These are two really good games from legendary assembler programmer Chris Sawyer, which were huge hits when they came out and have only gotten better over time. I especially enjoyed playing Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 with the two expansions, “Added Attractions” and “Loopy Landscapes,” over and over again. Simply a timeless classic.

However, the technical side, or more precisely the resolutions, had long been a problem: the game only natively supports 4:3 resolutions, which have long since fallen out of use. There were hacks to get around this: Using a hex editor, it was possible to make at least 720p playable in 16:9 format. None of this was ideal. With Windows 11, full-screen mode no longer works at all, making it a hopeless case.

OpenRCT2

This is where OpenRCT2 comes in: an open source implementation of Rollercoaster Tycoon 2.
RCT2 builds seamlessly on RCT1 and has been improved and expanded in many areas without losing any of its charm (unlike RCT3, which came later). It’s best to have the original game handy, as the experience is only really good with the original game data.

Thanks to this community project, RCT2 is up and running again, with many modern features and support for modern systems and hardware. I highly recommend that every fan of the series take a look at the project.

The system requirements are:

Windows 7 or newer
macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) or newer
Linux is more complex: Ubuntu 18.04 or higher, Arch, in principle many distributions should run
FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD

…so the whole thing even runs natively on macOS and Linux!

OpenTTD

Just like OpenRCT2, OpenTTD is a community-developed reimplementation of the classic Transport Tycoon Deluxe, which was released in the 90s and is also an absolute classic.

Here, too, many features have been expanded and improved, and TTD now runs flawlessly on modern systems. You should also have the original game data at hand here. Click here for the project, and here for some impressions. The multiplayer mode is also actively used, and there are many servers!

It is also important to know where to copy which original game files.

The system requirements are very minimal:
OpenTTD should run on absolutely any computer with a standard operating system!

Der Beitrag Nice Thing: OpenRCT2 and OpenTTD erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

A recurring problem with older operating systems from Microsoft is that many integrated, convenient services have been disabled at some point and are therefore no longer usable.

This is particularly annoying when it comes to updates, but a workaround is to install them via an offline updater. With “newer” systems such as XP, Vista, 7, or 8/8.1, this is possible with the update packs from WinFuture, for example. For Windows 98, for example, it is recommended to install the unofficial Service Pack 3.2 from Creopard, which fixes some problems and even enhances the system in some areas.

But what about older or niche systems? Windows Server?
Retro enthusiasts from all over the world have now developed some really good alternatives for this.

Windows Update Restored

This replacement for Microsoft services is recommended for the following operating systems:

• Windows 95
• Windows 98
• Windows Me
• Windows NT 3.x or 4.x

Depending on your operating system, a different version may be recommended. This is all very well documented and works smoothly. The whole process is operated in the same way as the original Windows Update from Microsoft – within the existing Internet Explorer.

Click here to visit the website:
Windows Update Restored

Legacy Update

The recommendation for “newer” Windows versions. Restores update functionalities for the following operating systems, among others:

• Windows 2000 Professional
• Windows 2000 Server
   
• Windows XP
• Windows XP Embedded
• Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs
• Windows Embedded 2009
• Windows Server 2003
• Windows Server 2003 R2
• Windows Home Server 2007
   
• Windows Vista
• Windows Server 2008
   
• Windows 7
• Windows Embedded 7
• Windows Thin PC
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Windows Home Server 2011
   
• Windows 8
• Windows 8.1
• Windows Embedded 8
• Windows Embedded 8.1
• Windows Server 2012
• Windows Server 2012 R2
   

Only as a parallel alternative (not recommended):

• Windows 10
• Windows 11
• Windows Server 2016, 2019, 2022
• Windows Server 2025
   

Click here to visit the website:
Legacy Update

Conclusion

I highly recommend installing the appropriate Windows Update replacement to any retro enthusiast with the relevant operating systems. It is very convenient and beautifully integrated in a way that is typical of the era.

Personally, I use both solutions wherever it makes sense for me, i.e., with Windows 8.1 and older. I only use the browser that is already integrated into the OS (Internet Explorer in various versions).

Of course, these solutions only update to the maximum level that would have been possible with Windows Update. As a result, the operating systems remain unpatched for a long time. However, there is still no better solution for obtaining all missing updates that are compatible with the current system.

Der Beitrag Windows Update Restored and Legacy Update erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

After the retro server had not been started for a long time, I was suddenly greeted by a dialog box with the message “This copy of Windows Server 2003 R2 must be activated” with the options “Yes,” “No,” or “Cancel,” the latter of which shut down the server.

When I selected “Yes,” the WGA activation dialog box familiar from XP appeared with the text “This copy has already been activated.” Clicking ‘OK’ only took me back to the first message. “No” did not change anything at all. Great, a dead end.

