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Day 4 is up. And XP might be dead.
I thought I had the system stable. It booted. It ran. I was ready to start bridging Discord to IRC.
Then it paused. No crash. Just silence.
Then it rebooted.
Then it beeped. Loud. Continuous.
Then five beeps and a pause. Over and over.
That’s not a software failure. That’s a BIOS screaming about hardware.
I tried XP one last time.
It made it to the Windows screen.
Then black.
Then the Samsung logo.
Then Windows.
Then black again.
Looping. No recovery.
I broke the USB rule and booted into Debian. It worked—barely.
Espeakup is stuttering.
The install is dragging itself forward like a dying animal.
This is not normal.
I'm writing this from my Surface Pro while the netbook stumbles through what might be its last job.
If there’s a Day 5, it’ll be a miracle.
If there isn’t... you already know the title.
Read the post:
fireborn.mataroa.blog/blog/dea…
#WindowsXP #BlindComputing #RetroComputing #OldHardware #DeadOSWalking

Dead OS Walking: 30 Days on Windows XP in 2025 Day 4 – The Challenge Might Be Over — fireborn

fireborn.mataroa.blog
#retrocomputing #windowsxp #blindcomputing #deadoswalking #oldhardware

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in reply to aaron

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Georgiana Brummell

I can definitely tell you that XP works in 2025, and there is even a browser (Supermeum) that is basically a clone of Chrome, able to connect to their servers, etc. I have physical and virtual XP and 7 machines. Sadly, it just sounds as if yours is failing. Would it be possible for you to save the hard drive and put it in another netbook or laptop? I know netbooks are extremely cheap now and you could even just buy one that is already set up. They're wonderful little machines.
This entry was edited (1 month ago)
in reply to aaron

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Georgiana Brummell

No, but only because Reddit for Blind, Luna For Reddit, and TweeseCake don't work on it. Otherwise, I could very easily do so, as my other programs do. Most of them are portable. Outlook Express also still works on it, but there is a fork of Thunderbird, called Icedove that does as well. On the same page is Serpent UXP, which is a fork of Firefox. Both of these are updated often, especially the latter. But Serpent doesn't connect to the servers for Firefox.
Page for Serpent and Icedove (plus other software).

rtfreesoft.blogspot.com/

I know you said you had something faster, but this is for those who may want it.

Supermium (the regular version lost accessibility the last time I tried it, but the portable one works well)

portableapps.com/apps/internet…

I tried Debian in a virtual machine, but Linux is a hastle, to put it mildly. It requires commands for everything and doesn't even see normal .txt files as such. I would like to just download a program and install it normally, preferably Thunderbird 102, which is what I use with Windows 7 and 11.

RT's Free Soft

Some free/open source softwares, libraries, codes created/modified by me. These projects have no affiliation with any upstream community code sources or organizations.
Please direct all support or related questions to here.
rtfreesoft.blogspot.com
in reply to aaron

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Root Moose

Fun post!

I have a Windows XP VM I've been dragging forward from host to host for the last 10 years or so. It's pretty locked down though - it is used purely for running the service manual software for some of my hobby cars. It is networked enough just to print screens/pdfs from the service manual software and that is it.

I don't have a browser installed or any other apps that require a browser. I don't go on the public internet with this VM. I figured that would be tempting fate. Ha!

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