Well THAT was fun...and only took about 8 hours total.
I now have an up to date activated win7 os on SOFB.
Yes I took a chance having located a patch..for activation.
I dont feel bad about using it..on account it is a legit copy of 7.
It aint my fault MS in their infinate wisdom removed any other way to achieve activation.
Running the patch however did allow some hackware to install..but the drive is removeable so used an ide to usb interface on my main PC to purge the crap.
Not really unexpected I guess.
So having got it activated ...how to move forward with updates ? of which there are many including cumilative security updates etc.
Enter the Legacy Update project..and I'm impressed.
First time using it but it basically mirrors all the KB updates that were released by MS..and once running performs updates just fine.
It's got to be the way forward for Retro builders.
nice !

...yes Win 7 doesn't win any awards for speed on a P4 PC with 2 GB ram...but it works 😀

IIRC Windows XP and Office XP are still legitimately activatable until today via the phone option. So I bet Win7 is also still activatable via that route at least...

Vipersan wrote on 2024-03-18, 20:45:

Well ..I have long been interested in old Windows operating systems ...but wanted one PC Tower that ran them all.
It took a long time to pin down the sweet spot in history...where a single motherboard would run whatever I threw at it...both backwards and forwards compatible..
Turns out that this 'sweet spot' was the era of the Pentium 4.

What processor + motherboard combo are you using?

I'm currently in the process of building a multi-OS system with a Pentium 4 HT 650 3.4GHz. Have run into problems trying to install NT 4.0, as it crashes/reboots during setup.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-03-20, 01:19:

Vipersan wrote on 2024-03-18, 20:45:

Well ..I have long been interested in old Windows operating systems ...but wanted one PC Tower that ran them all.
It took a long time to pin down the sweet spot in history...where a single motherboard would run whatever I threw at it...both backwards and forwards compatible..
Turns out that this 'sweet spot' was the era of the Pentium 4.

What processor + motherboard combo are you using?

I'm currently in the process of building a multi-OS system with a Pentium 4 HT 650 3.4GHz. Have run into problems trying to install NT 4.0, as it crashes/reboots during setup.

Good luck with your build Shponglefan ...
I'm using a GIGABYTE GA-8GE667 motherboard with onboard audio ...and a P4 2.40 GHZ cpu
AGP graphics provided by an ASUS V7700
rgds
VS

Vipersan wrote on 2024-03-20, 02:01:

I'm using a GIGABYTE GA-8GE667 motherboard with onboard audio ...and a P4 2.40 GHZ cpu

Ah, so probably a Northwood I'm assuming.

I've read that NT 4.0 can have issues with later Pentium 4's, so that might be the difference.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-03-20, 02:33:

Vipersan wrote on 2024-03-20, 02:01:

I'm using a GIGABYTE GA-8GE667 motherboard with onboard audio ...and a P4 2.40 GHZ cpu

Ah, so probably a Northwood I'm assuming.

I've read that NT 4.0 can have issues with later Pentium 4's, so that might be the difference.

845GE, so Northwoods (and likely Northwood HTs as well? idk exactly.) are the highest he might be able to go.

Those, and Willies, though who would want to run a Willie on a late 845 board?

wbahnassi wrote on 2024-03-20, 01:14:

IIRC Windows XP and Office XP are still legitimately activatable until today via the phone option. So I bet Win7 is also still activatable via that route at least...

For Windows XP at least that might be country/region specific now. In the UK you can't activate XP online or by phone. But the offline activator that's available works a treat so it's no big deal.

One physical problem for me was the fact that I had only seven 'Digitus' branded IDE caddies...and if I wanted to add more operating systems ...I had to use another brand...
This means of course I had to use up 2x 5.25 inch bays and 2 (both master and slave normally) UDMA connectors on the Primary ribbon.
...so no secondary left for an internal drive.
No great loss as I had to use another caddy brand anyway.
If I ever frind any more of the Digitus caddies I can go back to using only one caddy dock.
rgds

Digging through my collection of old IDE hard drives I found what I supposed was very expensive back in the day...and quite a rarity.
A 700 GB plus IDE drive..
Hmm..perfik for localised backup of all 9 Operating Systems...so hooked it up and did a surface scan..
100% ok.
So using my favourite clone tool...HDClone4...and a live bootable XP CD (BartPE) I set about raw imaging all the other 9 hard drives.
Took a while but worth it..as I will never have to build them again from scratch..when these IDE drives eventually fail..and fail they will at some point.
Evidenced by me finding that the XP and ME hard drives already have some bad sector read errors...discovered during the image cloning process.
and I still have 100GB of space left..
I'm just glad I saved so many old HDs over the years...as finding replacements is less of an issue.
rgds
VS

Took a break from my multi OS system SOFB...as I have all the windows OS on pull out trays I wanted...plus I needed to start some veg in my garden..
It is spring afterall..
🤣
Recently got back to it with a desire to see what other ..more exotic..OS will run on it..
Literally a project for rainy days..and here in Machester UK...it has been constant for weeks..doh
I did try to install OS2 warp4 but gave up quickly on account it blue screens very early on in the installation ..around floppy 3 I think.
may try again after some research.
I have managed to install Amithlon on a 120gb IDE drive..though I am having a problem with more than 1GB of ram installed physically.
Hopefully there is a way around this ?
Now comes the tricky bit..
There are updates which will allow access to the onboard (motherboard USB) but I would also like some sound...but not sure if there is an update to allow Amithlon/linux Kernel to function with the onboard realtek AC97 chipset ...nor indeed how to even go about updating and patching..??
If anyone has used and is familiar with Amithlon your input would be most appreciated..
Then there is network access which I know can be done...but not even sure if my 3com network pci card is compatible ?
..but that's further down the line.
This is what I have so far.
comments and help always welcome.
I now need some advice from anyone familliar with this almost bare metal linux based emulator...which now boots directly from the hard drive at switch on..
So unlike winuae which requires booting another OS before running the emulator...is more like turning on an Amiga (real hardware)