What to do?

After googling the error message in fragments in English (“Error: This copy of Windows must be activated before you can log on.”), I came across a solution. This is presented by “The Rambling IT Man” on his blog (archive.org), which is hosted directly by WordPress.

I am “reblogging” the content of his solution mainly to present the process in German. At the same time, this provides a second version of the information, as websites unfortunately often disappear at some point.

The solution:

The process should work both in a VM and on a physical server. In my case, it worked immediately on a physical server.

Step 1: Shutdown

Shut down Server 2003 R2.

Step 2: Boot again

Restart the computer, pressing “F8” repeatedly to display the startup options.

Step 3: Safe mode

When the menu appears, select “Safe Mode” (first option). If not, restart and try again with “F8”.

Step 4: Run

Either press the Windows key + R or select “Run” from the Start menu.

Step 5: Command line

Execute this command exactly, Oo are not zeros but letters. Pay attention to upper and lower case!

rundll32.exe syssetup,SetupOobeBnk

Step 6: Wait

Wait a moment until the “Busy” icon appears on the mouse cursor. No confirmation will follow.

Step 7: Final reboot

Simply restart the server. The message should now disappear for at least 30 days, allowing you to log in normally and, if necessary, fix the underlying problem or back up your data.

Thanks, “The Rambling IT Man”!

Der Beitrag Reactivation of Windows Server 2003 (R2) erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

Like so much else in my hardware collection, this 19″ computer server from HP with a height of 1U came into my possession as electronic waste. Like all servers with a space-saving design (DL stands for “Density Line”), this one is really very loud when the fans kick in – this is clearly audible every time it boots up before the BIOS POST (only then does the PWM speed control kick in).

An unexpected finding is that when you update the BIOS to a newer version, the “HP Integrated LightsOut iLO 100c” remote management must also be updated accordingly, otherwise the fans will run continuously at full speed and cannot be regulated. The iLO firmware update must be performed via FreeDOS or MS-DOS from a USB stick smaller than 32 GB* (or from a disc that must first be burned for this purpose), as was previously the case with the BIOS update. You first have to know that this is how it works. At first, I assumed that something had to be reconfigured after the BIOS flash and that I just couldn’t find the options.

When I found out that the management solution also had to be updated and that it worked right away, I was relieved and the room became much quieter.

Documentation from HP (“QuickSpecs”)

Here I have included the technical capabilities of this server as a PDF file:

Hardware

The parts for this server are now very cheap because they have long been obsolete. Whenever I came across something suitable, I upgraded it. As a result, the specifications now differ greatly from the original ones (my configuration included one of the weaker dual-core Xeon models and 2 GB of RAM, for example).

At the moment, it has HP’s top-of-the-line quad-core processor, 8 GB ECC RAM, and as many data carriers as SATA-II ports. That’s five, and there are six ports on the board. One of them is occupied by the DVD burner. That works out well: if you subtract the boot drive, you’re left with four ports, which is ideal for two RAID1 arrays of two data carriers each – that’s exactly how I configured the whole thing. I don’t think I need any more than that anyway, after all, the approach is “retro” and “compute,” not “storage.”

The slots for expansion cards are empty.

Operating systems

A triple boot setup consisting of Windows Server 2000, 2003 R2, and 2008 is installed. All are 32-bit and run in parallel on an OEM SATA SSD from Toshiba (MBR). Booting is done via BIOS.

Ideal for running server software from the early 2000s.

Photos

Der Beitrag Retro Server: HP ProLiant DL120 G5 erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

All Windows operating systems were equipped with “up-to-date” software. These include IrfanView, Winamp, Office 2000, and 2003. Well-known products from Adobe and Corel are also included, as is WinRAR. Creopard also offers good packages with the usual suspects (Flash, DirectX, .NET…). The upgraded, improved USB support is highly recommended.

Standard software such as HWiNFO32 and Notepad++ also runs in special versions. There is even a special retro version of CrystalDiskMark.

Drivers

All installed hardware has functional drivers for each of the installed operating systems. One challenge was finding the driver for a built-in PCI expansion card with a NEC controller, which took some time.

It’s a shame that Medion has virtually nothing left and what it does have can only be found on old subpages indexed by Google, some of which are missing descriptions. You can’t find anything directly via the Medion search function.

BIOS

I updated the BIOS to the latest version, “6.00 PG,” which also changed the boot logo to a newer design. Of course, I had to boot FreeDOS from CD to flash the BIOS. I suspect that only the latest BIOS supports all of the CPUs mentioned above.

Goal achieved?

