Trying to use Windows XP Starter and tweak it

I downloaded Windows XP Starter here, and it was uploaded by mjd7999 on Youtube.

This version of windows is intended for computer noobs who can't even do shit about their PC, and is only shipped in five countries: Russia, Thailand, India, Malaysia, and Indonesia (yes, Indonesia, my fucking country). I've never known this edition of Windows before, since actually only tens of thousands copies of this OS was manufactured.

This OS is compatible with SP3, since the one I downloaded here comes with SP3 by default (it should be SP2, but I guess someone slipstreamed SP3 into it).

It's severely crippled from an average PC user's point of view, including me. I even think that this edition of XP is so crippled it even looks like a nearly unusable OS. However, those noobs would probably enjoy it.

Crippled features

 * No right clicking on the taskbar (it shows nothing, might be possible to fix by using the explorer from a regular Windows XP)
 * No classic control panel view (annoying since I prefer it anyway)
 * No classic start menu, not even registry editing it (they're smart enough to avoid this)
 * No theming service. However, the luna theme is still there, on the C:\Windows\Resources\Themes
 * No appearance customization
 * No screen saver customization
 * No gpedit.msc due to being based off Windows XP Home, which means no fast user switching hacks.
 * Can only run 3 apps at once, so some apps might not function properly.
 * Resolution is normally limited to 800x600. However, this doesn't seem to happen on VM. It might be possible to bypass this limitation by using Nvidia control panel and using custom resolutions that fit with your monitor.
 * There is a permanent watermark on the bottom-right corner of the screen, which is on top of everything but balloon notifications. This behavior is similar to Windows 8's "Activate Windows" watermark.
 * Limited to only one user.

Interesting stuff
I think the reason why they're big is because it's to help people see things more clearly, which is probably required for noobs.
 * By default, the cursor is the extra large one, but it's possible to use the normal one back.
 * The desktop icons are bigger than the one in regular XP. Interestingly, the size of the icons are identical to Windows 7/8/8.1/10 default desktop icon size.
 * The start menu icons are also bigger.

Force classic start menu by registry tweak
Partially successful (Windows will throw up an error and then crashes)

Successful, with some hacks (suspend or kill smss.exe using Process Explorer)

I've tried to do this by following the method here, but when I refresh the registry editor, it keeps changing back to 0. Probably happens to prevent users from using the classic start menu (well, they're quite smart to prevent this).

After using a tool to monitor the registry and see what changes it in real-time, I found out that winlogon is changing it.

I used Process Explorer to suspend it, but no luck, since even though the registry doesn't change, explorer needs to be restarted and it doesnt seem to open when winlogon is suspended.

Another thing I did is to prevent every apps from modifying the key. When I set it to 1 it didn't seem to change it back. However, Windows suddenly shows an error saying this:

"Your computer is currently in a state that is not supported by Windows XP Starter Edition. Windows will now shut down your computer."

- The error message.

and it'll crash the machine. Again, they're actually smart enough to prevent average users from tampering those.

The VM crashed, and it gave a BSOD.

When it reboots, that message came back, and it's stuck like that in an endless loop. However, I've managed to get the screenshot of how the classic start menu looks like because it crashes after around 30 seconds, which is quite enough to open the start menu and capture a screenshot of it. See screenshot on the gallery below.

UPDATE: I've managed to make the machine NOT crash when you do it. All you need is to use Process Explorer, and suspend (or kill) the smss.exe process (right-click on smss.exe and then select "Suspend" or "Kill Process"). This is because the BSOD is caused by csrss.exe terminating winlogon.exe a moment after the error message pops up, and smss.exe monitors winlogon, so that if it's terminated, it will trigger a BSOD. However, suspending or killing it will not cause it to happen, so you can safely click "OK" on the error message that pops up without worrying about the machine crashing. Nonetheless, you'll need to open Process Explorer every time you start the machine and suspend or kill smss before winlogon is terminated, otherwise machine will crash. For easy access to it, just put Process Explorer on the desktop so that you can do it quickly.

To make the classic start menu appear without rebooting, simply right click on explorer.exe and then click "Restart". Click on the start menu and enjoy.

Here's the page that mentions how the whole thing works.

It might be possible to get the classic start menu without it forcing to not use it by patching some files.

