Bob Pony OS Beta 1

Bob Pony OS Beta 1

Crusty Windows bootleg
The desktop of Bob Pony OS Beta 1
Original OS	Windows XP SP3
Release date	April 16, 2016
Author	Bob Pony
Country	United States
Language(s)	English
Architecture(s)	x86 (32-bit)
File size	271.3 MiB
Download link	Bob Pony OS Beta 1.iso
Date added	December 2021?

Bob Pony OS 1.0 Beta 1 is a bootleg Windows XP SP3 edition, which was created by Bob Pony. It released on April 16, 2016, and was added to the archive in December 2021.

There were multiple betas of this bootleg released, the other being Bob Pony OS Beta 2 which is based on Windows 7.

Description

The bootleg is a modified Windows XP SP3 ISO. It adds Bob Pony branding, as seen in the name.

It now comes with a brand new shell (where the "OS" lies, which is intended to be easy to use). It comes with various features as seen in the original Windows Explorer shell such as a taskbar, tiling horizontally and vertically, wallpaper, the desktop context menu (which is really global since you can access it anywhere as long as you aren't right clicking a control), and others. It also comes with a control panel (Settings pane), display and taskbar settings, unfinished help topics and its own built in programs such as a notepad (branded as Notepader), paint program, a CEF internet browser based on Awesomium, ComputerExplorer and NewExplorer, and more.

The shell has a Mac-like menu bar at the top, which is only available to some of the shell's internal applications (such as the NewExplorer Beta, Notepader, Paint Tool, etc.) It comes with a singular gadget, the Sticky Notes gadget.

Since this is a beta release, Send Feedback buttons have been scattered all over the apps in this OS.

It is preactivated. The ISO was made using nLite 1.4.9.3 on Windows 8 or higher (nLite uses deprecated version checking APIs and was never updated to use the new ones, therefore "or higher" was specified).

Changes from Windows XP SP3

Minor changes

• The text-mode setup OS text is changed to "Bob Pony OS"

Changes in pre-desktop procedures

• The Setup now uses the Windows 2000 style

Look and feel

• A new VB.NET shell like in Beta 2 is included, which replaces the default shell

Notes

Remarks

• This bootleg is completely broken on VirtualBox. It only works right in VMware, and other hypervisors.
• The new shell will fail to load due to missing .NET Framework runtimes. It's supposed to get installed through a SFX that gets ran off the CD, but it is never executed. You have to install it manually.
  • Internet Browser additionally doesn't work out of the box. Despite the Awesomium library being there, it is not recognized properly.

Bootleg quirks

• The bootleg is supposed to come with the Zune theme, but the files for it do not exist, even though they are still specified in TXTSETUP.SIF (where the Setup reads from to know what files to copy).
• There exist a few disabled menu items such as "Run", "Brush Size", "Tools", "Help", etc. They are placeholders which would have been fleshed out laterl.
• The Settings Pane only has the Fonts section working. The rest will just report a "this is still in development" message.
• The Shutdown and Restart menu items are nonfunctional.

CD contents and other info

• The CD label is set to "BOBPONYOS".

WINNT.SIF metadata

• The organization is set to "BobPony.ga Network".
• The computer name is set to "BPOS-PC".
• The workgroup name is set to "workgroup".

Gallery

• 
  Setup at a Zune theme file error
• 
  Setup at a Zune.mst file error
• 
  Setup at a Zune shell style file error
• 
  Setup while it's installing
• 
  Empty desktop
• 
  Start menu
• 
  System Properties, About Windows and About Bob Pony OS

Apps

• 
  Screenshot Tool
• 
  Notepader
• 
  Paint Tool
• 
  ComputerExplorer
• 
  NewExplorer
• 
  Clock
• 
  Settings Pane
• 
  Bar Settings
• 
  Background Settings
• 
  Gadgets