Yes! For the first time in decades, Traffic Giant runs without flickering or scrolling too fast!
LEGO Rock Raiders also runs flawlessly and at the correct speed, as intended by the developer. Even on Windows XP – so the problems on newer computers could also be caused by PCIe GPUs. In any case, everything runs wonderfully with AGP 8x.

The clattering and scratching of the rough PATA hard drives and the 3.5″ floppy drive evoke nostalgia.

Der Beitrag <h5>Medion PC-MT6 #6: </h5><h3><b>Software Setup</b></h3> erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

To determine what is feasible, you first need to know the limits. The partition style is, of course, Master Boot Record, which limits each data carrier to four bootable partitions or a total size of no more than 2 TB.

In addition, Windows 98 SE in its original state cannot address drives with a capacity of more than 137 GB; installation is not possible. To do this, you must enable 48-bit LBA support and then create (and burn) a new installation medium. Furthermore, 98 does not work correctly with more than 512 MB of RAM—this can also be circumvented, but only after installation. Until then, 512 MB or less should be installed in the system.

What is feasible now?

Each system has two hard drives installed, which would theoretically allow for 8 operating systems. Sounds like a lot, and it is a lot. It also doesn’t make sense. Nevertheless, there are many:

Hard drive #1:

• Windows 98 SE (32-Bit), FAT32
• Windows Vista Enterprise (32-Bit), NTFS
• Debian 12 Bookworm (32-Bit), EXT4
• 4 GB SWAP

Hard drive #2:

• Windows 2000 Professional (32-Bit), NTFS
• Windows XP Professional (32-Bit), NTFS
• Linux Mint 19 Tara (32-Bit), EXT4
• 4 GB SWAP

So six operating systems, all 32-bit – the total RAM installed is 4 GB and the Celeron D doesn’t even understand 64-bit instructions. Getting everything to work was a complex task, especially as the old operating systems tend to be very finicky. As with other multi-boot operations, the golden rule is always to install from old to new.

During installation, only the planned hard drive was connected, and the partitions were created at the very beginning using GParted in a live session booted from CD. Although I have a lot of experience in this area, it took me several attempts to get everything to where it is now. The fact that Windows 98 occasionally blue-screened during setup wasn’t particularly helpful.

Of course, it was more of an academic challenge than a real benefit. Windows Vista runs really poorly with only a slow core from a PATA hard drive. Debian Bookworm has bad graphics glitches.

So here is the system information under all the different operating systems on the P4 system:

And the same again for the Celeron D system:

More RAM for Windows 98

There is a really good patch for this from R. Loew. For a long time, this patch was available for a fee, but since the good man has sadly passed away, his heirs are now making it available free of charge. Applause for that.

The OS is first installed with 512 MB or less RAM; I had 128 MB in the system (one bar). After successful boot, the patch is run once and the system is shut down. Now more RAM can be installed and the system runs as if nothing had ever happened. It couldn’t be better. The 4 GB of RAM are of great benefit to all other operating systems.

Bootloader?

To avoid overloading the boot loader, I used a little trick:
I used the original loader from Windows Vista. This was modified with EasyBCD – the trick is to “chainload.” Since Windows 2000 and XP both use boot.ini in conjunction with bootmgr, I combined these two. Linux Mint and Debian both use GRUB 2, so these were also combined. The result looks like this:

Der Beitrag <h5>Medion PC-MT6 #5: </h5><h3><b>Operating systems</b></h3> erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

After installing Windows XP with minimal drivers on a 40 GB PATA hard drive from Seagate to perform some hardware tests, I noticed the following:

• The CPU fans on both PCs have clear bearing damage and need to be replaced
• The thermal paste needs to be replaced* as the fan speed is always quite high
• The fan on one of the power supplies is also noisy
• The more powerful ATI Radeon 9800 XXL in the P4 system is partially defective: the VRAM is damaged, the image is occasionally distorted and displayed with color distortion, and under load, it leads to an irreversible black screen
• Everything gets very warm; legend has it that the Pentium fours were real heaters. That’s about right.

Spare parts are needed

I simply removed the noisy fan in the power supply, cleaned it, greased the bearing, and reinstalled it. I only recommend this to electronics engineers, as opening power supplies is dangerous. Now the fan is even quieter than the other, more inconspicuous one.

I replaced the thermal paste with my favorite MX-4 from Arctic* – the original paste on the processors had hardened so much that, despite letting the system warm up, the CPU was stuck to the cooler on both PCs. Very dangerous—straightening bent pins is no fun. I had to hammer the Celeron D off the cooler from the side with a flathead screwdriver (!). I was lucky in my misfortune, not a single pin was bent. The paste was also renewed on the chipset.

