Is there a safe way to use Windows?

Sicklick

Sicklick

kiwifarms.net
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Jun 25, 2020
This question might sound like a troll, but just recently I found out that millions of Chinese internet users are still using XP and 7, but they are pirated bootlegs that can install updates even after Microsoft ended support for those OSes.

www.nytimes.com

Software Pirates in China Beat Microsoft to the Punch (Published 2009)

At shops in Shanghai's bustling Xinyang market, bootleg copies of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system are already available, days before the official version goes on sale Thursday.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

According to Wikipedia, the source code for XP has been leaked in 2020.

On September 23, 2020, source code for Windows XP with Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2003 was leaked onto the imageboard 4chan by an unknown user. Anonymous users managed to compile the code, as well as a Twitter user who posted videos of the process on YouTube proving that the code was genuine.[161] The videos were later removed on copyright grounds by Microsoft. The leak was incomplete as it was missing the Winlogon source code and some other components.[162][163] The original leak itself was spread using magnet links and torrent files whose payload originally included Server 2003 and XP source code and which was later updated with additional files, among which were previous leaks of Microsoft products, its patents, media about conspiracy theories on Bill Gates by anti-vaccination movements and an assortment of PDF files on different topics.[164]

Microsoft issued a statement stating that it was investigating the leaks.[163][165][166]
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en.m.wikipedia.org

Windows XP - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org

So let's say somebody made a hacked up fork of XP and you used it, just based off of what we now know. It would be private (at least in theory) in that you would be free from Microsoft's spying, but it wouldn't be secure simply for the fact that it's Windows. Anyone with any knowledge on this?
 
Kosher Dill said:
The leaked source code doesn't have any of the billions of security patches done since then. Someone would have to find all those security holes and re-patch them themselves before you could have a workable "Pirate Windows".
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This. Someone might (and probably will) be autistic enough to do it, but don’t be surprised if they employ rootkits of their own.
 
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Looney Troons said:
This. Someone might (and probably will) be autistic enough to do it, but don’t be surprised if they employ rootkits of their own.
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Here's another source:

The Windows XP source code, though, was missing critical files, such as Winlogon.exe, which makes it impossible to install the operating system.

"So, upon further inspection, the XP source code might not be as complete as we previously thought, as it doesn't compile a critical file, winlogon.exe However, there is also an Server 2003 sc in that leak, so let's see how far that goes... Stay tuned!" the developer tweeted.

When it comes to the Windows server 2003 source code, NTDEV had more success and was able to compile the operating system and install it into a virtual machine.
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So yeah, it looks like the xp leak was completely obsolete information, because the source code was missing many critical components. But as for the Server 2003 OS, that one could possibly be used. The only question I have now is how tf do the chinks make their own XP/7 bootlegs? I'm pretty interested in that.
 
Sicklick said:
Here's another source:




So yeah, it looks like the xp leak was completely obsolete information, because the source code was missing many critical components. But as for the Server 2003 OS, that one could possibly be used. The only question I have now is how tf do the chinks make their own XP/7 bootlegs? I'm pretty interested in that.
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It's not hard to crack Windows XP or 7. I personally had...I mean, uh, knew a guy who had a cracked version of Win XP for a long time. The reality is most anti-piracy software isn't anywhere close to bulletproof or difficult to reverse engineer. It's just that the provider can tell if you've got a cracked version and deny you access to further services. Said cracked version of Win XP was unable to download and install Service Pack 2, and the institution of higher education whose network it was on was checking XP licenses of any machine on their network directly with Microsoft, and well, that was the end of that.

It's that last layer of security that truly matters, but which doesn't affect China at all. So anyway, yes, you can probably get a cracked version of XP or 7 pretty easily, but as with all such software, it's a minefield for viruses, keyloggers, etc.
 
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Kosher Dill said:
The leaked source code doesn't have any of the billions of security patches done since then. Someone would have to find all those security holes and re-patch them themselves before you could have a workable "Pirate Windows".
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You could still use it without all of the security updates, but like I said in the OP, it would be too insecure and unsafe. It would be like having HIV and getting the common cold. And on top of that, it would be illegal since it's unlicensed by Microsoft. And like the other person said, there could be someone out there autistic enough to try and patch their own updates to fill in the blanks, but it would be pointless. You would be better off just running it in a VM than on an actual machine.
 
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Same way you use any kind of system connected to the Internet safely. Build protection around it on a router or something, disable anything you don't need on the system itself, don't run sketchy programs, use common sense and consider a VM.

Gutting telemetry and tracking out of Windows is always going to be a game of catching up. There are solutions that are good enough, for example Windows 10 and Sophia scripts. Trying to avoid this by using a system that's no longer receiving updates is asking for trouble. Chinks use XP because they don't care. Look at an infection map of any new ransomware or virus, China will be lit up like a fucking Christmas tree.
 
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AmpleApricots said:
Why would you go through so many ridiculous hoops to run some knock-off WinXP when Linux exists? Linux can probably run all your favorite XP-era windows programs anyways.
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I think I've read this kind of sentiment about a million times, but never once have I seen a quick step-by-step on how to launch Windows software through Linux. All I know is that WINE is a thing that exists.
 
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Pissmaster said:
I think I've read this kind of sentiment about a million times, but never once have I seen a quick step-by-step on how to launch Windows software through Linux. All I know is that WINE is a thing that exists.
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don't be a lazy nigger
I got some random dashcam software that only comes for Windows to work on Linux Mint using Wine. I had to do like maybe 2 extra steps. Rest of it is basically running the installer as you would usually on a windows machine.

This question might sound like a troll, but just recently I found out that millions of Chinese internet users are still using XP and 7, but they are pirated bootlegs that can install updates even after Microsoft ended support for those OSes.
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Technically, you can just download the updates manually from the update catalog microsoft has online. Granted that only works as long as Microsoft keeps issuing patches.
 
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Pissmaster said:
I think I've read this kind of sentiment about a million times, but never once have I seen a quick step-by-step on how to launch Windows software through Linux. All I know is that WINE is a thing that exists.
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wine is basically a translation layer between windows and linux system calls. Short version: It's literally wine <name of .exe>. With winecfg and wine regedit you can make changes and tweaks to the current wine prefix. The prefix is basically a barebones setup of a windows registry, other required base parts and wine configuration. They usually get stored in the user directory and you can just create and delete and decide on each wine start which prefix is used as you wish.

Wine has the advantage in older software that it sometimes still has stuff implemented Microsoft cut out a while ago, for whatever reason, or still does stuff in a way that changed or became incompatible in other ways in more current versions. There's more to it but you can basically read the wikipedia article.

Important to understand is that Wine Is Not An Emulator (that is literally what "WINE" as recursive acronym means) there's no VM shenanigans going on, the binary code of the .exe runs directly on your stuff and talks to the Linux OS for everything from file access to using your GPU via the wine wrapper. The translation can add an overhead and some things can be slower in wine but there are also cases where windows software actually runs better (as in - measurably faster) in linux. In most scenarios, there's a slight overhead but it's negligible and probably offset by all the crap that runs on your average Windows installation in the background.

Sometimes sadly that translation isn't perfect or incomplete and that usually leads to problems with the windows program in question or might require to use actual native windows .DLLs to work around things that wine is missing. That is becoming more and more rare though. There used to be times where it was a complete crapshoot if something would work in wine or not. (Usually, it would not) Nowadays it's the other way around.
 
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Pissmaster said:
I think I've read this kind of sentiment about a million times, but never once have I seen a quick step-by-step on how to launch Windows software through Linux. All I know is that WINE is a thing that exists.
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You got lutris
 
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