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 I'm surprised that killing services made much of a difference. Windows XP doesn't tend to have nearly as much junk running in the background as later versions. I'm guessing you're running on a single core processor? Actually that might be a moot point since XP didn't handle multiple cores well.
Edited 29d ago