Windows 2000 Unofficial Service Pack 5

[johnleakedfan]

I found Windows 2000 Unofficial SP5 for download, I am wondering, what is the features or when installed

I also saw a video, when he was checking winver, it doesnt say SP5

If you dont have it on the FTP, I would be glad to give it to you

[AlphaBeta]

If you dont have it on the FTP, I would be glad to give it to you, If it is, then OK good

Unofficial. That says all.

[esc1010]

Really? If it's unofficial then you run the risk of Viruses or Trojans. Which could screw up an entire network.

[johnleakedfan]

Really? If it's unofficial then you run the risk of Viruses or Trojans. Which could screw up an entire network.

there is a video with it installing, nothing happening

[esc1010]

If nothing happens on one Machine that doesn't mean the same will happen on the next.

[Skywatcher]

If it's this one, then the website explains what's included. (This is the one I always used on my 2000 setup and never ran into any problems that were obviously caused by it.)

[yourepicfailure]

Really? If it's unofficial then you run the risk of Viruses or Trojans. Which could screw up an entire network.

there is a video with it installing, nothing happening

People can lie. They probably used the "Service Pack" WITHOUT the bs viruses for the video and distributed one with viruses. Even if it isn't full of bs, this "Service Pack" is probably a bunch of hotfixes and updates that don't do much. And the fact that it didn't change the winver advertises DON'T INSTALL.

[Lukas Marsik]

People can lie. They probably used the "Service Pack" WITHOUT the bs viruses for the video and distributed one with viruses. Even if it isn't full of bs, this "Service Pack" is probably a bunch of hotfixes and updates that don't do much. And the fact that it didn't change the winver advertises DON'T INSTALL.

Seriously. This service pack is widely known and why the [censored] should it change CSDVersion, the only thing you would achiee by that may be broken apps.

[sdfox7]

I wouldn't bother. Slap Service Pack 4 (link), the rollup (link), and Avast on it, and you should be good to go. (Per this forum message Avast was tested on Windows 2000 and requires SP4, IE6, and Rollup 1).

Windows 2000 hasn't been patched in 4 years and the SP5 is out of date anyway.

When you introduce an unofficial update you not only run the risk of malware, but also changing system components which could break apps. If you could somehow run DirectX 10 on Win2K and the app was specifically looking for ≤ DirectX 9 you would break the app.

For example, KernelEX works for Windows 98 but I have also run into instances where things stop working when it is installed.

[jimmsta]

The Unofficial SP5 is from 2006, but windows2000.tk has the latest unofficial rollup that includes security fixes from NT5.1/5.2 backported to 5.0's components. I've helped test the unofficial patches for YEARS, and it's safe. The advantage with some of the newer patches on that site are NT5.1/5.2 features backported to NT5.0's kernel. There's also a project that is practically finished where kernel32.dll was re-written from the ground up.

Ultimately, with all the new patches (unofficial), Windows 2000 is far superior in terms of stability and safety than XP is, at least for crappy old systems. There's also a kernelex-type of addon for support of newer applications, but it can be a pain to get working initially.

[os2fan2]

One should not suppose that official-vendor stuff is either virus-free or bug-free, both have been encountered.

In any case, SP5 by Gerglemeyer is a pretty stable structure, and produces a more concise pack than installing SP4 + fixes (some of which actually break the system). I use it.

One should try to avoid installing IE 6, I use 5.5, because the resource kit borks on IE 6. For real internet browsing, i have a copy of Mozilla Firefox esr 10.0.6 running at this moment. It's the latest version of ff that runs on win2k, and it does not keep asking you to upgrade all the time.

[sdfox7]

One should not suppose that official-vendor stuff is either virus-free or bug-free, both have been encountered.

In any case, SP5 by Gerglemeyer is a pretty stable structure, and produces a more concise pack than installing SP4 + fixes (some of which actually break the system). I use it.

One should try to avoid installing IE 6, I use 5.5, because the resource kit borks on IE 6. For real internet browsing, i have a copy of Mozilla Firefox esr 10.0.6 running at this moment. It's the latest version of ff that runs on win2k, and it does not keep asking you to upgrade all the time.

I never had issues with the newer Firefox 10.0.12 ESR prompting me to update, have you?

ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/10.0.12esr/win32/en-US/

[fuccboi]

Throw it up

[Nashville]

There is also Update Rollup 2 for Windows 2000 SP4.

[MrFreeman]

There is also Update Rollup 2 for Windows 2000 SP4.

Except that one is unofficial as well.

[johnleakedfan]

I wouldn't bother. Slap Service Pack 4 (link), the rollup (link), and Avast on it, and you should be good to go. (Per this forum message Avast was tested on Windows 2000 and requires SP4, IE6, and Rollup 1).

Windows 2000 hasn't been patched in 4 years and the SP5 is out of date anyway.

