Re: Before Dimdows 10 Goes EOL, I'm Testing Linux To Save My Laptop From The Landfill

On Mon, 6/30/2025 2:49 AM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Mon, 30 Jun 2025 07:39:44 +0100, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
 

On 2025/6/30 0:53:39, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

>
Why is it you cannot get Windows already in that form from Microsoft
itself?

>
According to earlier in this thread, it is done by following
instructions from Microsoft itself. So, in theory, you could - but that
would involve obtaining the full thing, then finding and following those
instructions yourself.

 
In other words, you cannot get it in that form from Microsoft itself. Why
not?
 

Windows is not an OS, it's a collection of around a thousand or so packages.
It was modular, back in Windows XP. A third party company made a tool, to
provide tick-box-control of WinXP subsystems. It was then up to the user of the
tool, to know which boxes to tick, and why. This is perhaps better than
using Black Viper as a subtractive means of lightening a Windows OS.

Only a very specific set of subsystem items, affect performance loss
on Windows. Most of the items that the Black Viper crowd go after,
have no impact whatsoever on the OS. But any of the security features
that windows10 (optional) or Windows 11 (mandatory) use, that sap
performance, those are the ones that potentially should have
switches to gate them.

As an example, you cannot trust the Windows Defender switch, to switch off
"real time protection". Worst case, the switch does not work at all.
The next level of operation, is it remains off for ten minutes then
silently turns itself back on. If you are benching and have the network
cable pulled, the state machine for it may change yet again. But this is also
how third party AV work, so we cannot get angry over the general industry
practices we all hate.

Microsoft Legal have some generally observable rules. "You may not
distribute our files from your server." If you hack a UXTHeme.dll and
offer it for download, that will get the lawyers sent your way. If
you write a tool, which pulls files straight from a Microsoft server,
then that is OK. That's how WSUSOffline works (the Patch Collector
program for bringing an OS up to date in an organized way).

You may not use Microsoft materials to make money for yourself.
If you were to charge for a hacked copy of UXTheme.dll, then
you'd be in real trouble. Some people avoid trouble, by not
charging a penny for their inventive usage of the materials.

You may not affect the licensing/activation of the product.
Using a DASLoader would get you in trouble with the lawyers
(if your country had extradition and you could be identified
as the source of the material).

I think those are the high points. Moving Win10 Notepad.exe to
Win11, or changing the four magic bytes that prevent
Win7 Solitaire from being used on Win10, that does not
seem to attract too much attention. There is a 100MB file with
a set of Microsoft Games, where the version-gating bytes are
edited for you (the files are not signed). If Microsoft attempted
to pounce on the people doing this, the individuals would just
release the recipe for doing it on each OS, into the public domain,
and we would do it with our own Hex Editors.

   Paul