DOS ain't dead

> BTW roytam, where you have moved your Palemoon XP build? It was also
> helpful.
> Old link http://o.rths.cf/gpc/files1.rt/home.html doesn't work.
change .cf to .ml
BTW latest link is here: http://rtfreesoft.blogspot.com/search/label/browser

> I installed Arch Linux 32 + Chromium now in MS Virtual PC 2007 to have
> access to a decent browser. Could be a little faster, but it's fast enough
> to use GitHub from time to time.

In case somebody else cares:
I also had problems with a "jumpy"/lagging mouse cursor in X.
I could workaround this by installing TigerVNC and connecting from XP with TightVNC.

---
Forum admin

> > > Do you know anybody working on a 32-bit Firefox >60 running on XP x86?
> >
> > nope, any post fx53 is very hard to backport as mozilla actively
> > replace XP compatible functions with 7+ functions.
> > not to mention rust not producing XP compatible binaries.
>
> I see.
>
> I installed Arch Linux 32 + Chromium now in MS Virtual PC 2007 to have
> access to a decent browser. Could be a little faster, but it's fast enough
> to use GitHub from time to time.

I don't really know your use cases, experiences, preferences, nor requirements. Personally, I don't use computers for anything but a hobby. So this isn't very good advice.

My old Dell laptop (2010) has been wearing out, especially the hard drive, for years. (Hard drives last about four years on average, I think. Even the battery I replaced, but that only lasted two years.) Even before Win7 was EOL'd last month, I tended to use several jump drives to boot Linux (32-bit antiX or 64-bit Xenial Puppy) instead. They do have some optional persistence for saving. antiX uses Firefox ESR, and Puppy uses (updated) PaleMoon. (My main desktop from 2011 had its hard drive replaced early last year, but it only runs now-dead Win7. Previously, I'd triple-booted with Lucid Puppy Linux and FreeDOS. I may resize the NTFS and install Ubuntu + WINE later.)

But, mainly, it's probably best to have more than one working device (don't put all your eggs in one basket). I bought an (Android) Samsung Galaxy Tab A (late 2017 model) tablet in early 2018 (to replace my dead Lenovo tablet). Then I bought a low-end Dell Chromebook (2019) two months ago, which I'm using now.

I'm not sure if that really gives you any ideas, but that's what I've been using. At least for simple web browsing, email, and some videos on YouTube, it seems to work fine. (The Chromebook does have beta Linux [under QEMU/KVM] cmdline-only support and some Android app support now, too. The Chromebook and Android tablet both get very good battery life compared to my ancient laptop.)

Oh, SeaMonkey claims to still support XP SP2. I thought for sure you would've tried that already. Oh, 2.49.5 (last September?) is the last one supporting XP (ESR 52). Yeah, I hate how web browsers are so quickly outdated for major websites.

> > If it was compiled with the v141 toolset or mingw-w64 and assuming no
> > Vista+ specific APIs then it would work on XP. The v141 toolset is an
> > option during the VS2019 install. The reason why the v141 toolset is
> needed
> > and not v142 is that the CRT breaks compatibility when VS is upgraded
> for
> > older version of WIndowsperiodically so you either have to patch around
> it
> > (
> >
> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19516796/visua...2-win32-project-targeting-windows-2000/53548116
> > ), use an older toolset or use a replacement for the CRT.
> >
> > It seems like he only uses VS to compile and may not want to bother with
> > the v141 toolset. If mingw-w64 can be used then XP is still supported
> and
> > projects like this should really offer both ways to compile the project
> and
> > offer executables for download compiled for both. I haven't checked the
> > Bochs documentation yet.
> >
> > If compiling statically you can even use mingw-w64 to compile
> executables
> > for NT3.50+ and 9x+ for Pentium Pro+ (anything less and you'd have to
> > recompiled mingw-w64 for those architectures or use the original mingw)
> > assuming you use a non posix build
>
> Nice details, although I am drawing a blank here. C/C++ and modern compiler
> toolchains are mostly a miracle to me.
>
> But if you would like to check a few things and get in touch with Volker to
> make Bochs running again w/o "hacking", I would really appreciate that.

Alot of this drop of support is mostly due to the compiler dropping support, lack of testing and laziness on the developer side. All of the above is pretty common knowledge except for the fact that Mingw-w64 still compiles executables for <XP. I can confirm that Mingw 6.0.0.3 still compiles work executablesfor XP and above (and XP is still officially supported_ and if the proper MSVCRT.DLL used on 95+,NT3.50-2000 then those works too. It looks like bochs does support Mingw so I'd just post in that bug report a request for mingw and msvc builds on the download page and then state in the website that the mingw executables are for XP and above and the msvc executables are for vista and above. This should be no extra work except for uploading to the website since they should already be testing with both msvc and mingw anyway.