When you introduce an unofficial update you not only run the risk of malware, but also changing system components which could break apps. If you could somehow run DirectX 10 on Win2K and the app was specifically looking for ≤ DirectX 9 you would break the app.

For example, KernelEX works for Windows 98 but I have also run into instances where things stop working when it is installed.

i got the copy of it from softpedia, no viruses

[johnleakedfan]

If it's this one, then the website explains what's included. (This is the one I always used on my 2000 setup and never ran into any problems that were obviously caused by it.)

i installed it on my windows 2000 vm and it works
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PS I like your WoW Series

[James]

Please refrain from double posting in the future.

[os2fan2]

I am generally rather disappointed by comments that because it is 'not official', that it 'must be full of trojans and viruses'. Were everything of this nature, then it pretty much would not be save to download any freeware, or in fact, any software from the internet, commercial or otherwise. It's commercial FUD.

Much of the free software is expressly 'non-official', in as much as they are work-alikes of commercial packages. But in the end, many of these work-alikes have surpassed their original targets, and have in themselves become things to emulate.

Windows XP SP2, for examples, supports a 'minint' environment, which can be booted from a cdrom. Until this happened, people were using MS-DOS 6.22 diskettes (that is, something that was 10 years old!) to do this functionality. Microsoft wasn't even supporting this DOS, but that was the recommended way of doing things. BartPE changed all that. In essence, you can make a bootable Windows environment off a wider range of sources (eg XP Home), then the official WinPE (Pro or Server only). It was better supported, and had a lively community of supporters. Microsoft waved the Licence/FUD thing when people who had WinPE licences were bitterly complaining that confuring WinPE was much harder than PE, and the resulting product was more expensive. You see, BartPE had a crowd of people looking at issues in it. I wrote fixes for time zones and for the large-font bug.

I have had a passing role in many installations of SPs and such. The SP5 was done with an unreleased toolset that is very similar to what microsoft uses to produce service packs of that era. Files are specifically checksumed, and one simply can not input what was not pre-signed.

Like much of this culture, it is an attempt to make things better than the original. First, it includes more than just SP4 + rollups. It corrects errors in rollup 2, by rolling back a fix to an earlier form. Drivers.cab in SP5 removes a lot of dead code that exists in SP4 and earlier: drivers that are no longer referenced anywhere.

You can slipstream SP5. While you can slipstream the rollups and later fixes, you can't undo the damage in the rollups, and the non-servicepack slipstream contains a full copy of the original fixes, which are run again over the installation, simply to create the CAT files.

Setting the SP level is pretty much a registry setting. I have done this on a number of occasions. You can, for example, take Windows XP SP2 and make it pretend it's SP6. It really isn't that hard. But looking at the fix-pack level is what fixes do, so if you really need to install something, it won't work unless you can correct the service packs. If you hand-fix something like Windows NT 4 or earlier, you specifically have to go into registry to fix the service pack level.

[mrpijey]

Well, naturally you must respect the fact than an official service pack, signed and downloaded from Microsoft is by far more safe from malware than a custom made, unofficial one not available directly from Microsoft but elsewhere? It's like with any other application or game, if I downloaded say, Office from Microsoft then I can trust it's malware free. But if I download the same from Pirate Bay then someone perhaps snuck in malware in the setup file etc. It has happened, and it's quite common actually, especially on open download sites such as TPB and others. So it's definately not FUD. Of course it doesn't mean that all unofficial is malware-filled, but there's a considerable risk it could be, and therefore a downloader should be extra careful when downloading something unofficial from an unofficial source.

[os2fan2]

esc1010 advances the theory that because USP5 is 'unofficial', that it 'must have trojans and viruses in it'.

Gurglemeyer is the author of USP5. What is unofficial about it is the assembly of MS fixes into a service pack, with various decisions being made about what fixes to include and which ones to exclude. The actual service-packs (it is at subversion 18 or something) are made, from what can be assumed, leaked copies of the same tools, or work-alike tools, that Microsoft itself uses to make service packs. The necessary compilation is not authorised by Microsoft, but by G.

The release of this package is done under G's authority, not Microsoft's. There _are_ official channels to acquire this package. That is, there are official channels to download USP5, as there are official ones to download SP4. G authorised releases through 'majorgeeks', a commercial download site that mainly distributes various accredited releases. One does not posit that releases through MG or MS are open to external injections of trojans or viruses.

Something like the 3.51 or 4.00 slips, do not have this same access to an accredited download site. But the inference that because i am compiling such things, automatically leads to the notion that i might slip in 'trojans and viruses', is pretty much an affront to my motives, and in general, those who put a lot of effort into making programs that make the world a better place.

One should not suppose either, that 'unintentional' viruses etc might be inserted, or that 'official' sources can give trojans etc. I have bought various bits of hardware and software which have had viruses in them. Also, one needs no further to look at Sony and their installation of unauthorised hidden software onto the hard disk, to realise that even official sources are not necessarily trustworthy.