Force the classic view in Control Panel
Partially successful (Windows will throw up an error and then crashes)

Successful, with some hacks (suspend or kill smss.exe using Process Explorer)

Since the "Switch to classic view" option doesn't appear on the left pane of the control panel, registry hacking is required. I followed the method here to tweak it, but I only changed the value in the HKCU. However, the same thing happens just like when I force the classic start menu, since it's also stored in the same key, and write protection was required.

I've managed to get the screenshot of how the classic control panel looks like in XP starter.

UPDATE: To make the machine not crash after preventing the system from changing the registry, do the same smss.exe suspend/kill trick. That'll prevent it from crashing.

Run more than 3 apps and 3 instances of the same apps
Partially successful (explorer.exe needs to be terminated, and you can't open more than 3 explorer windows because it MUST be terminated)

The most annoying thing about XP starter is that you can only run 3 apps and 3 instances of the same apps at the same time. This is probably done so that noobs won't get too confused while using it. However, this is extremely annoying when you really just wanna do some multitasking stuff.

To bypass this limitation, use process explorer to kill explorer.exe, and run the app you want by clicking File>Run. Click "Browse" and find it.

However, you CAN'T run more than 3 instances of explorer, obviously because it must be terminated in the first place.

When you start explorer again, the apps won't be closed. However, you can't just run more apps while explorer is running, so you'll need to kill the process again.

I found out that explorer is the culprit when I open up Task Manager, right clicking on the "Windows XP Starter" task (really, it's the message box that says "you can run 3 apps"), and selected "Go to process". The process highlighted by it is the explorer.exe, so basically it's the one that controls the whole thing.

Disable those strict policies
Requires suspending/killing smss.exe using Process Explorer

Actually, things like disabling right-clicking on the taskbar, disabling logoff options, etc are controlled on the Policies key in HKCU and HKLM. Quite a cheapass trick, but still effective because they don't want you to tamper those and if you do, you'll get the unsupported state error.

These could actually be enabled/disabled using gpedit.msc (Group Policy Editor), however, XP Starter (and Home Edition, which is the version XP Starter is based on) doesn't include it.

To disable those restrictions, simply prevent the system from writing anything to it and suspend/kill smss.exe with Process Explorer as usual.

All of the DWORD values are located in HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies.

The descriptions below are taken from TechNet.

More policies TBA

Policies\Explorer

 * DisablePersonalDirChange: Prohibits user from changing My Documents path
 * DisallowCpl: Hide specified control panel applets
 * HideRunAsVerb: Hides the "Run as..." option on the right click context menu
 * NoComputersNearMe: No Computers Near Me in My Network Places
 * NoSetTaskbar: Prevent changes to Taskbar and Start Menu Settings (if you disable the NoTrayContextMenu policy, going to the taskbar and start menu properties will show you an error instead if this is turned on. This registry is the cause of it)
 * NoTrayContextMenu: Remove access to the context menus for the taskbar (the reason why you can't right click on the taskbar)

Policies\System

 * DisableChangePassword: Remove Change Password
 * DisableLockWorkstation: Remove Lock Computer
 * NoColorChoice: Prohibit Theme color selection
 * NoDispBackgroundPage: Hide Desktop tab
 * NoVisualStyleChoice: Prevent selection of windows and buttons styles

Add a timebomb
I used TweakNT to add a 364-day timebomb, just for fun, and it worked. No unsupported state errors and anything like that. The buildtag is 2600.xpsp.080413.2111, because the ISO itself has the SP3 update slipstreamed into it. Without it, the buildtag would've been different.

Change the SKU
Again, I used TweakNT for this, and changed the SKU to Professional. However, the unsupported state error pops up after reboot, so smss.exe has to be suspended or killed again to be able to use the system.

I strongly believe that a system file is causing this to happen, because it doesn't seem to accept SKU changing. They're quite smart to prevent average consumers from tampering the system, so this requires the help of a software developer to patch the system files and prevent it from doing all of these unsupported state bullshit.

An interesting thing is that the Windows XP Starter Edition watermark disappears after changing the SKU, which is quite nice. So possibly it shows the unsupported state error because it couldn't display the watermark. Again, this was done probably to prevent users from doing what M$ doesn't want them to do in XP Starter.

Audit Failure BSOD
For some reason, XP Starter sometimes crashes with the message "Audit Failure"

According to M$ it only shows up when "CrashOnAuditFail" is set to 1 or 2. However, it's set to 0 by default so I don't know what causes it to happen.

See here for the CrashOnAuditFail registry info.