Legacy Update

Ever thought about how Windows Aero assumed desktop PCs would become thin clients, and servers would be empty glass rectangles?

Wait what?

“You’ll be visited by three spirits”

The three spirits:

Therapist: Generic Microsoft Windows isn’t real, it can’t hurt you

Generic Microsoft Windows:

Steam powered? No no, *Windows* powered

Reply to @legacyupdate.net

Considering this is still going scarily viral I’m just gonna do the thing. Spend a bit of the money you saved by not having any kids on a worthy cause, the Internet Archive, who preserve our increasingly chaotic digital world for future generations. archive.org/donate

In response to recent industry changes, we’re making the entire 576 KB Legacy Update program available as freeware on a floppy disk.

Just send $1 to:

Homer Simpson, Jr. Vice President
Compu-Global-Hyper-Mega-Net
742 Evergreen Tce
Springfield, USA

Offer void in Nebraska.

So long, Windows Update website 🫡

This week, Microsoft took down the old Windows Update v6 web app entirely. It was a time capsule locked in the Microsoft.​com design from 2005. It’s been broken since 2021.

You can still see it preserved through Windows Update Restored.

After 10 years, Windows 10 has reached end of support.

Don’t panic. Your Windows 10 computers will not explode. You will not catch every piece of malware in existence.

You should enrol in ESU, or switch to Windows 11 or Linux, but this is not the end of the world.

Our guide on what to do now:

How do I continue receiving updates for Windows 10? - Legacy Update

Legacy Update has significantly expanded its archive of the Microsoft Download Center all the way back to 2012. It now indexes 41,000 downloads, of which over half have been deleted by Microsoft.

More about what went into this, and what we’re still planning to do:

Expanding the Download Center Archive | Adam Demasi

Get more from Adam Demasi on Patreon

🌎⬆️ Legacy Update 1.13 improves handling of some edge cases you might run into while using Legacy Update. It includes 23 fixes and improvements (and plenty more small changes).

Legacy Update 1.13

Features nobody asked for: You can now subscribe to Legacy Update news as an Internet Explorer Web Slice. Just click the green button in the toolbar (it’s green to show that Internet Explorer is really excited a website is actually using this feature), or the Add Web Slice link in our News section.

Introducing our improved website: If it seems like nothing has changed, that’s a good thing! I worked hard to build something that’s easier for me to maintain, while making sure everything is just as it was before. It will help us continue to expand our archive and help page resources.

Introducing our improved website

Wait, Windows 10 is legacy now? 😳

Windows 10 reaches end of support in a few days’ time, and there’s been an increasing number of questions about what will happen to Windows 10 and Windows Update. We put together a new guide to answer your questions:

How do I continue receiving updates for Windows 10? - Legacy Update

Reply to @legacyupdate.net

It’s done. Final database size: 138 GB. 15 days, just as I estimated.

Well, this is proof of why Microsoft wanted to remove drivers from WSUS. The whole WSUS 3.x product, which is almost as old as Vista, is not aging well.

No idea how we’ll upload an archive of this, but I’ll find a way.

Mozilla extended support for Firefox 115 ESR on Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 and macOS 10.12 – 10.14 until August. It was due to end support last month, and they may consider extending it again.

Firefox ESRs are old versions that continue getting security updates. support.mozilla.org/kb/firefox-u...

You’ve been asking me for years, and I finally did it.

Windows Live Essentials was a suite of free add-on software from Microsoft. It’s a perfect fit into the Windows 7 experience, but it’s been hard to find official download links. Now, we have them easily accessible on a dedicated page:

Windows Live Essentials - Microsoft Download Center Archive - Legacy Update

Today, Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 (based on Windows Vista and 7) finally, truly reach end of support.

Windows Vista and Server 2008 is the longest supported version of Windows, at 19 years. Behind it is Windows XP at 17 years, and Windows for Workgroups 3.11 at 16 years.

🌎⬆️ Legacy Update 1.13.2 addresses a security issue in the ActiveX control. Please update as soon as possible.

Legacy Update 1.13.2: Security advisory

🌎⬆️ Legacy Update 1.12 is a huge rewrite release. We switched from compiling with Visual C++ 2008 (and 2010, and 2017, and 2022…), a setup which Microsoft recently broke, to a streamlined open-source MinGW/GCC toolchain. The result: 1.12 is 50% smaller than 1.11, which was already below 1 MB!

Release 1.12 · LegacyUpdate/LegacyUpdate

ImportantIf nothing happens when you open Legacy Update setup on Windows XP, follow these steps to work around a Windows bug. Legacy Update 1.12 features a significant rewrite of our ActiveX contr...

What is going on with Windows Update and drivers?

A fair few people asked me what is going on with Microsoft’s recent announcement that drivers will be deleted from Windows Update, so I wrote up some notes about it:

What is going on with Windows Update and drivers?

Well-intentioned but poorly communicated.

This might seem huge, but I’ll point out that Microsoft already opened Windows Update to 3rd party apps 12 years ago. It’s called the Microsoft Store, and it uses Windows Update on the backend.

This really rather shows Microsoft is terrible at convincing developers and users what’s good for them.

Microsoft wants Windows Update to handle all apps

A dream come true for IT admins

Wew, ok, I did it. Legacy Update 1.11 is out. It fixes, like, everything. Ever had a bug installing Legacy Update? We probably fixed it. It also installs updates even faster on Windows Vista/7, and yes, the bootloop bug is fixed. Huge thanks as always to everyone who contributed to this release! 🌎⬆️

🌎⬆️ Legacy Update 1.13.1 fixes a few bugs introduced in 1.13, and adds workarounds for issues with some Lenovo devices and Intel Macs. It also addresses a potential security issue.

Legacy Update 1.13.1