Source code potentially leaked for older MS OSs

[Solaris17]

Pretty crazy, would love to look through the code comments to see the struggles.

The Windows XP source code was allegedly leaked online

The source code for Windows XP SP1 and other versions of the operating system was allegedly leaked online today.

www.bleepingcomputer.com

I'm ever curious of the vluns this will create, as well as other opportunities from mods, general concept understanding or neat 3rd party projects hooking into things or leveraging things we didn't know existed or didn't understand fully.

 

[s3thra]

Other sites reporting on this too:

Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 Source Code Leaked - The FPS Review

Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 have just made a resurgence, but for reasons that Microsoft won't be happy about.

www.thefpsreview.com

Windows XP source code has spilled out onto the internet

Amidst reports suggesting that the source code for Windows XP has leaked, Microsoft has yet to confirm or deny the leak. However, security researchers already seem convinced...

www.techspot.com

This is massive.

 

[moproblems99]

Pretty crazy, would love to look through the code comments to see the struggles.

The Windows XP source code was allegedly leaked online

The source code for Windows XP SP1 and other versions of the operating system was allegedly leaked online today.

www.bleepingcomputer.com

I'm ever curious of the vluns this will create, as well as other opportunities from mods, general concept understanding or neat 3rd party projects hooking into things or leveraging things we didn't know existed or didn't understand fully.

And how much translates to 10...

 

[Solaris17]

And how much translates to 10...

Some but not much, though there are several binaries, mostly nothing of note regarding core system function. I imagine the interest is how to leverage them on an existing system. Though truth be told 10 is far more secure in terms of core OS functionality than every MS OS before it.

If it were me, I would target the service binaries, COM, BITS, NETLOGON leveraging windows backup svc would be neat. Maybe leverage vluns to assist in malice by sniffing services that dig deep after finding a vlun, so diag policy svc, logging, pla.

I want the Fax service to get some attention even if its just to spam phone # DBs with rick astley pics, just so maybe they remove it. I know thats been around forever.

 

[Rei]

This would be good news to me. I am a huge fan & supporter of WinXP so much that all four of my computer runs on WinXP with this one desktop dual-booting Win10 but with WinXP still being the primary OS to boot over Win10. I hope with this incident(?), this will spark a revolution of WinXP clone or improve on existing WinXP features, etc.
I do recognize the dwindling support of WinXP & to maintain my workflow, both my laptop might have to shift OS to ReactOS & Pop!OS. Or, now I could just wait on any form of WinXP development that there could be a better alternative to WinXP.

 

[FinneousPJ]

Oh shit must remember to download when I get home.

This would be good news to me. I am a huge fan & supporter of WinXP so much that all four of my computer runs on WinXP with this one desktop dual-booting Win10 but with WinXP still being the primary OS to boot over Win10. I hope with this incident(?), this will spark a revolution of WinXP clone or improve on existing WinXP features, etc.
I do recognize the dwindling support of WinXP & to maintain my workflow, both my laptop might have to shift OS to ReactOS & Pop!OS. Or, now I could just wait on any form of WinXP development that there could be a better alternative to WinXP.

What do you see as the advantage of XP over 10 or Linux?

 

[Rei]

What do you see as the advantage of XP over 10 or Linux?

Better performance (on my systems, at least) & a much better GUI/windows shell. It is also much more user-friendly to me, settings & modifications are much better to navigate around. I have no experience with Linux beyond Pop!OS & even this was only a temporary experience.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Better performance (on my systems, at least) & a much better GUI/windows shell. It is also much more user-friendly to me

I am glad and appreciate you qualified your comment with "my system" and "to me".

I can certainly see where XP might yield better performance when running on legacy hardware designed for the 19 year old XP running XP era software. But not with modern hardware and apps. Setting aside compatibility issues, Windows 10 virtual memory management capabilities alone are lightyears ahead of XP.

It would be interesting to see how today's modern hardware would run with XP compared to W10 - if only the hardware makers would develop proper XP drivers for it. But they sure are not going to waste resources (time, manpower and $$$) on that.

And of course, as Solaris17 noted, Windows 10 is far more secure than every MS OS before it. That is NOT blaming XP or Microsoft for XP's security issues. XP was developed (1) with DOS era legacy support in mind (as demanded by their massive corporate client base), before broadband to the home became commonplace and (3) before the bad guys proliferated after broadband became so widespread. The bad guys caused XP's security woes, not Microsoft!

As far as suggesting XP has a much better GUI/Windows shell, well, that's clearly just a personal opinion. To quickly clarify, I am NOT saying W10's GUI is much better! I note I use Start10 on this, my primary computer and my notebook too - but I use it to make it look and feel like W7.

That said, XP was an outstanding OS in its day. I personally loved it. In fact, I did not migrate away from it until Windows 7 came out. I never moved to Vista. And that is not because Vista was junk (it was, but that's another issue) but because XP was still so good.

 

[R-T-B]

That said, XP was an outstanding OS in its day.

I agree. I view it much like OS/2 Warp now. Back in it's day it was pretty cool... but try using it now. It's old, plain and simple. XP feels much the same.

 

[Bill_Bright]

I liked OS/2 as well. In fact, my first big contract job after I got out of the military involved connecting and setting up monitoring over 400 OS/2 systems in 93 counties across the state to the state's mainframe using Tivoli.

What many may not realize is OS/2 initially was a collaborative effort between IBM and Microsoft. But the partnership fell apart because of Win3.1. I think it good OS/2 did not win that contest but do wish it stayed competitive. I think that would have resulted in an even better XP and later versions of Windows.

 

[R-T-B]

I liked OS/2 as well. In fact, my first big contract job after I got out of the military involved connecting and setting up monitoring over 400 OS/2 systems in 93 counties across the state to the state's mainframe using Tivoli.

What many may not realize is OS/2 initially was a collaborative effort between IBM and Microsoft. But the partnership fell apart because of Win3.1. I think it good OS/2 did not win that contest but do wish it stayed competitive. I think that would have resulted in an even better XP and later versions of Windows.

Yep, I wouldn't mind IBM having stayed in it for general OS diversity, but that's a whole different discussion. And also, you know IBM (at least IBM then), they weren't going to do it for free. It's pretty simple, it was losing money so it was cut loose as soon as support contracts dried up. Keeping with the topic, I think the last ATMs switched over to XP embedded like 2002, I wonder how that's going to hurt them? Or was there yet another mass migration of ATMs? Dunno.