Day 3 of running Windows XP in 2025 is up.
I opened Enafore to check my Mastodon replies. It worked—for a few seconds. Then the notifications started. And they didn’t stop. Ping. Ping. Ping. I couldn’t reply. I could barely move the cursor. I watched the system buckle in real time.
So I tore XP apart.
I disabled over thirty services, deleted Windows File Protection, nuked the prefetch cache, rewrote shutdown behavior, and killed every background process that wasn’t strictly mine. If it touched the network, tried to log something, or ran without permission, it’s dead.
And you know what? Enafore runs fine now. JAWS doesn’t read new posts live, but I don’t care. I can read. I can reply. XP obeys.
Discord, though? Wouldn’t even load in the browser. Just a blank page. So tomorrow, I’m pulling in what channels I can through IRC. It’s not over.
Read the full post:
https://fireborn.mataroa.blog/blog/dead-os-walking-30-days-on-windows-xp-in-2025-day-3-i-dont-patch-i-burn/
#WindowsXP #Retrocomputing #BlindComputing #Accessibility #IRC #Mastodon #DeadOSWalking

@fireborn How was processes simply being on the net causing it to do that, like that's only supposed to happen if you go onto some sketchy site. That's weird, XP shouldn't do that when the entire system accesses the net.

@fireborn Oh damn, just read through all the services and registry adjustments and stuff and wow. iDK what to say, but wow at least it didn't buckle. As for Discord you could try Supermium, that way you don't have to mess with IRC bridging.

@alexchapman it doesn't load. I tried.

@fireborn That's so weird.

@alexchapman Not really. an Intel atom n270 with 2gb of ram really isn't up for doing much.

@fireborn Oh right, good point.