Talk:Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs

Differences from Windows XP altogether

Installation is handled by a PE, can be used for command prompt and remote desktop as well. Allows complete customisation within the installation, including removal of Internet Explorer (parts of it most likely) and Windows Media Player. The only part selected by default is IE. Partitioning is handled graphically rather than the Windows NT pre-Vista blue screen interface. Supports an "Unattended" XML file, rather than XP's INI-style unattended file.

Upon first boot, there is a "First Boot Agent" that handles all that the XP setup would normally do, including PNP and network configuration.

Tested also in VirtualBox, gets to blue screen with DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL error, after a pretty long installation. Tatsh (talk) 18:20, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

The Installation is WIM Image based,nearly exactly the way Vista is deployed to pcs. Instead of copying files like the usual XP setup does, it copies a hard drive image of the OS to your HD. This Image can be configured with the setup assistent ( which creates an xml file behind the scene ), wher you can choose between a minimal, a "typical", full or custom installation.

A Custom Install lets you remove via checkboxes : Internet Explorer 6SP1 ,DirectX9,Mediaplayer 10,Messenger 4.7.3001, the complete XPSP2 Driver.cab, all Help Files,"Local management ( mmc, gpedit,secpol ) and complex lannguage support BEFORE the image is copied, so these features will never reach your PC.

The Downside is : you can by no way re-install what you have not installed. In "Add/Remove Programs" there is no tab for Windows Components.So if you end with no IE6, and thus making installatin of a lot of apps that rely on MSHTML impossible by doing so, you will have to re-install the OS with the option IE included.

What is missing everytime and not included is for example Outlook Express and Netmeeting,Paint and Windows Movie Maker.

Replacements that do work :

Windows Live Mail,Thunderbird.. MovieMaker 2.0 can be found as a standalone download from various pc-magazine websites ( MS does no longer offer it) and can be installed like a standalone application ( but it relies on installed WMP ) .If you install the .NEt Framework 2.0 you can use Paint.NET as a replacement for paint.

In the case for paint and others ( tiny apps in XP ) in most cases one can copy the exe files from a full XP over and it will also work.

Office XP and Office 2003 both install and work like expected. ( Access not tested )

I use Avast Antirus 4.7 and 4.8 plus Spybot S&D for security and have not found any issues.

If IE6 was included you will be offered IE7 via automatic updates and as of WMP10 included you can upgrade to 11 that way too. But these two will decrease the experience a lot because the requirements for the newer apps are double that of the included.

Sp3 for Xp cannot be installed onto this OS. Sidenote : if you visit WU website and search for updates you will be offered SP3, which intends to install and then fails with the note that you need a special version . SO the OS seems to identify itself falsely as a standard XP SP2 and not as a special OS.

Overall MS has done a good job with this. The performance on such old hardware like Pentium 2 with typically 128 MB Ram is very good. A standard full XP with SP2 would slow such a pc down.

When it comes to "unique Design" there is a mixed feeling :

The overall appeareance is XP with Luna theme ( enabled by default ), excluding wallpaper and screensavers. The icons are the same as XP, only the screensaver, the Aboutbox and the System-properties will tell you "windows Fundamentals for legacy PCs 2006". Help and Supportcenter falsely says "XP Professional" ( a known bug - see the MS Knowledgebase ) and the Bootscreen is XPs.

The Design of the Setup process is unique in black and features a windows Logo known as the vista flag and I find it very nice and professional looking - most people will be disapointed to see the product after that nice setup is "just like XP".. a black theme like "zune style" would fit the overall experience a lot better. But MS did this product to not bring eyecandy but sheer function, never forget it's for Businesses and the only official alternate to Vista Enterprise.

nearly all XP Internet and lightweight applications are supported. because the Appcompat engine of XP is included, one can also run Win 9x and older Software. I really like this OS from setup to using it. It feels a lot better and snappier than XP.

On new hardware it will fly, and on old hardware it does exactly what it offers :

bring XP features and NT stability to windows 9x machines, thus securing them ( Security Center and Firewall is included / Windows Defender can be downloaded and works ) I think if they would sell this officially oem or retail, they would wonder how many people actually would choose this over xp standard or any vista. 82.119.7.20 (talk) 08:01, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

82.119.7.20 (talk) 08:01, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Limitation?

Why is the lack of full windows XP features a "limitation"? The whole design philosophy is to make it work as a thin client. You may as well write that Mini's have the "limitation" of not having a V8 engine and the ability to tow boats. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Retroguy90 (talk • contribs) 10:13, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Hibernate

The article reads that hibernate is not supported/can't be enabled. This is not true. I'm running FLP on several machines and provided you have enough free space (atleast 1x the RAM size) you can enable and hibernate just fine, I have tested this and it works. Please see the screen shot of my XPize'd WinFLP install with working hibernation support here. I have edited the original article to reflect the reality e.g. hibernation being functional. Maybe others running WinFLP can confirm this. Thank you. 219.95.10.143 (talk) 04:54, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

-- I've tested WinFLP on two laptops and had no luck, however on my desktops I was able to get Hibernate to work. I wonder if it don't work with laptops? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.185.10.190 (talk) 01:27, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I have set up successfully windows flp on my 1999 made IBM Thinkpad 600E ( PII 366 / 128 MB Ram / ACPI and XP compatible BIOS ).

