bhtooefr @bhtooefr@mastodon.social

Actually, I'm gonna go further with that take.

Watercolor was the best Windows theme.

Watercolor was the best Windows XP theme. (Better than Classic, too.)

...those beautiful assholes.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4019276/update-to-add-support-for-tls-1-1-and-tls-1-2-in-windows exists.

(By the way, Windows Updates are /still/ trying to churn on this thing in the background. I'll just apply this one manually.)

Ah, it's a crypto issue, because it's XP. Well, I can deal with that.

Of course, this is a bit of a problem:

Nothing screwy going on here at all:

Holy crap this VIA Eden is a potato, it's churning the CPU just trying to select mingw-developer-tool for installation in the MinGW installer.

Interestingly, of all of the x86 HALs that shipped with NT 3.1, only two of those original HALs shipped with Windows XP - hal.dll, the generic ISA/EISA PC HAL, and halsp.dll, the SystemPro HAL.

That's weird, though, because *literally no SystemPro-compatible machines meet Windows XP's system requirements*. The fastest CPU cards for the Proliant 4500 were 166 MHz Pentiums, which can run XP, but are below the stated minimums.

Not many OSes support SystemPro in multiprocessor mode, as it's not compatible with the later Intel Multiprocessor Specification. As far as I'm aware, the list consists of:

* SCO UNIX with MPX
* Windows NT 3.1 through 5.1 (XP)
* Novell NetWare
* Banyan Vines
* OS/2 (not sure what releases)

I must admit, there's a part of me that wants a Compaq SystemPro architecture machine.

Basically, SystemPro was arguably the first PC-compatible symmetric(ish) multiprocessing architecture. (I'd consider it symmetric enough, as both CPUs had equal access to memory, even if one was dedicated to interrupts.)

There were 3 generations - the SystemPro w/up to 2 386 or 486s, the SystemPro XL w/up to 2 486s originally and 2 Pentiums upgrade, and the Proliant 2000/4000/4500 w/2-4 486s or Pentiums.

There's something really perverse about remoting into a thin client.

(Granted, the thin client, a Wyse Winterm 9450XE in question isn't running its usual XP Embedded preload, it's running full XP Pro off of a hard drive. But still.)

...It's been 24 hours. wuauserv is still grinding.

It's only been like six months since this machine got updates.

Oh, I forgot how much I hated Windows XP servicing.

Especially when the CPU is a member of the nightshade family.

(I started a Microsoft Update run this morning. It's still checking for updates.)