needs of the user base under some imaginary pretexts).

[MoonSavvy]

The choice to check whether someone is using a modified version of Windows appears counter to all that Pale Moon is about. My understanding of the Pale Moon browser is that it is for adults who like free choice of how to use their browser and computer altogether. For example, users are not forced to use a very limited and Chrome-esque browser interface (Australis) and are given much more flexibility as to how they configure the appearance and behaviour of the browser altogether.

Thus, it is very strange to me that this decision has been made to block the browser from working based on the choice of a user to run an "unsupported" operating system. All manner of operating systems are no doubt running in unsupported configurations, due to the fact that the most important aspect of computer use is that it works how the user wants it to, not how a corporation dictates it "should" work! This was my understanding of the philosophy behind Pale Moon altogether - that it is about freedom of choices, not dictating what version or flavour or configuration (even if "unsupported") of an operating system it can run on.

My mother is a quite successful and very capable woman in her 70s who knows her way around computers well enough to do what she needs to, including documents and invoices for her business that she runs from home, sending emails, browsing the internet and some occasional photos and video chats. She has no interest or time to learn how to use a new operating system due to corporations relentlessly ending support for versions that work perfectly well and pushing new versions for the sake of their ever-growing profit and power. So, she asked me if I could make her Windows XP system continue to work after the so-called end-of-life date in April 2014 and I performed the registry "hack" such that she has been receiving all security updates since then.

Her system is running perfectly. She has not had a single glitch with it in over 20 months. This is likely due the so-called POSReady version of XP being essentially identical to XP itself. It certainly appears so, as all patches have worked without one issue and the system hums along just fine. Working professionally in IT for over 25 years since DOS days and then Windows 3.0 and Windows NT 3.5, a big part of my effort with computers has always been to make them work as users want, even if it means "breaking support agreements" by hacking the operating system to make it work right without crashing or problems. In my Microsoft exams years ago, I repeatedly corrected the instructors about their own products, due to the "text book" (not hacked/modified/fudged) version of their products (including Exchange, SQL Server and other "high-end" server products) not working correctly, requiring hacks/workarounds/fudging and so on, simply to make the product work as intended!

This is the nature of computers as far as I have experienced them, being someone who has used them since six or seven years of age, at the start of the 1980s (Spectrum ZX81 anyone?). Make the computer work as the user wants is the main focus for me, as I'm making clear. So, this naturally led me to Pale Moon some time back now and I have since installed it on many people's computers around the world in multiple countries, as it is certainly the best browser I have ever used. Many people whom I have installed Pale Moon for are very thankful for such an excellent browser, so this is all very positive.

All of this said, this decision by the Pale Moon developers to block users who are using their computers as they want to seems like the usual "nanny" attitude that the State, the corporations, the media and so on all take with humanity these days. Why "nanny" adult users who have made an adult choice (again, my mother is in her 70s) to use an operating system that is still working perfectly fine and with a simple "hack" to ensure that necessary security updates are received, such that the system remains relatively secure? How do you know the configuration of any other Pale Moon users and whether or not they are doing all sorts of other things on their operating system (be it Windows or Linux) that are "not supported" when they submit a bug report about Pale Moon? Why target one demographic who happen to be smart enough to know how to keep getting security updates for a completely fine operating system? It just feels counter-intuitive and against the ethos of Pale Moon altogether and I am quite surprised and sad that this decision has been made.

Here's a suggestion for the Pale Moon development team that I feel is a really valid and good one. What about simply using the check for this "PosReady" registry setting for logging purposes when bug reports are submitted? What about simply putting in the bug report log file that it is an unsupported XP version and then you can quickly note that fact and respond to the user submitting the bug report in question with "this is an unsupported OS as we can see here in this bug report log file and so we can't help you, sorry!" No real time wasted on the part of the Pale Moon development team with such a simple solution and those adults who have made an adult choice to run their operating system and computer in the manner they wish can still keep using the best browser for adults out there, which so happens to be Pale Moon! This seems to be a very good solution to me and I respectfully request that it be seriously considered by the development team.