Right after installation the power option in controlpanel would not offer me the Hibernation Tab like a normal stock XP would do. I installed IBMs "Battery Maximiser" Software which enables some additional settings like cd-rom speed and cpu throttle, and after the reboot the Hibernate tab ( from Windows, not an OBM feature ) was there - and it works like expected, so my guess is, the tab is only hidden per default with some registry policy. 82.119.20.192 (talk) 07:20, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Games

Question : is that true that Windows Fundamentals (WinFLP) does supports games, as suggested in the article ? Many sources say it does not, so it is unclear. By "Games", i'm not referring to card solitary games, but rather to full fledged and graphic-hungry DirectX9.0c games, such as UT2004, Oblivion and so on... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.65.70.192 (talk) 16:57, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes it supports DX9.0c, but if your hardware is ancient, the game won't magically play just because you install this. Also, if you want to use the Joystick calibration applet, you have to acquire joy.cpl from elsewhere. - WeniWidiWiki 23:34, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the reason he is asking is because he is considering it for the memory/ram usage savings, for gaming. 66.215.12.70 (talk) 01:43, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Obtaining WinFLP

Question : how does one obtain this operating system? there seems to be no opportunity to purchase or download WFLPC anywhere.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Magic.dominic (talk • contribs) 00:22, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Per the article: "It is exclusively available to Software Assurance customers." I suspect we might want to make the article clearer on this point. —DragonHawk (talk) 18:19, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

It was leaked on P2P networks three weeks after its official release. But be aware that it is illegal to get it from there.--87.122.10.198 08:30, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

NULL.SYS

I'm also having trouble with null.sys, but with Apache. I can't start the apache server and this is put in error.log:

[crit] (OS 2)The system cannot find the file specified.  : Parent: Unable to connect child stdout to NUL.
[crit] (OS 2)The system cannot find the file specified.  : master_main: create child process failed. Exiting.

I'm not able to find any information on how to install null.sys, I have obtained a null.sys from my other computer, and it won't work if I put it in \windows\system32\drivers either. Apparently you need a .inf file to install .sys files somehow. Have anyone found information on how to install null.sys properly? — Preceding unsigned comment added by ReCover (talk • contribs) 06:48, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Talk pages are not intended to be used for tech support. You might try the reference desk. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 20:48, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

-Anyone have any objections to this completely out of place request for tech advice to be deleted??? Retroguy90 (talk) 10:17, 6 July 2008 (UTC)retroguy90

Fair use rationale for Image:Flp logo.png

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BetacommandBot (talk) 05:27, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Performance, dual boot with standard Windows XP

Can Windows fundamentals be installed alongside WinXP as a separate operating system, available upon boot? Also, do we have any benchmarks on the relative performance of FLP, compared to XP? It is all well and good claiming to have "cut the bloat" and "slimmed the os down", but shouldn't we have palpable evidence to that effect? What kind of improvement can we expect for system boot-up over XP. Or for typical Office2003 usage? Web surfing, etc? Hasn't anyone benchmarked FLP (on modern and legacy systems alike) to discover whether the hype holds? 84.254.12.174 (talk) 14:24, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I believe that you can install WinFLP alongside other versions of Windows, although you can only buy it through Software Assurance. The system requirements are "similar to Windows XP", so I doubt that you'd see a huge performance gain. — Wenli ^{(reply here)} 18:55, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Hardware Requirements

It should be noted somewhere that while the requirements are similar to XP, WinFLP runs NOTHING like XP with the minimums met. WinFLP is at least twice as fast on the same hardware, mainly due to WinFLPs low memory usage and the fact that it is XP embedded at its core.

99.10.16.150 (talk) 05:38, 18 June 2008 (UTC)Matt

Microsofts own PDF Flyer for WinFLP says the minimum is lower than XP :

"Pentium compatible 133 Mhz and 64 MB of Ram ( recommended 128 MB of Ram )"

For harddrive Space MS says 1.5 GB, but tht differs on what you install and what not. The 1.5 Gb will be needed if you install everything. The smallest configuration would go around 550 MB of Space( For the Multilanguage pack you will also need space ).

Old Laptops with HDs of about 5-10 GB ( common in the late 90s ) can run this very well if small "portable"applications be used.

I can also assure you this OS is way faster than XP on the same hardware and without any further tweaking, even with eyecandy turned on and background applications like virus software and Messenger running.

If one chooses not to install IE .. WMP and what not, my guess is you will have a rocket fast OS ( then a bit crippled of course ).

82.119.23.133 (talk) 08:13, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

SP3 for Windows Fundamentals

It seems it's not coming out in three months like what Microsoft originally stated. Any update on this? Ufopedia (talk) 03:16, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

The article states "after general availability" so I think it should be out by the end of October. Also, I've heard that it's already out for MSDN/TechNet subscribers. Can anyone back this up?

ZinnKid (talk) 05:14, 23 September 2008 (UTC)