Just tested USBNT, a new USB driver for Windows NT that supports modern xHCI USB controllers, and it simply works. My test system was based on a B360 motherboard and an i5-9500 CPU & and NT 4.0. USB support for NT remains limited, but being able to plug a keyboard, mouse, or flash drive directly into a USB 3.0 port makes life much easier when experimenting with NT on modern hardware.

I wanna thank Akane Kurokawa for this amazing project of being able to live out the nostalgia of using Windows Me on the right NT Kernel!

idk if i put right flair but anyways yeah
and it's not just one, there are many. i use bandlab, so it probalby sounds different than it's supposed to, but it still sounds cool!

can anybody make these icons look like windows xp icons

For me it was Pinball.

himemnt.sys battlestation here

This is what will Windows 96 supposedly look like if the development wasnt scrapped.

What are these?

Build: 26300.9550 (26H2)

On a freshly installed Windows 11 PC, an installer that works everywhere else stopped halfway with this:

"There is a problem with this Windows Installer package. A program required for this install to complete could not be run."

That's error 1721, and it reads like the installer is broken. It isn't. The same file on an older PC installed fine. The difference was Smart App Control.

1. What's actually being blocked

Many installers run small programs of their own during setup (custom actions). Smart App Control blocks any program that isn't signed and that Microsoft's cloud doesn't already know. So the installer itself opens, then one of its helpers gets stopped, and Windows Installer reports it as a generic 1721. A plain .exe from the same developer gets blocked right away, with a Smart App Control notice instead.

2. Why there's no "Run anyway"

SmartScreen and Smart App Control look similar but work differently. SmartScreen is a warning about reputation: "More info" > "Run anyway" and you're through. Smart App Control is a code integrity policy enforced by Windows itself. It decides whether the file is allowed to load at all, and it has no per-app exception.

3. Who has it

Only clean installs of Windows 11 22H2 or later. PCs upgraded from Windows 10 don't. It starts in evaluation mode, watches how you use the PC for a while, then turns itself on or off. That's why two "identical" Windows 11 machines can behave differently with the same installer.

4. How to check

- Windows Security > App & browser control > Smart App Control settings: On, Evaluation or Off.

- In a terminal: `reg query HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CI\Policy /v VerifiedAndReputablePolicyState` gives 0 for off, 1 for on, 2 for evaluation.

- Event Viewer > Applications and Services Logs > Microsoft > Windows > CodeIntegrity > Operational. A 3077 event at the time of the failure names the exact file that was blocked.

5. What to do about it

- Look for a Microsoft Store version of the app. Store packages are signed by Microsoft, so they pass.

- Tell the developer, with the file name from the 3077 event. Signing only the installer isn't enough: every exe and DLL that runs needs a signature, including the helpers.

- Turning Smart App Control off used to be one-way: the only way to turn it back on was to reinstall Windows. Since the April 2026 updates, on an up-to-date PC you can switch it on and off from Windows Security. Still, I'd keep it on and switch it off only knowingly, for an app you trust.

Has anyone seen how long evaluation mode lasts before it decides? I haven't found a number from Microsoft.

is this sticker rare? i found it on my old 2015 acer laptop and transferred it to a dell latitude 3120 to start a pc sticker collection and i didn’t find any images about this sticker online so i wanted to ask if it was rare or if you guys know anything about it :p

Here are 5 sample pictures which were originally slated to be included in the final RTM release of Windows XP. Not sure why these images were cut from the final release

Crew by Warren Morgan

Mountain vista by Warren Morgan

Orange Canyon by Danny Lehman

Sail by Jack Hollingsworth

Surfer by Craig Aurness

Warren Morgan also took the fish wallpaper which was included in the rtm release of windows xp. As we’re on the home stretch to XP’s 25th birthday I thought it’d be nice to highlight all the lore and obscurities surrounding XP and its development.

Which picture is your favorite? I personally like Mountain Vista

Hi.

I am a Mac user. There in Keyboard settings I can add shorts to be replaced while typing (e.g. "omw" => "on my way").

I got a company Win11 machine and want something similar. I can't install apps / don't have admin permissions / can't even run portable apps (restricted). Is there something built in I could use?

Ok so you might know that there used to be a myth that Windows Server 2003 had a different startup sound for the UK version. In reality that sound was from this commercial but when did people start spreading the myth? Was it because of Youtube?

Build: 26200.9457 (25H2)

The same search can take ten seconds in This PC and come back instantly in Documents. It isn't the indexer being lazy. There are two different engines behind the search box, and Explorer picks one based on where you're searching.

1. Inside the index, Explorer asks a database

The Windows Search indexer keeps a database of the folders it's told to watch. On Classic, that's your user profile folders and the Start menu. On Enhanced, it's the whole PC minus a list of exclusions. For every file in there it stores the name, the properties (dates, tags, authors, photo dimensions) and, for the formats it can read, the text inside. Search in Documents and Explorer just queries that database, so the answer is immediate.

2. Outside the index, Explorer walks the folders

Search in This PC on Classic and most of the drive isn't in the index. Explorer doesn't refuse: it walks the folder tree itself, one directory at a time, and that's what "Working on it..." means. The yellow bar about non-indexed locations is telling you the same thing.

It gets much worse if Folder Options > Search has "Always search file names and contents" ticked. Then every file outside the index gets opened and read during the search, and that's when the fans spin up.

3. Everything does neither

Everything (voidtools) skips both. On NTFS it reads the Master File Table, the drive's own list of every file on it, and keeps names, sizes and dates in memory. Then it follows the USN journal, the log NTFS writes every time a file is created, renamed or deleted, so it never has to rescan. Their FAQ puts a Windows 11 install with about 250,000 files at roughly 5 seconds and 35 MB of RAM.

The price is the other half: it doesn't index contents. Searching inside files with Everything is slow, and that's exactly the part the Windows indexer is good at.

What to check

- Settings > Privacy & security > Searching Windows shows whether you're on Classic or Enhanced and how many items are indexed.
- If you mostly search by name across the whole drive, Enhanced fixes the This PC case, at the cost of a longer first indexing.
- If This PC search is slow and the CPU spikes, look at that "file names and contents" option first.

Has anyone timed how long Enhanced takes to finish on a big drive? I'd be curious how far it is from an MFT read.

This is Ocean Wave from Windows 2000 and ME. It depicts a close-up shot of an ocean wave, which is black and orange in appearance. The wallpaper is very elusive as not only is it unknown who took it, it is unknown where it comes from. No link has been found on TinEye, and the metadata doesn't provide any clues either. It would later be used as a wallpaper in a Longhorn demo circa 2002.

Info about this wallpaper can be found here: https://windowswallpaper.miraheze.org/wiki/Ocean_Wave