In the meantime, there are of course many workarounds to the decision by the Pale Moon development team to check for a single registry setting and using one of those workarounds has at least allowed me to get Pale Moon v26 loading and working perfectly on my mother's XP computer that has the "naughty" PosReady registry setting. You can call the OS on her computer FrankenXP if you like, though this does seem overly dramatic, given all operating systems on basically every computer I have ever worked on - and that is thousands of computers and then some! - are essentially some kind of Frankenstein by the time everything is setup and running as the user wants it to. So, with a "naughty" workaround my mother can keep using a browser she likes on a "naughty" modified and unsupported operating system she likes and knows. Neither she or I are asking for support from the Pale Moon development team, nor will she or I ever ask for support for such an "unsupported" situation. I am an adult who understands what "breaking a warranty" or "terms of service" mean and I do it all the time, so that stuff works as I or others want it to, even if that is well outside the paradigm of corporate control!

Please do consider my suggestion for simply logging in the bug reports that the "PosReady" registry key is present as I cannot see how this will wasted precious development time for the Pale Moon team. It is of course entirely up to the developers of this great browser as to what they will choose about this particular matter - you folk make the browser and so make it as you wish! Whatever is decided about my suggestion, thank you again for the best browser that I have ever used. Having started with NCSA Mosaic 0.9 beta on UNIX terminals at University I have used a lot of browsers over the years and Pale Moon is certainly the best. So, thanks.

[Moonchild]

And I fail to see how POSReady (either "hacked" on XP or genuine POSReady) has suddenly become a major issue now,

Two words: Milestone release.

to knowingly release a new version which nags you to update and then purposely causes itself to bomb your system. That is Trojan-like coding behavior which no user should tolerate.

I think you have your terms mixed up here. This isn't even remotely like a Trojan.
And excuse me, but we've had clear information up about this ever since there have been discussions about POSReady2009.
Also, nobody's system got "bombed"; at most their browser would no longer start. The fact that your pride likely got hurt by a hack biting you in the rear some time down the road doesn't make our software bad or evil or equal to malware. In fact, one might say that this sanity check can actually help a good number of people by making them aware of the risk they are running.

AdBlock Plus -- to be "incompatible" because of vague, unverified claims of it having "a high risk of causing stability or security problems"

That, my dear, is actually Mozilla's wording that got inherited for any blocked add-on. Don't blame us for it. And it was true, too. ABP has a high risk of causing stability problems, and will most certainly break your web experience to crippling levels because it is incompatible with our technology in use.

Why wasn't POSReady blocked from the start?

Simple: We never gathered that anyone on a desktop would ever be running this version of Windows. We also didn't gather that anyone would be so reckless to use the clearly dangerous hack to get very debatable "added security" from incompatible components after Microsoft's clear statements to the contrary. We've also seen an increasing number of inexplicable issues with Pale Moon on Windows XP that, in retrospect, are likely all caused by this FrankenXP setup. And we expect this to increase many-fold with v26 which we cannot reasonably be asked to support.

Aside from the update to the original sticky https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=10831 I have nothing else to add here. You can be mad and upset, you can leave, you can call me arrogant for making Pale Moon a better product, you can switch browser, or you can do the sane thing and repair your setup to a retail Windows XP state. Ultimately it's all your choice; just don't expect us to join you in working around issues with known-hazardous setups.

Now please, everyone who has participated in this thread kindly calm down, take a breather, let it rest a couple of days and clear your head. I don't like to end on a negative note here but if you can't be constructive in your posts and insist on name-calling, making insinuations about credibility while knowing nothing of the underlying code, or throwing out wild accusations about finances having anything to do with this, then staff will take the appropriate action to enforce the forum rules.

Thanks for reading and hoping you will all cooperate in keeping the atmosphere at least neutral.

[half-moon]

.....

You have to realize too that PM has gotten much popular since 2009 and it does require more and more work to give support to users running XP and it probably would be way too much to solve a problem caused by an POS2009 update that clearly isn't intended to be installed on the user's computer in the first place.

Off-topic:
Are you the same vwestlife on the VC forums?

[JodyThornton]

I understand your position Moonchild, but a warning should be provided on the install. Your co-developer was able to provide an update on the final PM for XP release that cited support was gone. That sort of thinking should have followed suit here. I've warned my mom NOT to upgrade. Oh well.

Now I'm running the original Windows 8 x64 (I can't upgrade to Windows 8.1 x64). To me Windows 7 is a backwards step and my older SATA bus isn't supported. What's pertinent is I am about to upgrade Pale Moon x64 to v26?

Do I need to worry?