As a replacement for the partially defective Radeon 9800 XXL, I found a working Radeon 9600 Pro from Sapphire, AGP 8x, in my collection. It fits very well. The driver is exactly the same.

The CPU fans are 80 mm – a rather unusual size. I found generic ones that match the power LED on the power switch, which glows blue. A small visual upgrade, you might say. They’re not the quietest of their kind, but they’re much better than the originals were.

Hard drives were no problem at all. If there’s one thing I have a lot of, it’s data storage devices of all kinds, designs, and models.

The Hardware

And now?

Since the basic system should remain as close to series production as possible, I got the most out of the intended operating systems. As already mentioned, Windows 98 SE should run as a minimum, but I went to the limits of what is possible, which in this case is AGP 8x, for which there was simply no support at some point.

Der Beitrag <h5>Medion PC-MT6 #4: </h5><h3><b>Maintenance and upgrades</b></h3> erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

As mentioned earlier, both models share some components:

• Case
• 350W ATX power supply
• MS-7012 motherboard
• CPU cooler with air duct funnel
• Two optical drives

The motherboard is based on the Intel 865PE chipset with ICH5 and is equipped with a PGA 478 socket. DDR RAM is provided, with clock speeds depending on the CPU used (FSB). AGP is used as the graphics interface, with support up to AGP 8x.

⧉ TheRetroWeb

Supported processors

Theoretically, all Intel processors for the 478 socket of the Pentium 4 (Prescott), Pentium 4 (Northwood), Celeron D (Prescott-256), and Celeron (Northwood-128) types should be compatible. If you look at the lists on Wikipedia and keep in mind that the maximum FSB clock speed supported by the motherboard is 800 MHz, then either the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.4 (Northwood) or the slightly more energy-efficient Pentium 4 HT 550 (Prescott) would be the most powerful processors for this socket or motherboard.

⧉ Intel

⧉ Intel

⧉ Intel

Which one did I choose?

None. I left the processors as they were when delivered. The reason is simple: the existing performance is sufficient for the intended purpose. In addition, the Pentium 4 HT in the second PC is already close to its limit (3.0 GHz). Very little problematic software needs to run under Windows 98, and the system requirements for 98 SE are far, far removed from the given ones:

• x86 processor compatible with 486DX or 486SX (from Windows 98 SE: at least 66 MHz)
• 16 MB RAM
• Approximately 195 MB of free hard disk space is required for the standard installation (between 120 MB and 295 MB, depending on the system configuration and selected installation components)
• CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive (for installation)
• VGA-compatible graphics card
• Mouse or compatible pointing device

And the rest?

First of all, I checked what components I had available. For AGP, of course, virtually nothing – that was standard when I had hardly anything to do with PC hardware. However, the ATI Radeons were already quite powerful for the time. It was easier with hard drives; I had a few PATA models to choose from. The rest was basically available.

Der Beitrag <h5>Medion PC-MT6 #3: </h5><h3><b>Hardware and Possibilities</b></h3> erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

“Those were the days,” some people say. In the case of the hype surrounding affordable home computers in the early 2000s, this phrase really fits well. People camped outside ALDI stores, just as they did outside Apple stores a few years later. All to get their hands on one thing: a Medion computer with good technical specifications at a low price. Heavily advertised but only available in very limited quantities.

The two models now in my possession were no exception, especially the model with the advertising-effective Intel Pentium 4 processor with breathtaking “real 3.0 GHz” and “hyper-threading,” which must have sold really well.

In fact, you can still find excerpts from the brochures from back then because careful people have kept scans of them somewhere. For example, there is such a collection of ALDI PC brochure excerpts at https://www.dosreloaded.de.

Nostalgic!

I was able to find the two exact brochures for my models there:

⧉ Aldi

⧉ Aldi

The MD 8083 with Pentium 4 was available in ALDI stores from March 24, 2004, for €999. The MD 8030 with Celeron D brochure is from July 2004, and was priced at €799 at the time.

How has the model series aged?

Medion called the series “Titanium PC” back then – when many computers were still beige or gray. The design with the sliding door on the front panel was already flimsy even back then. But I still find the design attractive today, “clean.” I didn’t really like this design when it was new, but over time I grew to like it more and more.

It’s clear that Medion and MSI (Micro Star International from Taiwan) were already partners back then: the hardware has been noticeably slimmed down in some areas to save costs, even at the board level. Both PCs are based on the same motherboard, an OEM variant called MSI MS-7012.

However, it must be said that the Medion PCs of that time really offered a lot for the money. A remote control for a PC was already an exception back then, as was support for many standards and even a built-in TV card. Wifi was also not commonplace.

Der Beitrag <h5>Medion PC-MT6 #2: </h5><h3><b>The era of Aldi PCs</b></h3> erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.